What does religion mean to you? For most people, a religion is going to church every week and being able to freely express their opinions and feel safe in that environment. But, for some people religion is having their place of worship being torn down or burned to the ground, right in front of them. It could also be not having the freedom to openly express their religion, and having to hide in order to worship without receiving a penalty. According to the World Affairs Journal, one incident of religious injustice lead to “four houses of worship were attacked, with no one held responsible.” (Leo). Therefore, since the penalty of religious violations have brought so much pain to Christians, in places such as China and Sudan it is considered inhumane and a violation of human rights. Religious injustices can be seen in almost every country, but China is one country who has a large amount of them. In China, Christian groups have reported their churches bulldozed and having the crosses from their churches taken down. According to an article called “China imprisons pastors of prominent churches as crackdown goes on,” “Li Guanzhong fiercely opposed efforts to remove the cross from his church in the city of Jinhua and tried to block efforts by security officials to put a Chinese flag atop his church” (Marquand). These punishments violate human rights because the Chinese government is attempting to take away a part of a religion and replace it with a part of their country. The Chinese authorities are slowly trying to take away pieces of the unwanted religion until there is no more of it in that country.  Chinese authorities have also detained and arrested many pastors for spreading their faith. From the article, China imprisons pastors of prominent churches as crackdown goes on, Marquand writes “Gu Yuese, head of China’s largest evangelical congregation, the Chongyi Church in Hangzhou, and his wife, Zhou Lianmei, a Bible teacher, were detained in late January and held incommunicado” (Marquand). People should be able to worship whatever religion that they desire to worship. Some may argue that only allowing a country to worship one or two religions helps to unite the people of that country, but the evidence shows that these laws have caused so much pain to people who want to worship their own religion. Countries with these laws are not uniting: they are separating.  These religious violations can also be found in Sudan. In 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was made to recognize and show freedom to Sudan’s diversity and its human rights commitments. From the article, “Sudan’s Continuing War on Religious Freedom,” it states that “The constitution guarantees the freedoms to worship and assemble, establish and maintain places of worship and appropriate charitable or humanitarian institutions, observe days of rest, celebrate holidays and ceremonies, and communicate with co-religionists at home and abroad” (Leo). With signing this agreement, it would advance religious freedom and other important rights by ending laws and the attacks on Christian churches. However, the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, insisted on signing and wanted a new constitution that would be based on Sharia law. That constitution would decrease religious, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversities. After that new constitution, violations against Christians have substantially increased in Sudan. One incident of religious freedom violations from the article, “Sudan’s Continuing War on Religion Freedom”, states that  “On February 1st of this year, the first day of school, the government bombed Heiban Bible College. While no one was hurt, but two buildings were destroyed.” (Leo). These acts of discrimination against Christian places of worship are inhumane and extremely wrong, they are not only destroying places of worship but endangering people’s lives. Imagine going to your first day of college, and having it bombed by the government. You would never feel safe leaving your house again without the constant thought of being bombed because of the religion that you believe in. In Sudan, Islamist extremists also threatened Christian leads by saying, “We want this country to be purely an Islamic state, so we must kill the infidels and destroy their churches all over Sudan.” The threats that Christians are getting from other religions and the government are a violation of human rights, since Christians want to worship in peace but are in constant danger. Some people may believe that if a government tells their people to worship specific religions and not worship other religions, then the people should listen, but these laws are putting Christians in danger and have to resort to places of hiding in order to worship without discrimination. Overall, these violations seem to be increasing and it can be hard to punish these violators, but some countries are already taking action to put an end to this. For China, the U.S. State Department published a statement calling for the release of Gu, and others who were detained. Also, in April of 2016, there was a closed-door meeting of the National Conference of Religious Work. At this event, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, laid out a new religious management plan. However, having a secret meeting and writing statements just isn’t enough. Other countries need to get involved to create a stricter policy for religious human rights, and to inform those countries, who aren’t doing anything about religious violations, to also improve their laws for religious injustice. Citizens of these countries can also start petitions to have better religion laws that allow them to worship without punishment. Citizens from other countries can also start organizations or GoFundMe pages to help rebuild and create new places of worship for those that have been destroyed. In conclusion, these religious human rights violations are unacceptable, and countries need to work together to make sure that everyone can freely worship the religion of their choice wherever they are.