In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted daily life in every country across the world. By early January 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 83 million cases and 1.8 million deaths globally since the pandemic’s start, with the numbers continuing to climb. The year severely challenged individuals, families, religious and other communities, medical and educational systems, arts and cultural institutions, workplaces and economies, and governments worldwide.

Public health measures to control the virus’ spread restricted in-person gatherings, including religious gatherings. As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) noted in March, in many cases these measures complied with international human rights standards protecting freedom of religion or belief, but in some cases they did not. Such measures must be necessary to protect the legitimate state interest of preventing disease and proportionate to meeting that aim, must not be discriminatory, and must be lifted once the crisis has passed.

USCIRF’s monitoring revealed that in some countries, already marginalized religious minorities faced official and/or societal stigmatization, harassment, and discrimination for allegedly causing or spreading the virus. Additionally, since crowded prisons present a high risk of infection, USCIRF urged governments to release all prisoners held because of their religion or belief as part of their COVID-19 response. On a positive note, some governments that have long repressed religious freedom, such as Eritrea, did release religious prisoners. By contrast, Iran, which reportedly furloughed 85,000 prisoners for health reasons, also incarcerated others, especially members of the Baha’i community, and placed prisoners from the Sufi Muslim religious minority in overcrowded wards, increasing their risk of exposure.