Region | Iraq
Iraq placed on watchlist
For the first time since the US invasion in 2003, a high-level advisory panel has placed Iraq on a watchlist of countries that violate religious freedom, saying the government there engages in extrajudicial killings based on religious identity.
- By Alan Cooperman, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
- Published: 00:00 May 3, 2007
Washington: For the first time since the US invasion in 2003, a high-level advisory panel has placed Iraq on a watchlist of countries that violate religious freedom, saying the government there engages in extrajudicial killings based on religious identity.
In its annual recommendations to the State Department on Wednesday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom stopped short of naming Iraq a "country of particular concern", a label reserved for the worst perpetrators of religious persecution.
Iraq had been designated as a country of particular concern from 1999 to 2003. That designation was dropped after US forces seized control of the nation.
Most of the Democrats on the commission wanted to list Iraq among the worst abusers, along with such countries as China, North Korea and Sudan. But most of the commission's Republican appointees pushed for Iraq to be placed on the watch list. The commission's report says the decision was made with the understanding that Iraq may be designated a country of particular concern next year "if improvements are not made by the Iraqi government."
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