Whereas the United States Congress has a proud history of promoting internationally recognized human rights; Whereas religious freedom is a fundamental human right of all people; Whereas the free exercise of religion must stand for the right to practice any faith or to choose no faith at all; Whereas every individual’s rights to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is guaranteed under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted at Paris December 10, 1948, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted at New York December 16, 1966, which recognize, Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. ; Whereas, during his 1941 State of the Union address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted the “Four Freedoms” that the world should be founded upon, including the “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world”; Whereas, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), abuses committed by governments and non-state actors has increased and the incarceration of prisoners of conscience remains widespread; Whereas, according to the latest Pew Research Center’s Study of Global Restrictions on Religion, which surveyed 2015, an estimated 79 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where freedom of religion and conscience is highly restricted, either by the government or social groups; Whereas the 2017 report produced by USCIRF recommended that the Department of State designate the following countries as Countries of Particular Concern: Burma, Central African Republic, China, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam