§6417 Prisoner Lists and Issue Briefs on Religious Freedom Concerns

Summary

Congress wants U.S. officials to raise religious freedom concerns whenever they meet foreign leaders. The Secretary of State must work with other State Department officials, U.S. chiefs of mission, regional experts, and human rights and religious groups to make and keep short, country-by-country briefs. Each brief must list people believed to be jailed, detained, or under house arrest for religious activity or advocacy and give a short critique of the country’s policies. The Secretary must use judgment about adding names, thinking about each person’s safety, and must give these briefs to executive branch officials and Members of Congress before bilateral meetings at home or abroad. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom must, when it recommends a country for designation as a “country of particular concern” under section 6442(b)(1)(A)(ii) or a non-state actor under section 6442a, make public lists (online and in reports) of people who are imprisoned, disappeared, under house arrest, tortured, or forced to renounce their faith for religious reasons. The Commission must include as much public information as possible and use discretion to protect the safety and benefit of those people and their families.