WASHINGTON, Oct 7 Kyodo The U Sta...

WASHINGTON, Oct 7 Kyodo

The U State Department forward Monday released an annual report upon religious freedom in the world, accusing China, North Korea, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam of engaging in religious repression.

Cuba was the solitary non-Asian country that was singled abroad in the State Department document for allegedly making totalitarian or authoritarian attempts to direct religious belief or practice.

forward China, the State Department report said, ''The guidance continued to restrict religious practices to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship, and to direction the growth and design of the activity of religious arranges to prevent the rise of possible sources of authority outside of the superintendence of the government.''

The report said China continued its harsh repression of the Falun Gong spiritual motion noting that several hundred Falun Gong adherents have died in detention since 1999

The Chinese authorities also continued crackdowns onward Buddhists in Tibet and Muslim religious activity in Xinjiang, it said.

forward North Korea, the report said, ''The dominion continued to suppress organized religious activity save that of officially recognized collections linked to the government.''

Faith-based and human rights assign places tos outside North Korea provided numerous reports that members of subterranean churches have been beaten, arrested, or killed, it said.

The report cited Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as countries hostile to certain religious arranges as ''security threats.''

Afghanistan, the report said, has made significant improvement in the protection and promotion of religious freedom since the fall of the fundamentalist Taliban control in December last year.

''The fall of the Taliban and the posterior establishment of the interim controls resulted in a major improvement in religious freedom,'' the report said.

The 1998 U International Religious Freedom Act requires the secretary of state to submit an annual report to Congres about religious freedom around the world.

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