The International Religious Freedom Act requires the president, who has delegated this function to the secretary of state, to designate as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs, countries that commit systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. Pursuant to IRFA, USCIRF recommends the countries that, in its view, meet the CPC threshold and should be so designated. In addition to recommending countries for CPC designation, USCIRF also recommends countries to be added to the State Department's Special Watch List (SWL). The SWL is for countries whose governments engage or tolerate in severe religious freedom violations, but do not rise to the CPC standard of “systematic, ongoing,
and egregious.” Violations in SWL countries must meet two of those three criteria.
India USCIRF has repeatedly designated India as a country of particular concern or on the Special Watch List. These reports have drawn criticism from the
Indian press.
The Pioneer, in an editorial, termed it as "fiction", "biased", and "
Surpassing Goebbels". It criticized USCIRF for projecting the
massacre of 58 Hindu passengers as an accident. It also accused USCIRF of indirectly justifying
murder of Swami Lakshamananda, a Hindu cleric and social activist. Christian leaders in
Odisha defended India: Archbishop
Raphael Cheenath stated that India remained of a secular character, the president of the Odisha Minority Forum that, despite a small hate campaign against minorities, the majority of society had been "cordial and supportive", and the Orissa Secular Front that, despite the 2002 and 2008 riots,
India had a
strong secular foundation. In the 2019 USCIRF report, the chairman Tenzin Dorjee disagreed with the commission's designation of India as a CPC citing having lived in India for 30 years as a religious refugee stating that "India is an open society with a robust democratic and judiciary system. India is a great civilization, and since ancient times she has been a country of
multifaith,
multilingual, and
multicultural diversity." Several Muslim groups applauded the USCIRF for its 2021 report wherein it has recommended India be designated as a "country of particular concern (CPC)" for the alleged deterioration of religious freedom in the country.
Ban on R&AW and American Covert operations in the North East of India On March 17, 2026, the Commission released a report recommending targeted sanctions against India’s external
intelligence agency, the
Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), citing concerns related to alleged human rights violations and issues surrounding religious freedom. The report was met with strong criticism from the
Government of India. Responding to the development,
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson
Randhir Jaiswal rejected the findings, describing the report as biased and influenced by political considerations. He reiterated India’s commitment to democratic values and emphasized that such assessments do not accurately reflect the country’s pluralistic fabric. On the same day i,e 17th March, 2026, Indian authorities highlighted their own security concerns which are funded by the
western intelligence agencies. The
National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted operations on the intel provided by the R&AW,
IB,
NTRO and other
Indian intelligence agencies, across multiple cities, including
Imphal,
Siliguri,
Kolkata,
Lucknow, and
New Delhi, leading to the arrest of an American
spy,
Matthew VanDyke, along with six Ukrainian spies. The arrests were reportedly linked to allegations of
terror financing and unauthorized drone activities in sensitive regions of
Northeast India, impacting several innocent lives in the region.
Egypt Prior to the 2001 visit of the USCIRF to
Egypt, some
Coptic leaders in Egypt protested, viewing the visit as a form of
American imperialism. For example, Mounir Azmi, a member of the Coptic Community Council, said that despite problems for
Copts, the visit was a "vile campaign against Egypt" and would be unhelpful. Another critic called the visit "foreign intervention in our internal affairs". In the event, the USCIRF was able to meet the
Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III and
Mohammed Sayed Tantawi of
Al-Azhar University, but others refused to meet the delegation. Hisham Kassem, chairman of the
Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, felt that insisting on the rights of Christians in Egypt might antagonize Muslims and thus be counterproductive.
Laos The first-ever
U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom,
Robert Seiple, criticized the USCIRF's emphasis on the punishment of religious persecution over the promotion of religious freedom. In his view, the USCIRF was "only cursing the darkness". As an example, he highlighted the commission's decision to designate
Laos a country of particular concern in 2002 despite the release of religious prisoners. He further stated, "that which was conceived in error and delivered in chaos has now been consigned to irrelevancy. Unless the commission finds some candles soon, Congress ought to turn out the lights." The commission responded that despite the releases, the
Marxist,
Pathet Lao government in Laos still had systemic impediments to religious freedom, such as laws allowing religious activities only with the consent of Pathet Lao government officials, and laws allowing the government to determine whether a religious community is in accord with its own teaching. Other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), religious freedom and human rights advocates, policy experts, and members of Congress have defended the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's research work, and various reports on the Pathet Lao government's increased and serious religious persecution in Laos, from Seiple's controversial criticism. They have pointed out potential conflicts of interest involving reported grant monies Seiple, or a non-profit organization connected to Seiple, reportedly received from officials at the U.S. Department of State to apparently seek to minimize grossly increased religious persecution and widespread human rights violations by the Lao government and the
Lao People's Army.
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 Asian 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. The
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. ==Criticism of Christian bias, westernization, white-supremacy and Anti-LGBTQ==