In its most recent report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) highlighted a “severe decline” in religious freedom since the Taliban’s takeover, which places religious minorities at risk of “extinction.”
The Taliban’s enforcement of their strict conception of Sunni Islam adversely affects all Afghans who do not follow and adhere to that interpretation, according to the USCIRF report released on Tuesday, August 23.
The USCIRF report notes that The Taliban administration has failed to safeguard religious minorities from ISIS-K attacks despite repeated pledges to do so for all ethnic and religious communities
Since the Taliban took over on August 15 of last year, religious minorities in Afghanistan have been threatened by an increase in terrorist attacks, forcing the country’s Hindu and Sikh minorities to escape persecution.
According to the report, the situation for Afghanistan’s Christian community has gotten progressively worse. Gender minorities have either fled or evacuated to other countries.
USCIRF even proposed that the Taliban administration in Afghanistan be designated as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, for committing repeated, egregious, and systematic abuses of religious freedom.
Previously, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in its annual report on international religious freedom to the US Congress in early June, labeled Afghanistan as a “gross violator of religious freedom.”
