FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 26, 2005

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

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist appointed Dr. Richard D. Land of Nashville, Tennessee, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent and bipartisan federal agency. Dr. Land is replacing Commissioner Michael K. Young, who has served on the Commission since its inception in 1999 and has served both as USCIRF Chair and Vice Chair.

"I am delighted that Senator Frist has appointed Dr. Land, who in the past has served on this Commission as a Presidential appointee (September 2001 to September 2004). The experience, knowledge, and perspective he brings will greatly enhance the work of our Commission. He has been an important asset to the USCIRF in the past and we enthusiastically welcome his return. On behalf of the Commission, I want to thank Michael Young for his tireless dedication to the Commission for the past six years. His leadership as Chair and Vice Chair guided the Commission from the beginning, and his thoughtful vision will be missed," said Commission Chair Michael Cromartie.

Richard Land has served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission since 1988. During his tenure as spokesman on Capitol Hill for the largest Protestant denomination in the country, Dr. Land has represented Southern Baptists' interests in Congress, before U.S. Presidents, and in the major media.

In February, 2005, Land was featured in Time magazine as one of "The Twenty-five Most Influential Evangelicals in America." In May 2004, Land was recognized by the National Journalas one of the 10 top church-state experts "politicians will call on when they get serious about addressing an important public policy issue."

He is the host of two nationally syndicated radio programs, For Faith & Family and For Faith & Family's Insight. The For Faith & Family Broadcast Ministry is heard by more than 1.5 million listeners each week on over 600 radio stations across the country and throughout the world on the Internet. Richard Land Live! is Land's latest radio initiative and it is syndicated on the Salem Radio Network. Most recently, he has authored Imagine! A God-Blessed America, and Real Homeland Security: The America God Will Bless (Broadman & Holman Publishers), and is also Executive Editor of Faith & Family Values, a national magazine.

At the time Michael Young joined the Commission in 1999, he was the Dean of the George Washington University Law School. He is now the President of the University of Utah.

The Commission consists of nine voting Commissioners and the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, who is a non-voting member. Three Commissioners are selected by the President, two by the leaders of the President's party in Congress, and four by the congressional leaders of the other party.

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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 25, 2005

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

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expresses serious concern about legislation recently passed by the provincial assembly in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), which borders Afghanistan. If confirmed as law by the provincial governor, the so-called "Hasba" or "Accountability" Act would impose a system of controls on social and religious behavior similar to those under which Afghans suffered during the notorious Taliban regime, thereby threatening the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief and related human rights of millions of both Muslim and non-Muslim Pakistanis. The Commission urges Pakistani national officials to use available legislative as well as judicial and other means to rescind, modify, or otherwise repudiate those portions of the provincial legislation that would contravene Pakistan's human rights obligations under international legal instruments.

"Pakistan's Federal Government, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and the political leadership of the NWFP should use this period to consider carefully the legislation's human rights implications and the compatibility of its provisions with Pakistan's obligations under the international human rights instruments and the human rights guarantees in Pakistan's own Constitution," said USCIRF Chair Michael Cromartie. "The Commission also urges the State Department to raise the human rights implications of this legislation with the Pakistani authorities and to encourage Pakistan to rescind, modify, or repudiate this ill-advised measure. The State Department should reinforce Pakistan's obligations to protect the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief of its citizens in the NWFP, in accordance with Pakistan's international human rights commitments."

On July 14, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six Islamic parties that governs the NWFP, passed overwhelmingly and sent to the provincial governor legislation that would establish a system of official monitors who would enforce conformity to the MMA's view of Islamic standards of public behavior. Offices of such monitors or "mohtasibeen" would be established at every level of administration in the NWFP with broad powers to ensure the observance of Islamic religious practices and conformity with Islamic moral values in public places. The mohtasibeen would have quasi-judicial powers to obtain public records, to order the cooperation of other government officials, and to sentence offenders. Decisions of the mohtasibeen would not be reviewable by any court of law.

On the eve of the legislation's passage in the provincial assembly, noted Pakistani human rights advocate Asma Jahangir, who also serves as the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief, declared that "If the Act is passed, the Hasba force will act as chief prosecutor and enjoy wide powers, without any accountability. They will punish, admonish, watch, monitor, and even persecute."

The proposed mohtasibeen and their broad powers are all too reminiscent of the brutal agents of Taliban Afghanistan's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice and of Saudi Arabia's religious police, the mutawaa. The Commission is concerned that, as in Taliban Afghanistan and in Saudi Arabia, the result in the NWFP would be: (1) a vaguely defined authority to punish conduct which the mohtasibeen identify as not conducive to public morality and safety and which is not reviewable by ordinary judicial authority; (2) arbitrary and harsh punishments of both Muslims and non-Muslims for alleged infractions of public religious practice and social behavior, and (3) restrictions that abridge universal human rights, including freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief and other applicable rules of non-discrimination. The province's women, religious reformers and dissidents, and members of religious minority communities would be at particular risk from a system designed to coerce religious and social conformity. The imposition of such a regime in the NWFP would set an example that could be emulated elsewhere in Pakistan and beyond.

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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 22, 2005

Contact: Julia Leikin (202) 775-3240

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) invite you to a public briefing on Wednesday, July 27 on "U.S. Strategic Dilemmas in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan." The briefing will take place 3:00-5:00 p.m. in Room B1C on the B1 Conference Level at CSIS, 1800 K Street, NW, Washington, DC.

In April 2005, as part of its 2005 CPC recommendations to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Commission recommended that the State Department designate Uzbekistan a "country of particular concern" (CPC) for serious religious freedom violations.The Commission has recommended CPC status for Turkmenistan since 2001, although the State Department has not adopted that recommendation in past years.CPC designation carries with it the requirement to take follow-on policy actions, which can include the cancellation of economic and security assistance.

To place the CPC recommendation in context, panelists will discuss the human rights situation in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the nature of local extremist and terrorist threats, and U.S. and other strategic interests in the region. The panel will open with introductory remarks by USCIRF Commissioners.

Panelists:
Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College

Daniel Kimmage, RFE/RL

Martha Brill Olcott, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Knox Thames, Helsinki Commission

Cory Welt, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Please RSVP by Tuesday, July 26 th, 2005

Julia Leikin ( [email protected] ) or by fax 202-775-3199

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.