Religious discrimination often source of conflicts, says John Kerry

US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday said that religious pluralism encourages and enables contributions from all while religious discrimination is often the source of conflicts that endanger everyone.

"The world has learned through very hard experience that religious pluralism encourages and enables contributions from all; while religious discrimination is often the source of conflicts that endanger all," Kerry said in his remarks during release of the US International Religious Freedom 2014 report.

"The purpose of this annual report is to highlight the importance of religious freedom not by lecturing but through advocacy and through persuasion. Our primary goal is to help governments everywhere recognize that their societies will do better with religious liberty than without it," he said.

"By issuing this report, we hope to give governments an added incentive to honour the rights and the dignity of their citizens; but the report also has the benefit of equipping interested observers with an arsenal of facts," he said.

Kerry said one of the more consequential facts of the era has been the convergence really, the development of a sort of new phenomenon of non-state actors.

"Most prominent, and most harmful, obviously, has been the rise of international terrorist groups such as Daesh, al-Qaida, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram. And all have been guilty of vicious acts of unprovoked violence," he said.

Kerry said religious minorities including those who profess no faith should have the same rights as religious majorities, and that is a fundamental belief.

"Sadly, the pages of this report that is being released today are filled with accounts of minorities being denied rights in countries like Burma, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, many others," he said.

The Secretary of State urged the release of men and women detained or imprisoned anywhere in the world for the peaceful expression and practice of their religious beliefs. This includes Zhang Kai, a Chinese Christian human rights lawyer who was detained in late August and whose present whereabouts are unknown, he said.

"Religious bigotry is present to a degree in every continent and every country and sadly, even including our own. It may be expressed through anti-Semitism or prejudice against Muslims; through the persecution of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and others; or it may come in the guise of attacks against religion itself, as we saw so tragically in Oregon at the beginning of this month," Kerry said.