New report explores link between religious freedom violations and mass atrocities

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Religious freedom violations are an early warning sign of where mass atrocities could occur around the globe, a new report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said.

The report, issued Sept. 9, drew a link between the promotion of international religious freedom and efforts to prevent atrocities.

“Mass atrocities are preceded by a range of early warning signs, such as religious freedom violations,” the report said. “When religious freedom is systematically denied or religious identities targeted, the risk of atrocity crimes may increase.”

Stephen Schneck, USCIRF commissioner, told OSV News that USCIRF cross-referenced its reports “on the situation for religious freedom in countries around the world with the Holocaust Museum’s Early Warning Project, which looks for places where genocide might occur.”

“In cross-referencing them, what we found was an incredible amount of overlap between the countries where we see the greatest dangers for religious freedom,” he said, “or where we in fact see actual religious persecution taking place, and those countries that are on the the watch list for a potential genocide as determined by the Holocaust Museum.”

Comparing the Early Warning Project’s list of 21 ongoing state and nonstate-led killings revealed significant overlap with countries in which USCIRF has also identified concern, including Burma, Burkina Faso, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, North Korea, Pakistan and Iraq.

Efforts to marginalize or dehumanize religious minorities can also “lead to mass atrocities,” the report said, as regimes or nonstate actors who would commit such atrocities “at times exploit religion to justify violence and incite hatred against religious communities” by “making them targets of discrimination and violence.”

Schneck said, “Not only does the United States have a moral responsibility, in my estimation, to try to prevent these atrocities and genocides around the world, but it’s also very much in the United States’ national interest to do so, because where these atrocities occur, it often creates conditions that generate future terrorists, that undermine regional security.”

The report’s policy recommendations include fully implementing the requirements of the bipartisan Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018. It also recommended the U.S. government adopt a formal process for determining what constitutes a genocide, as there is currently no formal process for defining that term in U.S. foreign policy, the report said. “However, in practice, the decision is made at the senior level, usually by the secretary of state, after a joint legal and factual assessment.”

But the offices that historically oversaw both of those areas at the State Department were eliminated during its recent reorganization, the report said, creating uncertainty about how such work will continue.

“The first Trump administration had a really great record (on international religious freedom),” Schneck said, “not only in regards to international religious freedom, but also in regards to atrocity prevention.”

“One of the things that USCIRF is urging this administration is to pick up that ball again,” he said, “to prioritize again atrocity prevention in ways that integrate with our efforts to protect religious freedom around the world.”

“One of our concerns is that the recent reorganization of the Department of State has shifted things around so much, so that it’s really unclear who’s going to be in charge of atrocity prevention and so forth, along the lines that the first Trump administration did so well,” he continued. “USCIRF wants to urge the administration to provide additional details about how precisely within the State Department the responsibilities for atrocity prevention are going to be handled, because it’s not clear looking at it from the outside.”

A spokesperson for the State Department did not immediately respond to OSV News’ request for comment.

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