WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has released new findings linking violations of religious freedom to the risk of mass atrocities. The commission’s latest policy update and its 2026 Annual Report warn that when governments or non-state actors systematically deny freedom of religion or belief, the likelihood of genocide, crimes against humanity, or other forms of mass violence rises significantly. Yet once again the analysis omits Pagans, polytheists, and other smaller religious traditions whose experiences of discrimination and persecution are rarely captured in global religious freedom reporting.
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal commission established in 1998 under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), signed by President Bill Clinton. Its mandate is to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom conditions worldwide. The commission assesses conditions in different countries, recommends designations for governments or groups responsible for severe violations, advocates for religious prisoners of conscience, and provides policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress.
Seal of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom [Public Domain
Although USCIRF operates independently from the U.S. State Department, its work forms part of the broader international religious freedom framework established by IRFA. The State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom traditionally uses the commission’s findings to inform official designations and diplomatic responses.
The commission’s 2025 policy update on preventing mass atrocities targeting religious communities cross-referenced USCIRF’s own annual recommendations—including Countries of Particular Concern (CPC), Special Watch List (SWL) nations, and Entities of Particular Concern (EPC)—with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Early Warning Project, which identifies countries most at risk of large-scale internal violence.
The findings revealed a significant overlap. More than half of the countries USCIRF identified as severe violators of religious freedom also appear among those the Early Warning Project lists as having the highest risk for mass killings.
USCIRF categorizes threats in three main ways. Countries of Particular Concern are states whose governments engage in or tolerate particularly severe violations of religious freedom, including repression, imprisonment, or violence against religious communities. Entities of Particular Concern are non-state actors such as militant groups that systematically target religious communities. Finally, the Special Watch List includes countries with serious but somewhat less severe violations that require close monitoring.
Commissioner Stephen Schneck told OSV News that the comparison revealed “an incredible amount of overlap between the countries where we see the greatest dangers for religious freedom, or where we in fact see actual religious persecution taking place, and those countries that are on the watch list for a potential genocide as determined by the Holocaust Museum.” Among the countries appearing in both assessments are Burma (Myanmar), Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iraq.
The 2026 USCIRF Annual Report, released in March 2026, reinforces these conclusions. It documents religious freedom conditions throughout 2025 and recommends 18 countries for designation as Countries of Particular Concern, including Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. The report also identifies 11 countries for the Special Watch List and seven non-state actors, including groups such as Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, and Islamic State affiliates.
USCIRF Chair Vicky Hartzler noted in the report that severe violations of religious freedom continue across multiple regions. “China arrests underground church members, mob violence is on the rise in India and Pakistan leading to attacks on religious minorities and the destruction of their homes, Burma’s military bombs houses of worship, and Tajikistan denies parents the right to teach their children about faith,” she said.
At the same time, the commission warned that the U.S. government’s own designation system under IRFA has stalled. Although USCIRF continues to issue recommendations annually, the State Department has not issued new country designations since December 2023. The Biden administration left office in January 2025 without updating the list, and the current administration has made only one designation since then, naming Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern in late 2025.
The report highlights numerous religious communities facing persecution or discrimination, including Yazidis, Christians, Shi’a Muslims, Uyghur Muslims, Rohingya Muslims, and Armenians. Notably absent from the report’s discussion are Pagans, polytheists, Witches, or practitioners of contemporary Pagan traditions and other folk religions.
The omission reflects a broader pattern in international religious freedom reporting. While minority religions are sometimes grouped under broad categories such as “Indigenous” or “folk religions,” contemporary Pagan and polytheist communities rarely appear explicitly in global religious freedom analyses, despite facing discrimination or misunderstanding in various regions. Even religious traditions with millions of adherents, such as many African Traditional Religions, are often absent from these discussions.
The commission’s findings also intersect with a broader narrative circulating in international religious freedom discussions: that Christians are currently the most persecuted religious community worldwide. Representatives of the Holy See emphasized this claim during a March event at the United Nations in Geneva, where Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer, stated that nearly 400 million Christians worldwide face persecution or violence and that approximately 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith in 2025.
Such statements reflect real patterns of violence in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, where Christian minorities sometimes face attacks by extremist groups or repression by governments. However, scholars of religious freedom caution that the global picture is complex and highly regional. In many parts of the world—including the United States and most of Western Europe—Christianity remains the majority religion and generally benefits from strong legal protections and cultural influence. As a result, claims that Christians are universally the most persecuted religious group can obscure the different contexts in which religious minorities experience vulnerability.
For USCIRF, the broader conclusion remains clear: violations of freedom of religion or belief often signal deeper instability. Governments that repress religious minorities frequently also suppress political dissent, civil society, and other fundamental rights.
The commission warns that the marginalization or dehumanization of religious communities can create conditions conducive to mass violence. Both governments and armed groups sometimes exploit religious identity to justify repression, incite hatred, or mobilize supporters.
By portraying certain religious communities as threats or outsiders, perpetrators can erode social protections and normalize discrimination. Over time, such dynamics can escalate into ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, or genocide.
At its core, USCIRF’s analysis underscores a sobering reality: violations of religious freedom are among the clearest early indicators of potential mass atrocities. The commission urges policymakers to recognize that protecting freedom of religion or belief is not only a moral obligation but also a strategic tool for preventing large-scale violence.
For Pagan communities observing these developments, the absence of our traditions from the report’s analysis raises an additional question about visibility. If international religious freedom monitoring is meant to protect all faiths, critics argue, its framework must also recognize smaller or less familiar religious traditions whose experiences remain largely undocumented in global policy discussions.
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