(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says the United States' “all-round support for the Zionist regime (Israel) in its crimes against the followers of Islam, Christianity and Judaism has rendered America the biggest sponsor of state and systematic violation of religious rights,”.
He also slammed the United States for using the 'ambiguous' 9/11 event as a ploy to wage war in Islamic countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and instigate Islamophobia around the world.
The US State Department has in its latest report on religious freedom identified dozens of countries from Russia to Maldives as states where religious minorities' rights have been infringed.
The State Department's Wednesday report says there are countries where religious violence is bloody, such as Nigeria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
It criticizes “countries of particular concern" in terms of their impingements of religious liberties and says a number of these states “severely restrict freedom of religion and (there were) reports of government imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on religious beliefs."
