The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has released its 2008 Annual Report, which lists "countries of particular concern" (or, put plainly, countries which stomp all over religious liberties).

The offending countries on the list include: Burma (Myanmar), Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Eritrea, Iran, Pakistan, People's Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Countries on the Commission's 2008 Watch List include: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, and Nigeria. The hotly-debated decision on whether to include Iraq has been postponed pending a commission visit later this month.

Unlike the senseless and offensive UN Human Rights Action List (an anti-Semitic, radical-Islamic embarrassment to the world community), USCIRF's report examines true atrocities occurring in the modern world. The Commission honestly observes, as was recently exposed in the Burma massacres, that "the U.S. government navigates a world threatened by religion-based extremism and religion-imbued conflict." Religious liberty is foremost a personal human right - yet its security is also necessary to the security of the global community.