by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - In a move welcomed by religious rights advocates, the United States has for the first time officially listed the Republic of Azerbaijan as a country which violates religious freedom, Christianity Today (CT) reports. A part of the former Soviet Union until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Azerbaijan is a Muslim-majority transcontinental state which lies at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
The Biden administration is currently under intense criticism from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for its ongoing refusal to list gross religious rights violator Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, but the USCIRF has welcomed the State Department’s inclusion of Azerbaijan to its second-tier Special Watch List (SWL), CT reports.
Countries are added to the SWL if they are found to be “engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom.” Inclusion on the SWL subjects countries to the possibility of US economic sanctions if they do not change their ways.
In a statement to CT, Lilieth Whyte, public outreach chief of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, explained that Azerbaijan was added to the SWL this year because it places “onerous registration requirements” on religious groups, restricting their right to worship freely. Moreover, Whyte said, the Azerbaijani government “physically abuses, arrests, and imprisons religious activists while conscientious objectors are not permitted to serve their country in accordance with their beliefs,” CT reports.
Azerbaijan joins Algeria, the Central African Republic, Comoros, and Vietnam on the SWL this year, CT reports.