1) I couldn’t stop thinking about the odd make-up of the new Trump admin-led “International Religious Freedom Alliance.” So I decided to look up what the State Department’s own reports on religious freedom have noted about the countries listed below. I put together a document...
2) Before I link to the doc, a few things: This is from State’s 2018 report on international religious freedom. In almost every case but one I will explain later, I stuck to executive summary for each country. And I tried to keep it focused on what the gov’ts controlled….
3) I don’t expect any country to have a perfect track record on religious freedom. But I was a bit surprised at what I found in merely the executive summaries of many (not all) of these countries. Here’s the document, but this thread isn’t done: politico.com/f/?id=00000170…
4) Many of the countries on the list had issues, especially with Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. (And no, the State Department doesn’t evaluate the U.S.). Some still have blasphemy laws, which are often used to stifle religious freedom.
5) I was struck by how many eastern/ central European countries were listed. There are Muslim-majority nations listed, but no Arab-majority ones. That’s a little odd b/c U.S. allies like the United Arab Emirates have made a big religious tolerance push. But ....
6/Israel also is included, so maybe the UAE, Bahrain and other such countries that say they are religiously tolerant weren’t quite up for joining an “alliance” with Israel? Also, where are France and Germany? Moving on…
7/I was really taken aback by the inclusion of Hungary, whose gov’t is pursuing what many rights activists say is a type of Christian nationalism, heavy on the anti-Semitism & anti-Islamism. Yet the Trump administration has bent over backwards to be friends with Hungary. So...
8/I looked beyond the executive summary of the Hungary report because I thought it was weird that it was written in such a sanitized manner. I realized, for one thing, that it didn’t mention MIGRATION, and how Hungary’s leader has reacted to Muslim migrants in particular. And...
9/I realized you have to go relatively deep into the report before migrants are mentioned. And that’s when I found this amazing paragraph:
10/”The government continued its public campaign of billboards and posters against a Jewish, Hungarian-born, U.S. citizen businessman. Some of the placards stated the businessman wanted to settle migrants from the Middle East and Africa in the country …
11/ … In May PM Orban demanded “respect” from Jewish leaders and blamed the same businessman and his NGO for growing European anti-Semitism.”
Gee. I wonder who the businessman is.
Gee. I wonder who the businessman is.
12/Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if readers can trust these State Department annual reports on religious freedom, human rights, etc. anymore to provide unvarnished accounts. They used to be gold standard. As far as the International Religious Freedom Alliance...
13/It seems that the Trump administration is fine with including governments that espouse Christian nationalism, even if that means allowing for anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. It also seems...
14/the administration doesn’t know the difference between “principles” and “principals.” 
