Bias at the Religious Freedom Commission

Here you’ve got the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom struggling to get out from under persistent (and, yes, reasonable) charges that it is more interested in making the Muslim world safe for Christian missionaries than in evenhandedly tracking religious freedom issues around the globe. And who does it appoint as its new executive director? […]

Wolcott.jpgHere you’ve got the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom struggling to get out from under persistent (and, yes, reasonable) charges that it is more interested in making the Muslim world safe for Christian missionaries than in evenhandedly tracking religious freedom issues around the globe. And who does it appoint as its new executive director? Jackie Wolcott, a former Bush administration nuclear proliferation expert with no experience dealing with religious freedom, who most recently has served on the Advisory Board of United Against Nuclear Iran, “a non-profit
organization dedicated to preventing a nuclear Iran and exposing Iran
as a major violator of human rights at home and abroad.”

Bias? The appointment certainly gives the appearance thereof. All the more reason for the State Department to get on the stick and name its religious freedom ambassador. The commission, always a bit of a loose cannon, looks like it’s about to go off the rails big time.

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