U.S. calls on all governments to free religious prisoners amid coronavirus pandemic

The United States on Thursday called on all governments around the world to release religious prisoners amid the coronavirus pandemic, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

Sam Brownback, the State Department's ambassador at large for international religious freedom, told reporters that he was looking at millions of religious prisoners in China, Iran, Russia and other nations.

"In this time of pandemic, religious prisoners should be released. We call on all governments around the world to do so.  It’s a good public health move for their nations and it’s morally obviously the right thing to do," he said.

North Korea has a very high number, and "we don't know how many are in their gulag system that they have, and they would be under exceeding exposure to COVID," he said. Vietnam has 128 prisoners of conscience that are in prison right now, and we call on them to release those prisoners. Russia has nearly around 240 prisoners of conscience, including 34 Jehovah Witnesses.

Asked whether the governments are using the COVID crisis to single out and target religious minorities, Brownback said "fortunately the reporting that we are seeing is that governments are, by and large, not doing that and in some cases being more lenient towards religious minorities, treating them like people instead of like something to desperately oppose and put down. But that’s just anecdotal information. A lot of our posts are limited on what they can get out and see and hear themselves, so this is sort of the reporting that I get back through informal networks of people."

"This is – one of the good things going on now, if you can find good things, is that it has really brought a much more united humanity together in recognizing we are all in this together. This is all of us. It doesn’t matter what you believe.  Everybody is subjected to this attack on humanity.  And we’re actually starting to see more relaxing and opening up, and we’re calling for more of it.  It needs to take place.  You need these governments to work with these religious communities – majority or minority or otherwise – to help distribute aid and get information out," he added.

According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Azerbaijan systematically violates the freedom of religion or belief.  The U.S. religious freedom body has placed the country on its Tier 2 list of countries for engaging in or tolerating religious freedom violations that meet at least one of the elements of the “systematic, ongoing, egregious” standard for designation as a “country of particular concern” since 2013

Currently there are estimated to be 135 political prisoners in Azerbaijan, according to nongovernmental organizations, and more than half of them are religious activists.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.