• Iraq: Toward a Stable and Inclusive Iraq? Individual and Institutional Religious Freedom Can Help
• Global: This Easter, don't forget about persecuted Christians around the world
• Afghanistan: Deadly attacks on Afghan minorities show the Taliban isn’t keeping its promises
• Turkey: Turkey’s top court rules compulsory religion courses violate rights
• Egypt: Learning From the Coptic Church's Experience of Persecution

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has long advocated for the religious freedom of individuals of diverse faiths­­ and beliefs across the globe, from Uyghur Muslims facing China’s campaign of genocide to Jews experiencing an alarming rise of antisemitism in Europe and nonbelievers facing challenges across Africa. 

This Easter, we also highlight that Christians – millions who suffer at the hands of both state and nonstate actors – are experiencing terrible threats and persecution across many countries.

In the Middle East and North Africa, for example, the Algerian government has forcibly closed 13 Protestant churches and ordered the closure of seven more, while two decades of conflict, instability and genocidal terrorism have reduced Iraq’s indigenous Christian community from 1.4 million to fewer than 250,000.

Afghanistan

Deadly attacks on Afghan minorities show the Taliban isn’t keeping its promises by Ellen Ioanes (Vox)

A spate of attacks this week all over Afghanistan killed at least 77 people, including children. At least one — and likely most — of the attacks were carried out by ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Islamic State affiliate active mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The devastating attacks are further destabilizing a nation already in economic free fall and further increase doubt that the Taliban can protect the Afghan people — especially minorities — from violence and terror.

The attacks started Tuesday, with double bombings at the Abdul Rahim Shaheed High School and in the vicinity of the Mumtaz Education Center, both in the capital Kabul. There were at least six deaths and 17 injuries at the Abdul Rahim Shaheed High School in the predominantly Shia and Hazara Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, Al Jazeera reported Tuesday. While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, ISIS-K has been known to target Dasht-e-Barchi in the past. Government workers in Kunduz province were targeted this week as well — an attack for which ISIS-K claimed credit.

Attacks continued Thursday, with a bombing at a Shia mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan. That attack, which ISIS-K claimed credit for on Friday, killed at least 31 people and injured many more, Pamela Constable reported in the Washington Post Friday. The Associated Press put the number of dead much lower, at 12, in a Saturday report. In a statement on Friday claiming responsibility for the attack, ISIS-K said that the bomb was in a bag that was left in the Seh Doken mosque; it exploded when the mosque was filled with worshippers. “When the mosque was filled with prayers, the explosives were detonated remotely,” the ISIS-K statement claimed, also alleging that 100 worshippers were injured. Around the same time, the New York Times reported Friday, ISIS-K attacked a bus in Kunduz province, killing four and injuring 18.

After the Taliban government announced it had arrested the “mastermind” of the Mazar-e-Sharif bombing in Balkh province on Friday, an explosion at a mosque in Kunduz province killed at least 30, and a mine went off near a market in Kabul, ending the already-devastating week with even more destruction.

Turkey

Turkey’s top court rules compulsory religion courses violate rights by Nazlan Ertan (al-Monitor)

Turkey’s top court ruled that compulsory religion classes violate freedom of religion, upholding the two past rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that criticized Ankara on the principle and content of compulsory religious education.

The Constitutional Court’s verdict last week follows a long legal battle by Huseyin El, who wanted to pull his daughter out of compulsory education classes more than a decade ago because their content was not in line with his religious and philosophical beliefs. The school principal insisted that Nazli Sirin El, a fourth grader at the time, should take the course because only Christian and Jewish citizens of Turkey could be exempted. Nazli Sirin El is neither. She and her father are Alevis, a branch of Islam whose believers worship in a cemevi, rather than a mosque, with men and women alongside one another. But El insisted that it mattered little whether he was an Alevi, Jewish or an atheist, challenging the concept of compulsory religious courses and his right to stop his child from attending them.

Egypt

Learning From the Coptic Church's Experience of Persecution interview with Archbishop Angaelos by Miles Windsor (Religious Freedom Institute)

Miles Windsor, Senior Manager for Strategy and Campaigns for RFI’s Middle East Action Team, recently interviewed His Eminence Archbishop Angaelos, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in London, on the Coptic Church’s long experience and understanding of persecution. In the interview, Windsor and Angaelos discussed what the worldwide church can learn from the Coptic experience in terms of the foundations and history of Christian persecution, how to understand and respond to it, how to endure waves of trial and hardship, how to stand in defense of “spiritual kin” and how to protect religious freedom for people of all faiths.

At one point, Archbishop Angaelos stated, “Persecution has been a blessing for us and provides us with an insight, thankfully not leading us into turning in on ourselves, but actually leading us to advocate for others so that no one else experiences what we've experienced.”