FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 17, 2005

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

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expresses deep concern about the impending visit to the United States of State Minister Narendra Modi from the Indian state of Gujarat. Three years ago, after a fire on a train resulted in the death of 58 Hindus, hundreds of Muslims were killed across Gujarat by Hindu mobs. Hundreds of mosques and Muslim-owned businesses and other kinds of infrastructure were looted or destroyed and, in the end, as many as 2,000 Muslims were killed. India's National Human Rights Commission, an official body, as well as numerous domestic and international human rights investigators, found evidence of complicity in the attacks by officials of the Gujarat state government, headed then and still by State Minister Modi.

In the months following the violence, the Modi government in Gujarat was widely accused in India of being reluctant to bring the perpetrators of the killings of Muslims to justice. In response to the alleged failures of the Gujarat government, India's Supreme Court declared in October 2003 that it had "no faith left" in the state's handling of the investigations and instructed the Gujarat state government to appoint new prosecutors to examine the religious violence of 2002. In April 2004, in what was seen as an additional indictment of Modi's Gujarat government, the Supreme Court stepped in once more and ordered a transfer of a trial of perpetrators to a neighboring state.

"At a time when the newly elected Indian government and courts have initiated a number of actions to address the tragic Gujarat massacres in which Gujarat state officials were found by India's own investigative bodies to be complicit, the Commission has been concerned that Modi's private visit will only serve inappropriately to give a platform in the United States to someone who has been implicated in grave violations of religious freedom," said USCIRF Chair Preeta D. Bansal.

"The Commission communicated with the State Department about the matter some time ago. We urge the Department to act with appropriate Indian officials to forestall or prevent the planned visit," Bansal said.

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
March 11, 2005

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

WASHINGTON - Please join the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for an on-the-record briefing on Uzbek policies toward religion and the current status of religious freedom in Uzbekistan. The briefing will feature two leading human rights experts on Uzbekistan: Vitaly Ponomarev, director of the Central Asian Program at the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center, and Alisher Ergashev, a well-known human rights lawyer who has just completed a report on Uzbekistan's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

WHO: Vitaly Ponomarev, a leading Russian human rights expert on Central Asia, is director of the Central Asian Program at the Memorial Human Rights Center in Moscow. Ponomarev has written several books and articles on Central Asia and has compiled the most comprehensive list of political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan.

Alisher Ergashev, a well-known human rights lawyer and a member of the Legal Aid Society, has just completed a detailed alternative report on Uzbekistan's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which he will present to the UN Human Rights Committee on March 21.

WHEN: Thursday, March 17, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
800 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 790
Washington, D.C. 20002

Please RVSP to Caroline Gobble at: [email protected] or (202) 523-3240, ext. 24.

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
March 8, 2005

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

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released on its Web site today a new survey, The Religion-State Relationship and the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Comparative Textual Analysis of the Constitutions of Predominantly Muslim Countries. The study, prepared by Commission staff, examines the text of Muslim constitutions from 44 nations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The study demonstrates that predominantly Muslim countries-including those where Islam is the religion of the state-encompass a variety of constitutional arrangements addressing the role of Islam, the scope of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief, and equality of rights and freedoms, including for women.

"The Commission believes that this study - the first of its kind - will be helpful to citizens, legal experts, policymakers, and diplomats throughout the world searching for models of constitutional text within the Muslim world that relate to international human rights standards," said USCIRF Chair Preeta D. Bansal.

Several current developments in constitutional drafting are spurring renewed analysis of the existing constitutional landscape of the Muslim world. In 2004, Afghanistan adopted a new permanent constitution, and Iraq's Governing Council approved an interim constitutional document (the "Transitional Administrative Law" or TAL). Iraq's elected national assembly is expected to draft a permanent constitution in 2005. In Sudan, a new interim constitution is anticipated as a product of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. The interlocking roles of religion and human rights will be key issues in Iraq and Sudan.

The Commission's study found:

• More than half of the world's Muslim population (estimated at over 1.3 billion) lives in countries that are neither Islamic republics nor countries that have declared Islam to be the state religion. Thus, the majority of the world's Muslim population currently lives in countries that either proclaim the state to be secular, or that make no pronouncements concerning Islam to be the official state religion.
• Countries in which Islam is the declared state religion may provide constitutional guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief that compare favorably with international legal standards.
• Similarly, countries with Islam as the declared state religion may maintain constitutional provisions protecting the related rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly-or the rights of equality and nondiscrimination with regard to, inter alia, religion and gender-which compare favorably with international standards.
• A number of constitutions of predominantly Muslim countries incorporate or otherwise reference international human rights instruments and legal norms.

"The Commission's study shows that positive models of constitutional text exist in the Muslim world," added Bansal. "This finding is crucial for demonstrating that freedom of religion or belief, as well as other international human rights norms, can coexist in the Muslim world, and should guide the people of Iraq and Sudan as these countries undertake the drafting of new constitutions."

Because constitutional text does not always translate into practice, the Commission invites policy and legal experts to further research the interpretation and application of these constitutional provisions and their practical impact in Muslim countries, especially with regard to the protection of internationally recognized human rights.

The study will be published in the summer 2005 volume of the Georgetown Journal of International Law.

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.