United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Central Asia=== In 2007, Central Asia and foreign affairs experts [[S. Frederick Starr]], [[Brenda Shaffer]], and [[Svante Cornell]] accused USCIRF of championing the rights of groups that aspire to impose religious coercion on others in the name of religious freedom in the [[Central Asia]]n states of [[Azerbaijan]], [[Kazakhstan]], [[Kyrgyzstan]], [[Tajikistan]], [[Turkmenistan]], and [[Uzbekistan]]. USCIRF has castigated these countries for excessive and restrictions on religious freedom and repression of non-traditional religious groups, despite them having a strict [[separation of church and state]], refusing to make Islam the [[state religion]], and having a secular legal system.<ref>{{ cite news |newspaper=Foreign Affairs |author=S. Frederick Starr, Brenda Shaffer, and Svante Cornell |date=2017-08-24 |access-date=2018-12-14 |title=How the U.S. Promotes Extremism in the Name of Religious Freedom |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/central-asia/2017-08-24/how-us-promotes-extremism-name-religious-freedom}}</ref> [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan|Tajikistan Foreign Ministry]] criticized the USCIRF report on March 13, 2020. Tajikistan called on the U.S. Department of State to refrain from publishing unverified and groundless information unrelated to the actual situation with the rule of law and respect of human rights in Tajikistan.<ref>[https://www.mfa.tj/en/main/view/5837/statement-by-the-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-of-tajikistan-on-the-us-human-rights-report Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan on the US Human Rights Report]</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page