USCIRF Vice Chair Nina Shea To Testify at Congressional Hearing on the Plight Of Religious Minorities

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 29, 2006

Contact:
Anne Johnson, Communications Director, (202) 523-3240, ext. 27

WASHINGTON- U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Vice Chair Nina Shea will testify before the House International Relations (HIRC) Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations on Friday, June 30 at 9:30 a.m. in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building at a hearing titled "The Plight of Religious Minorities: Can Religious Pluralism Survive?"

Commissioner Shea's testimony will focus on religious freedom conditions in five countries - Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - as well as recommendations for U.S. policy.

Commissioner Shea, who has served on the Commission since it began its work in 1999, has been an international human rights lawyer for 25 years and is director of the Center for Religious Freedom, a division of Freedom House.

The full text of Commissioner Shea's testimony will be available immediately following the hearing on the Commission's web site at www.uscirf.gov.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and the Congress.