Turkey the Only NATO Member Singled out in Annual Religious Freedom Report

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2020 Annual Report on April 28 and recommended the US government include Turkey on the State Department’s “Special Watch List” for “engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom.” This designation would single out Turkey as the only country among NATO’s 30 member states with such a flawed record on freedom of religion or belief, providing yet more evidence of Ankara’s ongoing drift from transatlantic values.

USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) and issued its first annual report in May 2000. In its 2009 report, USCIRF for the first time recommended adding Turkey to its watch list alongside ten other countries that “require close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom.” Three years later, USCIRF downgraded Turkey, recommending its designation as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), alongside 15 others, a category reserved for the top offenders of religious freedom around the world, where violations are “systematic, ongoing, and egregious.” CPC designations have the potential to trigger the White House to issue IRFA-based sanctions, which Turkey has managed to avoid so far.

With the 2014 report, USCIRF upgraded Turkey back to the watch list of second-tier countries that fall short of a CPC designation, where it remained until this year. Ankara’s 2016 imprisonment of US pastor Andrew Brunson on trumped-up charges for almost two years, however, has prompted discussions in Washington about Turkey’s designation once again as a CPC.

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Πηγή: providencemag.com