US Places Azerbaijan on Religious Freedom Watch List

(Patria) - The United States has added Azerbaijan to its religious freedom watch list, AFP reported.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, while releasing the annual index, kept all twelve countries that were on last year's blacklist, including China, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. In the only change, Blinken added Azerbaijan to the watch list, meaning it will join the blacklist, which carries potential sanctions.

Azerbaijan sent troops on September 19 to Nagorno-Karabakh and quickly secured the surrender of Armenian separatist forces that had controlled the region for three decades. In a recent recommendation to the State Department, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed concern over the preservation of Christian religious sites in Nagorno-Karabakh, where virtually the entire population of 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled to Armenia.

The commission also expressed concern about regulations on religious practices in the predominantly Shia but largely secular country under powerful President Ilham Aliyev, including the requirement that all religious groups be registered and their literature approved by an official body.

Blinken said that "significant violations of religious freedom also occur in countries that are not designated."

"Governments must end abuses such as attacks on members of religious minority communities and their places of worship," he said.

The "Countries of Particular Concern" on the blacklist are China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

In addition to Azerbaijan, countries on the watch list are Algeria, the Central African Republic, the Comoros, and Vietnam.