For Your Information

12/26/2012 | By Katrina Lantos Swett

The following Washington Post On Faith opinion waspublished on December 24, 2012.

In a poem that became one of America"s most beautiful Christmas carols, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, "I heard the bells on Christmas day, their old familiar carols play, and wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace on earth, good will to men.”

This promise of the season remains the most elusive.

Indeed, while America"s Christians look joyfully ahead to celebrating Christ"s birth, their brothers and sisters in too many other countries must approach this season fearing for their safety and freedom. Given the grim recent history, their worries are not unfounded.

Five died in a church attack on Christmas in Nigeria. Last year, also on Christmas Day, bombs exploded in Nigeria in or around churches in Jos, Kano, Madalla, Gadaka, and Damaturur; 40 perished in Madalla alone.

On Christmas Eve in 2010, also in Nigeria, a number of churches were attacked in Maiduguri, killing six and wounding 25.

That same year, throughout December, Iran"s government ramped up its harassment of evangelicals, arresting more than one hundred by the year"s end.

In early January of that year, on Coptic Christmas Eve, gunmen murdered seven Coptic churchgoers leaving a midnight mass in Naga Hammadi, Egypt.

And on the day before Christmas Eve in 2009, bombs exploded in Iraq next to the Syriac Orthodox Church of St. Thomas and the Chaldean Church of St. George in Mosul, leaving several dead.

These are some of the many examples of what Christians endure for their faith -- not only during Christmas time, but throughout the year. In clear violation of international standards contained in the 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rightsand the 1966International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and as documented by theU.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom(USCIRF), governments across the globe perpetrate or tolerate egregious violations of Christians" fundamental right to practice their faith peacefully.

Iran"s government remains a serious perpetrator. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for an end to Christianity"s development in the country. Christians are subject to harassment, arrests, intense surveillance, imprisonment, and possible death.

Similarly, the government of China persecutes Christian groups, from Catholics to the house church movement, that refuse to "register” with the authorities, as well as Christian lawyers who defend these and other religious organizations or movements. Members face severe sanctions, including fines, property confiscations, imprisonment, and torture, as well as government control over the selection of religious leaders.

And the government of Pakistan, through its blasphemy code and other restrictions, has created a climate conducive to violence against Christians, as was horrifyingly evident with the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, the highest-ranking Christian in Pakistan"s government, earlier last year.

In Nigeria, the government"s sins of omission are the problem. Its failure to contain sectarian tensions between Muslims and Christians has created an atmosphere of impunity leading to the rise of Boko Haram, a Muslim extremist movement responsible for much of the worst violence against Christians. In Iraq, a similar failure led to years of Christians being kidnapped, raped, tortured, bombed, and beheaded. The result has been mass emigration, jeopardizing the survival of one of the world"s oldest Christian communities.

Christian communities that are nearly as old as Iraq"s face similar threats. Egypt"s Coptic community faces escalating violence and continued discrimination on account of their faith, as during the Mubarak era.

It"s no coincidence that where Christians are persecuted, so are members of other religious groups. From secular dictatorships and religious theocracies to violent religious extremist groups, the same tyrannical forces that assault the right of Christians to practice their faith freely do likewise to others.

It"s a cruel irony that those who embrace the Christmas message of a child born to bring peace on earth while offering reconciliation to God should face continued hatred, violence, and oppression.

As Longfellow wrote,"Hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.”

And yet he went on to say,"Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead, nor doth he sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men."”

To honor this hope, we must stand firmly with the persecuted -- Christians and people of all beliefs -- and reaffirm their right to live out their beliefs in liberty and peace.

Katrina Lantos Swett is the chair of theU.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

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For Your Information

December 19, 2012 | By: Mary Ann Glendon and Azizah al-Hibri

The following commentary appeared in The National Interest on December 18, 2012.

When most people picture Western Europe, they envision well-established democracies where fundamental freedoms are vigorously protected. For the most part, this portrait is accurate. However, when it comes to religious freedom, the past year and decade have witnessed trends that challenge this image.

As 2012 draws to a close, a number of countries continue restricting religious practice and expression, from religious dress to fundamental life rituals such as circumcision. Such restrictions not only compromise internationally protected rights, they fuel an environment in which religious people and members of religious minorities in particular are sometimes made to feel like outsiders in their home countries.

These infringements are surprisingly widespread.

For example, France and Belgium bar students in state schools and government workers from wearing "conspicuous religious symbols,” forbidding the Islamic headscarf, the Sikh turban, large Christian crosses, and the Jewish yarmulke.

France and Belgium now ban people from publicly wearing full-face veils while Switzerland, the Netherlands, and other European states have debated similar prohibitions. Islamic dress restrictions for teachers exist in some Swiss and German states.

France also forbids people from wearing any headgear in official identity document photos. In 2011, the UN Human Rights Committee concluded that this rule violated the religious freedom rights of a Sikh man who refused to remove his turban for a residency-card photo. France has yet to take corrective action.

Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland have long banned kosher and halal slaughter. In 2011, the Dutch parliament"s lower house also passed such a ban, but an outcry from Muslim and Jewish groups forced the government to forge a compromise allowing religious animal slaughter to continue.

After a similar outcry in Germany this year against a lower-court ruling criminalizing religious circumcisions of male children, the German parliament is considering a law permitting this practice.

Efforts against religious circumcision persist in other parts of Europe. Norway"s Center Party, a small party in parliament, has sought to criminalize it, and the ombudsman for children-an independent governmental body-has suggested that Muslims and Jews replace circumcision with "a symbolic, non-surgical ritual.”

In Germany and Sweden, government authorities have told Christian and Jewish parents that they cannot homeschool their children for religious reasons.

Government officials in the United Kingdom are forcing Catholic adoption agencies to shut down because they follow religious criteria in placing children with families.

What is driving this rise in restrictions? At least two factors are at play - one historical, the other demographic.

The first factor is Western Europe"s unfortunate history of monolithic state religion. The rise of secular states did little to change the idea of a religious monoculture-it just included secularism as one of the monocultures. Indeed, "lay” states such as France and Turkey have long enforced secularism as the only acceptable form of behavior in public affairs, while countries like Norway treat their official churches as vestigial organs.

The second factor is the region"s growing religious diversity, including a rising population of Muslims. The distinctive dress of conservative Muslims has fueled a fear of "the other” as well as a doubling down in already-existing opposition to public religious expression. While governments cite the need for national security, restrictions on religious expression risk creating exactly the opposite outcome. They drive a wedge between governments and their Muslim citizens, dashing hopes for much-needed cooperation to prevent radicalization and promote the assimilation of democratic values and identity in Muslim communities.

Couched as attempts to protect established values, government laws and policies prohibiting religious expression and practice specifically violate human rights. Such actions defy internationally recognized religious-freedom standards established in United Nations treaties and also protected by European human rights documents from the European Union, Council of Europe and Helsinki process.

These standards guarantee the right not just to believe but to manifest one"s beliefs, individually or in community with others, in public or in private, through worship, observance, practice and teaching. This includes the right to wear distinctive symbols, clothing or head coverings, follow dietary rules and practice rituals connected with certain life stages. Any limitations on these freedoms must be narrowly construed and based on grounds specified by Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. They must not discriminate in application, destroy guaranteed rights or derive from a single tradition alone.

The increasing restrictions on religious practice and expression in Western Europe both arise from and encourage a climate of intolerance against religious groups, especially those with strong truth claims and vigorous demands on their members. Muslims, in some instances, clearly are being targeted. This increasingly hostile atmosphere in turn triggers private discrimination, and sometimes even violence, against members of these groups.

Indeed, according to the U.S. State Department"s International Religious Freedom Report on France, the number of anti-Muslim assaults, harassment, and vandalism increased 34 percent in 2011.

If the lamp of liberty is to remain lit, Western Europeans must accept that the age of conformity to an official monoculture-secular or religious-is at an end. In the coming year, their countries should embrace their religiously diverse future and accord religious freedom to all.

Mary Ann Glendon serves as vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Azizah al-Hibri serves as a USCIRF Commissioner.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact Samantha Schnitzer at [email protected] or (202) 786-0613.