COVID-19 has posed unique challenges to religious liberty across the United States, spurring politicians to impose public health measures that restricted in-person worship services. Globally, the situation has often been much worse, with many governments using the pandemic as an excuse for targeted persecution through a mix of misinformation and coercive action.
In the latest annual International Religious Freedom Report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) details these developments, along with other evolving threats to religious liberty around the world.
“In many cases these [public health] measures complied with international human rights standards protecting freedom of religion or belief, but in some cases they did not,” the report concludes. “USCIRF’s monitoring revealed that in some countries, already marginalized religious minorities faced official and/or societal stigmatization, harassment, and discrimination for allegedly causing or spreading the virus.”
From violating burial rites to blame-shifting toward religious minorities to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the pandemic has served as a precursor to all sorts of anti-religious mischief.
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