US Ambassador Brownback calls for release of religious prisoners amid COVID-19 outbreak

United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback has called upon countries to release religious prisoners during the coronavirus crisis.

Brownback in a briefing said that countries like Iran, Russia, China, and Vietnam continue to hold religious prisoners as jails and detention camps can be a hotspot of the disease.

Brownback said, "In this time of the pandemic, religious prisoners should be released. We call on all governments around the world to do so. It's a good public health move for their nations and it's morally obviously the right thing to do,"

He added that certain countries continue to hold religious prisoners in a very tight space leading to an easy-to-spread situation.

He added, "Iranian regime: Now, recently - and I was pleased to see this - it furloughed some 100,000 prisoners of conscience to mitigate the spread of COVID-19..... they have not released a number of high-profile religious prisoners in Iran and we call on them to release all of them,"

He added, "China continues to have a number of people imprisoned for their faith. We know that as far as the situation in Xinjiang, but we also know it happens and it continues to take place with Protestant and Catholic churches."

He also mentioned that Vietnam has 128 prisoners of conscience that are in prison right now, and we call on them to release those prisoners. He even said that Russia has nearly 240 prisoners of conscience, including 34 Jehovah Witnesses.