The U.S. Department of State recently released its report on international religious freedom. Many organizations and churches engaged in international missions, including those doing short-term missions trips, will find the report especially useful.

The report is divided into individual country reports that provide great detail on the religious conditions in every nation of the world. Included in the country reports are religious demographics, overview of the country’s religious laws, restrictions on freedom, and summaries of religious abuses.

The report documents what many mission groups and global Christian leaders already knew: violence and discrimination against Christians continues to grow in many parts of the world. What’s not in the report, however, is what has many religious liberty watchers upset.

By law the State Department must designate as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) nations that engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom. This report included the same list of CPCs as the last report released in early 2009. “Repeating the current list continues glaring omissions, such as Pakistan and Vietnam,” said the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom  (USCIRF) in a written statement. USCIRF is a bipartisan federal government commission appointed by congress and the president to review international violations against religious freedom and make policy recommendations.

The eight countries keeping their CPC designation are Burma, North Korea, China, Eritrea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. The USCIRF earlier had recommended adding to the list Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria and Turkmenistan.

The report highlighted religious liberty issues in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Vietnam in addition to the eight CPC nations.

The report specifically mentioned the government of Eritrea (located in the Horn of Africa) as it continued to “harass, arrest, and imprison thousands of believers.” It noted that 2,000-3,000 pastors and church members were being detained without trial. The report went on to say that the Eritrea government demands that “adherents renounce their faith, or force them to relocate or flee the country.”

The report also explored countries that allow some religious freedoms but whose governments discriminate against some groups or favored one religion over another, such as Russia and Belarus. It noted that in 2010 the Russian government brought criminal cases for the first time against individuals who possessed banned religious literature, and that the government restricts access to places of worship.

The complete report can be found at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010_5/index.htm. Scroll down the page to find the country or countries that interest you. Countries are organized by world regions.