In its second annual report on Minority Religious Communities at Risk, published March 15, the First Freedom Center calls for a renewed US focus on religious freedom and the protection of vulnerable minority faith communities throughout the world.

The report also calls for an enhanced role for the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom at the Department of State, having the Ambassador report directly to the office of the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, It also asks for State to review annually and jointly with the Ambassador-at-Large, the conditions of “Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs),” countries identified as major violators of religious freedom by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The review would identify means of leverage to improve such countries’ freedom-of-religion performance.

You can download the report here

The First Freedom Center, founded in 1984, is a non-profit, non-denominational NGO whose mission is “to advance the fundamental human rights of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.”  Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, but active nationally and internationally, it takes as its points of origin the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1786, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.