FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 24, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) strongly condemns the passage by Burma’s Union Parliament of the religious conversion bill.  This bill is one measure in a package of “race and religion bills” which a group of nationalist Buddhist monks have advanced.  Each discriminates against and restricts the religious freedom of non-Buddhists, particularly Muslims, and diminishes women’s rights. 

“By word and deed, Burma’s government continues to further entrench and legalize discrimination based on religious beliefs and sex,” said USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George.  “Burma’s leaders once again have disregarded internationally agreed human rights standards.  The government claims that these bills  protect women and religion, but civil society groups in Burma have exposed them for what they are – tools the government uses to continue to violate the freedom of religion and related human rights,” said Chairman George.

Under the religious conversion bill, individuals choosing to adopt another faith confront special bureaucratic hurdles – including requiring applicants to provide extensive and intrusive personal information, to receive “approval,” thereby creating a system that effectively would discourage and reject conversions. 

“This measure is discriminatory, period.  It is gravely wrong for the government to presume to dictate whether an individual can change their religion or belief,” said Chairman George.  “We call on President Thein Sein immediately to reject this ill-conceived measure.”

One of the extremist movements led by a group of nationalist Buddhist monks, the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion – also known as Ma Ba Tha,  created the race and religion bills and has been pushing the government to adopt them ever since.  USCIRF has criticized these efforts.  Burma’s government has failed to implement meaningful protections for religious and ethnic minorities, and instead has adopted politically expedient discriminatory measures, such as the population control law and interfaith marriage law.  

USCIRF again recommended in 2015 that Burma be designated as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act for its particularly severe violations of religious freedom.  The State Department has designated Burma as a CPC since 1999, most recently in July 2014.

For more information, see the Burma Chapter (in English and Burmese) in USCIRF’s 2015 Annual Report.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.

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August 18, 2015 | Robert P. George and Thomas J. Reese

The following op-ed appeared in The Christian Science Monitor on August 18, 2015

Is Eritrea guilty of crimes against humanity?

The question evidently matters to the UN Human Rights Council, which last month extended for another year the mandate of its Commission of Inquiry (COI) on human rights in the Horn of Africa nation. This extension followed the COI’s release in June of a 500-page report detailing its abuses.

The question should also matter to the rest of the world, given Eritrea’s serious contribution to the global refugee crisis, as seen through the continued flight of 5,000 Eritreans monthly from their homeland, many of whom are heading north to Europe. 

The COI report confirmed what the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), on which we serve, has documented for years:   Eritrea is the North Korea of Africa. It is a totalitarian police state which rules by fear, not law, producing a tragedy for human rights, including religious liberty, which the world must not ignore.

The regime of President Isias Afwerki and the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice have run Eritrea since 1993 after winning a long war for independence from Ethiopia. War with Ethiopia resumed in 1998, and while the conflict ended in 2000, Eritrea’s leaders operate on a permanent war footing.

The government deploys a pervasive domestic surveillance apparatus. Eritreans constantly fear they are being monitored and can be detained.

For a country of fewer than five million people, Eritrea has a vast penal system, and arbitrary detention is widespread.  Moreover, Eritrea’s judicial system lacks any semblance of independence or justice.  Citizens frequently aren’t told why they’re being detained or for how long, and those who are imprisoned often are tortured. Many are held incommunicado and some disappear and are never seen or heard from again.

Civic space for the free and peaceful practice of religion is incredibly restricted, with the government grossly interfering with Eritrea’s four recognized religious communities – the Coptic Orthodox Church, Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism, and a Lutheran-connected denomination. It has kept Orthodox Patriarch Abune Antonios under house arrest since 2006 for objecting to its meddling in church affairs, and has deposed him from his position as leader of his church.

The regime makes all other religious groups illegal. Imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses and evangelical and pentecostal Protestants routinely are tortured and pressed to recant their faith. Jehovah’s Witnesses are denied citizenship due to their conscientious objection to military service.

Both USCIRF and the US State Department concur that Eritrea is one of the world’s worst religious freedom environments, with the State Department designating Eritrea a “country of particular concern” or CPC each year since 2004.

Eritreans also are subjected to indefinite periods of universal conscription when they reach 18 and often at near-starvation levels, amounting to forced labor or slavery; women who serve often report being sexually assaulted.

Hundreds of thousands of Eritreans -- between six and 10 percent of the country’s population -- have fled such tyranny over the past generation. The government has a shoot-to-kill policy against those making the attempt and frequently tortures their family members.

Those who leave are at risk of human traffickers capturing, torturing and killing them. Those who traverse Libya risk falling into Islamist State hands.   Those crossing the Mediterranean risk drowning.

Do any of Eritrea’s depredations amount to crimes against humanity? If the UN makes that determination next year, Eritrea’s regime and its rulers will be referred to the International Criminal Court.

Meanwhile, what can the United States do?

It can continue naming Eritrea a CPC, while taking specific CPC actions based on religious freedom violations. It can maintain its long-standing arms embargo against Eritrea. It can limit Eritrea’s ability to levy and forcibly collect a tax on Eritrean Americans by imposing visas bans on Eritrean officials.It can work with other nations to advocate the release of religious prisoners, including Patriarch Antonios, and support the efforts of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and nongovernmental organizations to aid Eritrean refugees.

Eritrea’s tyranny has unleashed tragedy. The world community must press for a reversal of course toward freedom.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.

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August 11, 2015 | Katrina Lantos Swett and Mary Ann Glendon

The following op-ed appeared in Foreign Policy on August 10, 2015

As their nation celebrates National Minorities Day on Tuesday, August 11, many Pakistanis will recall these memorable words:

“You are free. You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other places of worship….You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the state.”

On August 11, 1947, Pakistan’s founding father, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, proclaimed that message of acceptance of religious minorities in a historic speech to his country.

Sixty-one years later, in November 2008, Pakistan witnessed another historic event — a Christian being sworn in to its cabinet.

On that day, the new official eloquently echoed that message:

“I decided to become Federal Minister for Minority Affairs to advocate the cause of the oppressed and the marginalized communities of Pakistan. I have devoted my life to struggle for human equality, social justice, religious freedom, and to uplift and empower the religious minority communities of Pakistan.”

Less than three years later, in March 2011, the man who delivered those words was assassinated.

Shahbaz Bhatti’s murder shocked and grieved commissioners and staff members on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), on which we now serve, for he was a true friend and a force for liberty. His murder followed a similar atrocity just two months earlier, when another Pakistani government official, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, a Muslim, met the same fate.

Both men had defended a vision of a tolerant, multicultural society. Both had opposed Pakistan’s blasphemy law as a stark betrayal of that vision. Both paid the ultimate price for their courage.

So what happened? How did the vision atrophy?

A partial answer may be found in a USCIRF-sponsored study issued the following November.

Titled “Connecting the Dots: Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan,” the study examined Pakistan’s public school and madrassa systems, and included interviews with teachers and students. The goal was to explore linkages between the portrayal of religious minorities, biases against these minorities, and subsequent acts of discrimination or violence.

The study found that school textbooks either failed to mention Pakistan’s religious minorities or referred to them in derogatory ways.

Hindus and Christians were depicted in especially negative terms, with inaccurate and offensive references. Teachers had little understanding of religious minorities, expressed extremely negative views of Ahmadis, Christians, and Jews especially, and transmitted such biases to their students.

While USCIRF is updating the study and will release the findings later this year, the conclusion thus far is clear: Pakistan’s educational system has been part of the problem and not the solution, conveying the message that religious minorities are second-class human beings.

The results are tragically evident, as extremists target Shi’a Muslim processions, pilgrimages, and gathering places, launch vigilante and terrorist attacks against Christians, commit drive-by shootings against Ahmadis, compel Hindus to flee the country due to violence and forced conversions, and target dissenting Muslims.

In March of this year, we led the first-ever Commissioner-level USCIRF visit to Pakistan. We met with high-level officials including national security adviser Sartaj Aziz, the minister of interior, the religious affairs minister, and the attorney general, as well as madrassa leaders and religious minority members.

We saw how Pakistan remains a nation with serious challenges impacting religious freedom, including Pakistan’s blasphemy law and related statutes. We heard how they encourage acts of violence against the religious “other,” be they Christians, Hindus, or Muslims.

These issues, among others, underscore why we continue to call on the U.S. State Department to designate Pakistan a Country of Particular Concern, marking it as one of the world’s worst religious freedom violators.

To be sure, there are faint glimmers of hope on the horizon.

Punjab’s government announced earlier this year that it was reviewing blasphemy cases. The national government finally is talking of reforming Pakistan’s blasphemy law to add penalties for false accusations. And late last month, Pakistan’s Supreme Court in Lahore issued a stay of execution for Aasia Bibi and indicated that the full bench in Islamabad should hear her appeal.

We see opportunity for engagement with Pakistan. USCIRF has recommended that Washington initiate a bilateral engagement on religious freedom and tolerance. The United States also can direct its security assistance funds to help protect minority worship sites and other places where minorities congregate.

But such assistance will be for naught unless Pakistan takes action on its own.

Pakistan must break the vicious cycles of impunity and lawlessness by arresting, prosecuting, and jailing all perpetrators of violence against religious communities and their advocates. It must hold police officers accountable for turning a blind eye to attacks or refusing to file police reports when the victims are members of religious minorities. And while we applaud the ruling of Pakistan’s Supreme Court last year to create a special police force to protect religious minorities, as well as a national commission on minorities, Pakistan must implement it sooner rather than later.

Pakistan also must engage in educational reform by uprooting the intolerance in schools and textbooks. And it must repeal or dramatically reform its blasphemy and anti-Ahmadi laws.

On National Minorities Day, let Pakistan’s government, from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on down, rededicate itself fully to religious freedom and the value of tolerance articulated at its founding.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.