Philippines wins praise for promoting interfaith tolerance

THE US State Department released its annual review of international religious freedom, singling out the Philippines and Jordan for promoting interfaith initiatives and criticizing China and Israel for intolerance.

The president has emphasized that faith should bring us together, and this year’s report has a special focus on efforts to promote interfaith dialog and tolerance,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday in Washington.

Clinton came out strongly against laws around the world that make religious defamation a crime, saying freedom of speech and religion should be equally upheld.

“Some claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called ‘anti-defamation’ policies that would restrict freedom of expression and the freedom of religion,” she said on presenting the report on religious freedom.

“I strongly disagree. The United States will always… stand against discrimination and persecution… But an individual’s ability to practice his or her religion has no bearing on others’ freedom of speech,” Clinton said.

“The protection of speech about religion is particularly important since persons of different faith will inevitably hold divergent views on religious questions. These differences should be met with tolerance, not with the suppression of discourse,” she added.

Apart from citing the Philippines and Jordan for their efforts and initiatives in mitigating religious differences, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner also mentioned Qatar and Spain for positive developments in handling interfaith issues.

He noted “interesting trends” on both sides of the issue this year, along with “a growing recognition that there needs to be more dialog and more effort… across faiths” to find common ground.

But Posner cited “plenty of individual incidents that are mentioned throughout the report” including “blasphemy laws, tremendous interfaith tensions” and “more restrictions by government ministries on the right of religious groups to register.”

China was among those that remained on a list of the worst offenders and the report criticized the central government’s repression in Tibetan areas and Xinjiang province where Uighur Muslims reside.

The State Department report on religious freedom in 198 countries and territories serves as a basis for an upcoming US list of nations that raise the most concern.

The last US list in January included Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, China, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Uzbekistan, the same countries that made the list in 2008. –Bloomberg