USCIRF 2022 Annual report

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has monitored and reported on religious freedom conditions in Afghanistan for more than two decades, but 2021 was particularly difficult. Following U.S. withdrawal from the country, the Taliban took control on August 15, 2021. The Taliban’s victory was calamitous for many reasons, including the detrimental effect it had on religious freedom. USCIRF has long raised concern that the Taliban’s brutal application of its extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam violates the freedom of religion or belief of all Afghans who do not adhere to that interpretation, including Muslims and adherents of other faiths or beliefs. With the Taliban’s return to power, religious freedom conditions in Afghanistan, and the overall human rights situation, significantly deteriorated in 2021. Religious minorities faced harassment, detention, and even death due to their faith or beliefs. The one known Jew and most Hindus and Sikhs fled the country. Christian converts, Baha’is, and Ahmadiyya Muslims practiced their faith in hiding due to fear of reprisal and threats from the Taliban. Years of progress toward more equitable access to education and representation of women and girls disappeared. Throughout 2021, USCIRF consistently called attention to the escalating persecution of religious minorities in the country, including in two virtual events, two podcast episodes, and a factsheet. Given the sharp decline in religious freedom conditions witnessed in the country in 2021, USCIRF recommends in this Annual Report that the U.S. Department of State designate Afghanistan under the Taliban’s de facto government as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA). The last such recommendation by USCIRF was in 2001, right before the ousting of the previous Taliban regime that controlled most of the country starting in 1996.