On November 18, the US State Department staged a farce of arbitrarily designating 10 countries including our country, China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Myanmar as “countries of particular concern of religious freedom”.

Protecting religious freedom in each country is based on its historical tradition, customs and socio-political environment, and religious faith should contribute to sound development of the country and nation.

Moreover, the international standard for protecting religious freedom is not something which was made by the US.

Despite this, the US is meddling in the issue of religious freedom in other countries, applying the yardstick it made of its own accord.

If that is the case, how about the real situation of “religious freedom” in the US?

In November 2016, a 59-year-old man in a fit of hostile feeling against Islamism threatened to burn a dwelling house a Muslim family was going to buy in Florida of the United States. In February 2017, a man living in Miami of Florida threatened to shoot Muslims while hurling abusive words to them, thus giving rise to public criticism.

In April 2018, three men were kept from exploding an apartment house where Somalian Muslims were living as well as the mosque adjacent to the apartment building in Kansas. In Louisiana, a young man aged 22 committed arson at three Baptist Churches where African-Americans hold religious service from March to April 2019.

In October 2010, American magazine Smithsonian deplored that in history textbooks used in American schools are written that a great number of vagabonds came to the American continent in search of religious freedom in the 1620s, but it was specious and what awaited them in reality was only a bloody tragedy.

In April 2019, the Center for American Progress noted that the US is claimed to be a country based on religious freedom, but such a principle is now in peril. It also said that the Americans’ rights to religious freedom are no more than hypocrisy which is aimed at forcing everything to serve the interests of privileged Christians.

In August this year, AP reported that a public opinion poll showed that 35 % of American adults answered their religious freedom was under threat and that half the Americans, in particular, recognize the fact that freedom of the Muslims is under a serious threat.

It also maintained that in July 2018, the US Department of Justice organized a religious freedom task force, but its aim is rather to legalize its discrimination against the most vulnerable communities on the pretext of religious freedom.

According to an FBI analysis of hate crimes in the US, nearly 80 % of hate crimes that were committed out of the religious motive from 2017 were attributable to anti-Muslim or anti-Jewish tendency.

All facts clearly prove that “religious freedom” much touted by the US government is nothing but falsehood and deception as well as political means of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

The US would be well advised to protect religious freedom in its own country first before criticizing religious freedom in other countries.