In the footsteps of the Irish Moses
Jul 29th 2014, 17:07 by B.C.
DOES the Obama administration care about religious liberty round the world? In some ways, it has no choice but to care. American administrations are mandated by law to study the performance of all governments in this sensitive area, and to denounce and possibly penalise violators. But it is a matter of degrees and priorities. In almost all parts of the world where faiths are being persecuted (Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar) other bad things are happening too and there are other threats to American interests. So governments have to decide how much weight, if any, to give to matters of religion and its free exercise.
Until very recently, sceptics (not all them conservatives) were very scathing about the current administration's level of interest. The fate of Christian communities in northern Iraq, recently uprooted from places they have lived since the dawn of their faith, did not seem to be of great concern; and in the State Department's analysis of Nigeria, for example, Christian-Muslim tensions appeared to be underplayed.
This week the Department did two things to allay those criticisms. First it issued an annual report on religious freedom round the world, which stated plainly, that the Christian presence in much of the Middle East was being "reduced to a shadow of its former self". It also added Turkmenistan to a list of nations that America sees as egregious violators of religious liberty, or "countries of particular concern". Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan were already on the list.
The report lamented that "In 2013, the world witnessed the largest displacement of religious communities in living memory. In almost every corner of the globe, millions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and others representing a range of faiths were forced from their homes on account of their religious beliefs."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2014/07/america-and-religious-freedom