Americans take religious liberty for granted. Unfortunately, this most fundamental freedom of conscience and action is not protected in many other countries around the world.
State repression is the most obvious assault on religious faith. Today Christians face the death penalty in Afghanistan and Pakistan in prosecutions for converting from Islam and allegedly blaspheming Mohammed, respectively.
But the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom warns that "a second and equally egregious threat to religious freedom" is the failure "to punish religiously motivated violence perpetrated by private actors." In this case public officials become accomplices to often brutal private violations of religious liberty.
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