MIKE POMPEO/RELIGION/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “As the Trump administration continues to deal with the fallout of the president’s conflicting statements this week about Russian electoral interference, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday [7-19-18] focused attention on another issue involving Russia, saying that the United States hoped to advance religious freedom in that country. But he did not raise specific concerns about religious repression in Russia or suggest remedies that the United States might be seeking…Mr. Pompeo was speaking to a small group of reporters ahead of the State Department’s three-day summit next week on religious freedom. He said the United States believes that ‘religious intolerance is unacceptable’ and aims to promote religious freedom in every country, whether or not it is an ally. To bolster his contention that the United States takes the issue seriously, Mr. Pompeo pointed to use of the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law that the United States has invoked to impose sanctions on human rights violators in Russia. The Kremlin deeply dislikes the law and wants it overturned..Earlier this year, the State Department declined to name Russia as a country of particular concern on religious freedom, against the strong recommendation from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom that Russia receive the highest possible designation of concern for its aggression in Crimea and the torture and imprisonment of Crimean Tatar Muslims, and for its banning of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
–Elizabeth Dias, “Pompeo Shifts Russia Focus to Another Issue: Religious Freedom,” The New York Times online, July 19, 2018