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November 14, 2000
Nov 14, 2000
The Washington Post
November 14, 2000
By Elliott Abrams
An amendment signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens the "liquidation" of thousands of religious groups at the end of this year. When President Clinton meets with Putin during the Asia-Pacific economic summit, this issue should be near the top of their bilateral agenda.
In the last days of the Soviet Union, the government enacted the most enlightened law on religion in the history of Russia, providing broad legal protections for the right to exercise religious freedom and for the equality of religious communities. The law restored rights not only to the Russian Orthodox Church but also to Old Believers, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals, Seventh-Day Adventists, Muslims, Buddhists and a host of other faith groups that had suffered severe repression since at least 1929.
In the new atmosphere of freedom, thousands of new churches and religious groups were formed, feeding a post-Communist spiritual hunger that pervaded all regions and ethnic groups. Indigenous pastors and clerics headed many existing religious groups, while in others the leaderships had been decimated by decades of communist mistreatment and needed foreign clergy and teachers to help them reestablish themselves. In yet other cases, foreign missionaries, including Western evangelicals and followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, founded new faith communities--legally, and with Moscow's full knowledge.
These days of openness quickly passed, however. The Russian Orthodox Church--nostalgic for the leading position it had held in Russian society before the Bolsheviks--soon pushed for a law to restrict, if not ban, the activities of foreign religious workers and of non-orthodox Christians (as well as dissident Orthodox groups). While President Boris Yeltsin vetoed one egregious bill the Russian parliament sent him, he allowed another version to become law in 1997.
The 1997 Religion Law discriminates among religions and violates Russia's international commitments under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It restricts the rights, powers and privileges of smaller, or newer, or foreign religious communities, while giving special status to Russia's "traditional" religions--primarily Russian Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. It also creates an onerous and intrusive registration process.
Upon taking office this spring, Putin quietly signed a significant and double-edged amendment to the 1997 law. On the positive side, he extended to Dec. 31 of this year the deadline by which religious groups must register with officials. On the negative side, however, he required that unregistered groups be "liquidated" after that date.
If a system of due process were in place for religious groups to register, the situation would not be so dangerous. But quite the reverse is true: Local officials in some regions have delayed or denied registration to and sought liquidation of unpopular religious groups, even when they have been recognized and registered in other regions or at the federal level. Sometimes this delay or refusal occurs at the instigation of the local Russian Orthodox bishop or priest.
The threat of liquidation when the Dec. 31 deadline expires is substantial. At the end of September, according to the Russian Justice Ministry, only some 9,000 of the 17,000 religious groups in Russia had obtained registration. Given the slow pace of the registration process so far, it is hard to believe most of the remaining groups will be able to register by Dec. 31. Putin must intervene--both to speed up the process and to postpone the deadline.
Clinton will meet with the Russian president tomorrow or Thursday on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Brunei. He should stress to Putin how seriously the United States takes the issue of religious freedom and how important it is, both for Russia's future and for U.S.-Russian relations, that he postpone the Dec. 31 deadline and streamline the registration process. It is hard to see a warming trend in U.S.-Russian relations if the holiday season headlines are full of stories about houses of worship about to be shut down or declared illegal, their property seized and their congregations out in the cold legally--and physically as well.
The writer is chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to give independent recommendations to the executive branch and the Congress
© 2000 The Washington Post
July 15, 2008
Jul 15, 2008
Say a prayer for Vietnam
Asia Times Online - July 15, 2008
By Preeta D Bansal and Richard D Land
WASHINGTON - Days after taking up the presidency of the United Nations Security Council in a long-sought affirmation of its international standing, the government of Vietnam issued dark warnings to Buddhist leaders not to turn the funeral of the 87-year-old patriarch of their banned church into an "anti-government rally".
Instead of issuing threats to continue its abuse of international norms on religious freedom, the government should end its unjustified restrictions on Vietnam's largest Buddhist organization, the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV). In assuming its prominent position at the UN this month, Vietnam should be protecting, not violating, fundamental freedoms.
The latest government threat to the UBCV follows the death of The Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, the supreme patriarch of the UBCV and a widely respected champion of freedom and human rights. For his peaceful advocacy, he spent half his life in detention or prison, first under the French colonial authorities, then under the South Vietnamese government, and finally under the communist government. He died on July 5 in the monastery where he had been detained since 2003.
The new presumptive leader, Thich Quang Do, and most other senior UBCV leaders, are also under a form of detention. Even their recent efforts to organize provincial-level charitable and youth organizations have met with government harassment, intimidation and detentions. Hanoi views the peaceful monks' advocacy of freedom and human rights as a threat to government "stability". Millions of Vietnamese, in contrast, see the UBCV as a much-needed spiritual and humanitarian organization.
The death of Thich Huyen Quang offers the Vietnamese government a rare opportunity to honor a tireless advocate for human rights by allowing the UBCV to exercise freedom of religion according to international norms to freely select its own leadership and carry out its activities without interference. Sadly, this is unlikely to happen.
The US government continues to publicly praise Vietnam for the progress made expanding protections for its diverse religious communities. During a visit to the United States last month by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, US President George W Bush extolled the Vietnamese government's efforts to advance religious freedom.
Such a statement, however, does not reflect facts on the ground. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal body, traveled to Vietnam late last year and met with senior government and religious leaders, including from the UBCV, as well as with members of Vietnam's civil society. At least 30 human-rights, democracy, religious freedom and labor advocates have been imprisoned for more than a year following their arrests in 2007, and others are under constant surveillance.
Religious adherents and communities in Vietnam also continue to experience government interference, intimidation, and heavy intrusive surveillance, particularly those who peacefully advocate for greater religious freedom or seek to organize independently of government oversight. Dozens of individuals are in prison or detention for reasons related to their religious activity or religious freedom advocacy, despite the US State Department's insistence that there are no longer any so-called "prisoners of concern" in Vietnam.
The harassment and detention of UBCV monks and the abuses still experienced by Vietnam's diverse religious communities directly contradict the claim that religious freedom conditions in Vietnam have improved so substantially as to warrant removing the country from the list of religious freedom violators. Buddhism is the primary religion among Vietnam's 86 million people and the continued suppression of the UBCV remains an obvious blight on the country's human-rights record that must not be ignored.
Between 2004 and 2006, the United States designated Vietnam as a country of particular concern (CPC) under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. This designation requires the US to take enhanced diplomatic action and includes sanctions and incentives for countries to engage the US on ways to protect this fundamental freedom.
Vietnam took several positive steps to expand religious freedom until 2006, when the CPC designation was lifted. Thereafter, religious freedom progress stalled: prisoners remained in jail, new arrests were made, and many of Vietnam's diverse religious communities once again faced restrictions. The Commission on International Religious Freedom found that the Bush administration acted too soon and recommended that it re-designate Vietnam as a CPC.
As the US-Vietnamese relationship grows, the US should think more clearly about how to shape its policies to press the Vietnamese government to cease its severe violations of religious freedom, including the arbitrary detention of dissidents, and to expand legal protections consistent with internationally recognized human rights.
The courageous UBCV leaders and monks and their followers deserve the right to practice their religion freely, without fear of official harassment and arrest, as international statutes provide. American policies and programs should show - in word and deed - that the US stands firmly on the side of liberty, freedom, and human rights in Vietnam.
Preeta D. Bansal, a lawyer in New York City and the former Solicitor General of New York State, and Dr. Richard D. Land, President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, are members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
(Copyright: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom)
August 31, 2009
Aug 31, 2009
By Talal Eid and Don Argue
While India recently celebrated 62 years of independence as the world’s largest democracy, this month also marked the first anniversary of the anti-Christian violence in the state of Orissa.
India is home to people from a multitude of cultural and religious backgrounds, and its modern identity rests on a tradition of secular governance dating back to its independence.
Yet recurring problems with religious discrimination and eruptions of communal violence are creating some very unfortunate breaks in this narrative.
Because local governments have failed to respond adequately to such incidents, and the national government has failed to take effective measures to protect the rights of its citizens who belong to religious minorities, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has put India on its 2009 Watch List.
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited India last month, she and India’s external affairs minister, S.M. Krishna, committed to building an enhanced India-U.S. strategic partnership that seeks to “advance solutions to the defining challenges of our time.”
Both leaders committed to working toward a world without nuclear weapons, advancing common security interests, pursuing sustainable growth and economic development, and collaboration on energy security and climate change.
But, there appeared to be little or no bilateral discussion of human rights concerns in India.
Last year, Maoists murdered a Hindu religious leader known for his anti-Christian rhetoric, and it sparked a violent campaign targeting Christians in Orissa. The violence, which went on for several weeks, was carried out by supporters of Hindu nationalist groups and resulted in the destruction of hundreds of homes, dozens of churches, and at least 40 deaths. Not only did police forces fail to protect Christians, but there were also indications of awareness, and perhaps assistance, by state and local officials.
Although the Orissa government has ordered an investigation into the violence, only six people have been convicted, and Christians in Orissa continue to face intolerance and intimidation by Hindu nationalist groups.
More than 30,000 Christians are still living in poor conditions in refugee camps and are being threatened that, in order to return home, they must “reconvert” to Hinduism. The Indian government must do more to supply the displaced with basic supplies and provide security for a safe return.
While the state government took preventive measures in Orissa immediately after the attacks so that the 2008 Christmas holiday occurred without incident, the central Indian government could undoubtedly do more to prevent and also to redress religious-based violence in Orissa and elsewhere.
More disturbingly, such violence is not a new phenomenon in India; for all of the country’s progress, communal violence remains a perennial problem.
The riots in Orissa were a painful reminder of the 2002 riots in the state of Gujarat, where over 2,000 Muslims were killed by Hindu mobs, hundreds of mosques and Muslim-owned businesses were looted or destroyed, and more than 100,000 people fled their homes. As alleged in Orissa, government investigations uncovered complicity by Gujarat state government officials and police inaction in the midst of these attacks.
Efforts to pursue the perpetrators of the Gujarat violence have made little progress. Seven years later, human rights groups report that many cases will likely remain unresolved or result in acquittals because of alleged lack of evidence or insufficient efforts on the part of local police.
For all of its economic gains, India continues to suffer from impediments to justice within the police, judiciary, and state government apparatus that have in a number of instances affected religious minorities.
In June, the Indian government refused to issue visas for USCIRF commissioners and staff to visit India to discuss religious freedom conditions with government officials, religious leaders and civil society activists.
Instead of avoiding discussion of religious freedom concerns, the Indian government should confront these incidents of communal violence. India’s citizens and law enforcement personnel must find a greater appreciation for international human rights guarantees, including those directed at the protection of religious minorities. In particular, Indian officials should take proactive steps to prevent further violence and challenge cultures of impunity in areas with a history of communal tension.
If India wants to promote its rich history of religious pluralism and the peaceful coexistence of different linguistic, ethnic and religious groups, the Indian government must take strong measures to address the plight of Christians in Orissa, as well as Muslims waiting for justice in Gujarat. Only then can it truly take advantage of its religious diversity and move away from repetition of similar violence.
Imam Talal Eid and Don Argue are commissioners of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in Washington.
October 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONOctober 14, 2015 | Mary Ann Glendon and Katrina Lantos Swett
The following op-ed appeared in the Atlantic Council on October 14, 2015. This op-ed also appeared in Newsweek.
"We cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated," US President Barack Obama said on September 28 at the UN General Assembly. He was condemning Russia's annexation of Crimea and its aggressive moves in eastern Ukraine.
Much of the world has decried these acts and their most visible consequences: at least 8,000 dead, 1.5 million internally displaced, and nearly a million made refugees. Yet we must not ignore another aspect of Russia's actions in Ukraine—serious violations of the right of freedom of religion or belief.
By any measure, this is a made-in-the-Kremlin problem. Russian President Vladimir Putin's government views the country's security through the lens of national identity, with a Kremlin-compliant Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church as its dominant religious and cultural expression. This view serves as a pretext for trampling upon religious diversity and freedom within Russia and now Ukraine.
After invading Crimea in March 2014, Russia ordered Crimea's religious groups, which number about 1,500, to register with Moscow under its religion law or lose their legal operating status. They face a bleak choice: Register under an onerous and costly process, or forfeit the right to open bank accounts, own property, invite foreign guests, and publish literature.
Russia also has targeted Crimea's religious minorities through its notorious anti-extremism law, which defines "extremism" as merely asserting the superiority of one's religious beliefs. This law does not require the threat or use of violence for the prosecution of individuals or the banning of Islamic and other religious texts.
Authorities have raided Muslim Crimean Tatar homes, mosques, and schools, as well as the Kingdom Halls of the Jehovah's Witnesses. They have detained imams and imposed fines simply for possessing Islamic and Jehovah's Witness texts banned under Russia's extremism law. They have accused the Majlis, the Crimean Tatar representative body, of extremism, and harass its members, while expelling two Turkish imams from Crimea.
Other than the Orthodox Church's Moscow Patriarchate, no religious community in Crimea has remained unscathed.
In March 2014, Rabbi Mikhail Kapustin of Simferopol was forced to flee Crimea after denouncing Russian actions. His synagogue was defaced by a swastika and a month later, vandals defaced Sevastopol's monument to 4,200 Jews murdered by the Nazis in July 1942.
Christian churches and leaders not affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate also have faced abuse and violence. Those within the Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarchate in Crimea have endured mob and arson attacks. By late 2014, clergy without Russian citizenship, including Greek and Roman Catholics as well as Kyiv Patriarchate clergy, were forced into exile. The home of the Kyiv Patriarchate's Bishop of Simferopol and Crimea was burned down.
Pro-Russian forces have visited similar abuses in the Donbas since Russian-backed paramilitary groups seized territory and proclaimed the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) last year.
Among these forces is the 4,000-man Orthodox Army, once headed by a Russian military intelligence officer and funded by a Russian oligarch.
These forces confiscated Jehovah's Witness, Evangelical, and Pentecostal houses of worship and schools, and perpetrated church attacks, abductions, and assaults on the Kyiv Patriarchate and Protestant representatives.
Several Ukrainian Orthodox churches in the Luhansk region were damaged. In separate incidents, a Protestant orphanage was raided and a rehabilitation center seized.
In June 2014, pro-Russian militants reportedly tortured to death five Protestants in Slovyansk. In July, DPR militants seized and reportedly abused a Greek Catholic priest, whom they held captive for twelve days, and a Roman Catholic priest whom they held for eleven days. In August 2014, they took prisoner two Protestant pastors, beating one of them severely. In October, they held captive a Seventh-day Adventist pastor for twenty days and subjected him to similar abuse.
Whether in Crimea or eastern Ukraine, blame for these religious freedom violations must be laid at Moscow's doorstep and the world must escalate pressure on the Putin regime to alter its course. Successful Ukrainian military resistance to pro-Russian aggressors in the Donbas shows very clearly that when people's freedom is endangered, they will take a stand.
It is time for Putin to recognize that freedom, not oppression, is the path to cultural integrity and lasting security. Russia must embrace religious freedom at home while allowing its Ukrainian neighbors the same rights in their own land.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov or 202-786-0615.
January 25, 2012
Jan 25, 2012
January 25, 2012 | by Leonard A. Leo and Rev. William ShawThe following op-ed appeared in the Baltimore Sun on January 23, 2012. For a link to the original article, go to
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-nigeria-20120123,0,6743343.story
Since the arrival of the New Year, America's Nigerian diaspora, including its significant community in Maryland, must be dismayed by the news from Africa's most populous country. The reluctance of Nigeria's government to prevent or punish violence between Muslims and Christians has invited further violations of religious freedom and losses of innocent life.
During the first week of January, in one day in Adamawa State in the north, at least 20 people were killed and 15 others wounded. The next day, eight worshipers attending the Apostolic Church in Adamawa were slain. Members or followers of Boko Haram, the terrorist group which killed hundreds in 2011 - including on Christmas Day in several church bombings - are suspected of being behind both atrocities.
The Adamawa bloodshed came after a demand by a purported Boko Haram representative that all Christians and southerners leave the north or face attack. It was followed by assaults on mosques and an Islamic school in the city of Benin in the south, leaving at least five people dead, and by the killing of four Christians fleeing the northern town of Maiduguri, which has been torn by Boko Haram's violence.
Over the years, violent religious actors, both Christian and Muslim, have literally gotten away with murder. Boko Haram is exploiting a climate of impunity in a country that has lost more than 13,000 people to religiously-related violence since 1999.
In a January 2011 meeting with a delegation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), on which we serve, Nigerian officials highlighted five convictions on terrorism charges. Unfortunately, there have been no convictions of perpetrators of sectarian violence.
Compounding the problem, religious police called the Hisbah are funded by state governments in Bauchi, Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna, and Kano and enforce a number of sharia laws.
These religious freedom abuses and Nigeria's sectarian strife should arouse the conscience of the world, including the United States.
Yet Nigeria's problem isn't just a humanitarian one. Nigeria remains a pivotal leader in Africa, a major exporter of oil, and a contributor to international peacekeeping operations. Its sectarian violence threatens the stability and viability of a country that is far too vital to be allowed to slide into eventual chaos and anarchy.
What can be done to turn Nigeria's tide?
First, Nigeria's religious leaders, both Muslim and Christian, should together condemn Boko Haram's atrocities as terrorist attacks which pour gasoline on sectarian flames. Religious leaders also must restrain their rhetoric, which divides Christians and Muslims further and stokes reprisal attacks.
Second, Nigeria's political establishment, including President Goodluck Jonathan and other leaders, should muster the will and courage not only to curb the strife but to bring all perpetrators to justice. That means seriously prosecuting them, regardless of their faith or position in society, and ensuring a speedy process which holds them accountable. Abuja must give state prosecutors more freedom and flexibility against offenders, rather than insisting on federal trials that result in holding the detained in the capital and releasing them a few months later.
Third, the United States should designate Nigeria a CPC or Country of Particular Concern, deeming it among the world's worst religious freedom violators for failing to prevent or contain religiously-connected violence, stop reprisal attacks, and convict the guilty. Ultimately, however, Nigeria must do more than punish Boko Haram members and other extremists. It must also undermine their appeal by combating military and police abuse against Muslims and rolling back the nation's ethnic preferences system - in which persons originating from one state are denied benefits in others - which fuels charges of discrimination by Muslims and Christians alike.
Finally, the United States can make ending the culture of impunity a central issue in this week's U.S.-Nigeria Bi-National Commission meetings, while offering help to bolster Nigeria's community policing abilities, train prosecutors, and strengthen its judicial system.
During those meetings, security and stability will be critical issues. For the sake of these issues, as well as human life and religious freedom, Nigeria must confront its impunity problem now.
Leonard A. Leo is chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Rev. William Shaw serves as a USCIRF Commissioner.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, contact Paul LIben at pliben@uscirf.gov or (703) 870-6041.
May 02, 2016
May 2, 2016
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
May 2, 2016 | Robert P. George
The following op-ed appeared in the Berkley Cornerstone on May 2, 2016
By any measure, religious freedom abroad has been under serious and sustained assault since the release of our commission’s last annual report in 2015. From the plight of new and longstanding prisoners of conscience, to the dramatic rise in the numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, to the continued acts of bigotry against Jews and Muslims in Europe, and to the other abuses detailed in the 2016 annual report, there was no shortage of attendant suffering worldwide.
The incarceration of prisoners of conscience—people whom governments hold for reasons including those related to religion—remains astonishingly widespread, occurring in country after country, and underscores the impact of the laws and policies that led to their imprisonment.
In China, pastor Bao Guohua and his wife, Xing Wenxiang, were sentenced in Zhejiang Province in February 2016 to 14 and 12 years in prison, respectively, for leading a Christian congregation that was opposing a government campaign to remove crosses atop churches. They join many other prisoners of conscience, including Ilham Tohti, a respected Uighur Muslim scholar, who was given a life sentence in September 2014 for alleged separatism.
Over the past year, the Chinese government has stepped up its persecution of religious groups deemed a threat to the state’s supremacy and maintenance of a “socialist society.” Christian communities have borne a significant brunt of the oppression, with numerous churches bulldozed and crosses torn down. Uighur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists continue to be repressed, and the Chinese government has asserted its own authority to select the next Dalai Lama. Falun Gong practitioners often are held in “black jails” and brainwashing centers, with credible reports of torture, sexual violence, psychiatric experimentation, and organ harvesting.
In Eritrea, where 1,200 to 3,000 people are imprisoned on religious grounds, there reportedly were new arrests this past year. Religious prisoners routinely are sent to the harshest prisons and receive the cruelest punishments. In 2006, the government deposed Eritrean Orthodox Patriarch Antonios, who protested government interference in his church’s affairs. Besides being stripped of his church position, he has been held incommunicado since 2007 and reportedly denied medical care. Eritrea’s dictatorship controls the internal affairs of the state-registered Orthodox Christian and Muslim communities and also bans public activities of non-registered groups. Religious freedom conditions are grave especially for Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In Iran, Shahram Ahadi, a Sunni cleric, was sentenced in October 2015 to death on unfounded security-related charges. Iran holds many other prisoners of conscience including the Baha’i Seven who were given 20-year sentences in 2010 for their leadership roles in the persecuted Baha’i community. They are: Afif Naeimi, Behrouz Tavakkoli, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Vahid Tizfahm, Fariba Kamalabadi, Mahvash Sabet, and Saeid Rezaie.
Elevating its own interpretation of Shi’a Islam above all others, Iran subjects its people—from Shi’a, Sunni, and Sufi Muslim dissenters to Baha’is and Christian converts—to increasing religious freedom abuses, from harassment to arrests and imprisonment. Some have been sentenced to death for “enmity against God.” Since President Hasan Rouhani took office in 2013, the number of individuals from religious minority communities imprisoned due to their beliefs has increased.
In North Korea, thousands of religious believers and their families are imprisoned in labor camps, including those forcibly repatriated from China. Because North Korea is such a closed society, it is hard even to know the names of religious prisoners. The government controls all political and religious expression and activities and punishes those who question the regime. Religious freedom is non-existent. Individuals secretly engaging in religious activities are subject to arrest, torture, imprisonment, and execution. North Koreans suspected of contacts with South Koreans or foreign missionaries or who are caught possessing Bibles have been executed.
In Pakistan, Abul Shakoor was sentenced on January 2, 2016 to five years in prison on blasphemy charges and three years on terrorism charges for propagating the Ahmadiyya Muslim faith. Another Pakistani, Asia Bibi, a Catholic mother of five, has been imprisoned since her arrest in 2009 on blasphemy charges. She remains on death row.
More people are on death row or serving life sentences for blasphemy in Pakistan than in any other country in the world. Aggressive enforcement of these laws emboldens the Pakistani Taliban and individual vigilantes, triggering horrific violence against religious communities and individuals perceived as transgressors, most recently Christians and Muslim bystanders on Easter Sunday 2016 in Lahore.
In Saudi Arabia, Ashraf Fayadh, a Saudi poet and artist, was sentenced to death in November 2015 for apostasy, allegedly for spreading atheism. His sentence was changed in February 2016 to eight years in prison and 800 lashes. Raif Badawi, founder and editor of the “Free Saudi Liberals” web site, has been imprisoned since 2012 on charges that include “insulting Islam.” In 2014, an appeals court increased his original sentence of seven years in prison and 600 lashes to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes.
Imposing its own interpretation of Sunni Islam on the country, Saudi Arabia bans all non-Muslim public worship and continues to prosecute and imprison individuals for dissent, apostasy, blasphemy, and sorcery. During the past year, the Saudi government continued to repress dissident clerics and members of the Shi’a community.
In Sudan, the government prosecuted 25 Qur’anists for apostasy and stiffened penalties for both apostasy and blasphemy. The regime prosecutes Christian pastors on trumped-up charges and represses and marginalizes the country’s minority Christian community. It imposes a restrictive interpretation of shariah law and applies corresponding hudood punishments on Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
In Uzbekistan, Gaybullo Jalilov, a member of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, remains imprisoned for his work on behalf of persecuted independent Muslims. Jalilov is serving an 11-year sentence handed down in 2010. Uzbekistan enforces a highly restrictive religion law and imposes severe limits on all independent religious activity in this overwhelmingly Muslim-majority nation. The government imprisons as many as 12,800 Muslims. In addition, the Uzbek state often brands Evangelical Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses “extremists” for practicing religion outside of state-sanctioned structures. Peaceful independent Muslims are likely to be victims of torture and just before their scheduled release date, the government often extends their sentences for minor violations of prison regimen.
In Vietnam, Reverend Nguyen Trung Ton, a Protestant minister, was detained in December 2015 and joins other prisoners of conscience including Father Nguyen Van Ly, who has spent decades in prison for advocating religious freedom, democracy, and human rights.
Despite some improvements in the decades following the Vietnam War, the government still controls nearly all religious activities, restricts independent religious practice, and represses individuals and groups viewed as challenging state authority. In order to be considered legal, religious organizations and congregations must register, sometimes at multiple government levels. In 2015, Vietnam proposed a new law on religion. However, initial drafts have not revised adequately or eliminated onerous registration requirements.
In addition to the significant number of people imprisoned on the basis of religion, the horrific global refugee crisis also worsened during the past year, with religion being a factor in humanitarian crises worldwide that have forced millions to flee. According to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, 59.5 million people worldwide were displaced forcibly as of the end of 2014, the highest on record, and this number likely exceeded 60 million in 2015.
Among the displaced were thousands of Rohingya Muslims forced to flee their homes in Burma, joining other Rohingya already displaced internally. While last year’s general elections marked the country’s bid to emerge from its past as a military dictatorship, the government enacted four discriminatory “race-and-religion” bills that not only effectively disenfranchised as many as one million Rohingya, but denied them the right to contest the elections. These measures reflect a legacy of their brutal persecution by both government and society, which contributed to the refugee crisis. Meanwhile, military incursions in Kachin and Shan states continued to displace and terrorize thousands, including their Christian residents.
Seeking refuge from a dictatorial government, Eritreans also have fled by the thousands each month, with an estimated half a million escaping one of the world’s most closed nations.
Adding disproportionately to the ranks of the displaced were millions from Iraq and Syria, including Yazidis, Christians, Shi’a Muslims, and Sunni Muslims who do not subscribe to the barbaric interpretation of Islam of the terrorist group ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also often referred to as IS, ISIL, or Da’esh). ISIS’s summary executions, rape, sexual enslavement, abduction of children, destruction of houses of worship, and forced conversions all are part of what our commission has seen as a genocidal effort to erase their presence from these countries. In March of this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry rightly proclaimed ISIS a perpetrator of genocide, which USCIRF had recommended publicly in December.
The governments of Syria and Iraq can be characterized by their near-incapacity to protect segments of their population from ISIS and other non-state actors, as well as their complicity in fueling the sectarian tensions that have made their nations so vulnerable. Syria’s government has not only fueled these tensions but committed crimes against humanity in its treatment of Sunni Muslims.
Conditions in Nigeria have contributed to the crisis there. Boko Haram continues to attack with impunity both Christians and many Muslims. From bombings at churches and mosques to mass kidnappings of children from schools, Boko Haram has cut a wide path of terror across vast swaths of Nigeria and in neighboring countries, leaving thousands killed and millions displaced.
In Central African Republican Republic, a 2013 coup helped create the conditions for sectarian fighting between Christians and Muslims in which civilians were targeted based on their religious identity. As a result, 80 percent of CAR’s Muslim population has fled to neighboring countries, and 417 of the country’s 436 mosques were destroyed. Sectarian and retaliatory violence continued in 2015, with the most serious resulting in 77 dead and 40,000 displaced.
Where did all these people go? While many were displaced to neighboring countries, in 2015, a record number of refugees and migrants, more than one million, attempted the perilous Mediterranean crossing or sought other avenues to apply for asylum in an unprepared Europe.
This mass influx fueled an already-rising tide of hatred and violence targeting Muslims and Jews, particularly in Western Europe.
Anti-Muslim activity, from verbal harassment to vandalism to violent assaults, increased in multiple Western European nations as xenophobic nationalist political parties and groups, including neo-Nazis, stirred up hatred against the newcomers and older immigrants.
Jews increasingly were targeted in similar ways by these same parties and groups, and also by Islamist extremists who in turn sought recruits from disaffected members of Muslim communities. The January 2015 terrorist attack on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris—along with attacks on a Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014 and a synagogue in Copenhagen last year—were among the horrific results. Despite the increasing police protection in places where European Jews congregate, the rise in anti-Semitism has produced an exponential rise in Jewish emigration from Europe, with immigration to Israel from France increasing from less than 2,000 in 2012 to nearly 8,000 last year alone.
These and other terrorist attacks also have produced backlashes against Muslims by members of the wider society, in which Muslims often are blamed collectively. Mosques have been given police protection in several countries, and European Union officials have stressed the importance of not stigmatizing all Muslims.
The incarceration of prisoners of conscience, the increase in the number of refugees, and the spread of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim actions across Europe are crises in their own right which cry out for continued action on the part of the international community, including the United States. To be effective, such action must recognize the unmistakable fact that religious freedom is a common thread in each of these challenges, and deserves a seat at the table when nations discuss humanitarian, security, and other pressing issues. The United States and other countries must fully accord this right the respect it deserves and redouble their efforts to defend this pivotal liberty worldwide.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Robert P. George is Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). This article was taken from the introduction to USCIRF’s 2016 Annual Report, released on May 2, 2016.
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONMay 20, 2015 | Katrina Lantos Swett
The following op-ed appeared in Berkley Cornerstone on May 13, 2015
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was taken from the introduction to USCIRF’s 2015 Annual Report.
“I will follow anyone…and remind everyone…of the fate…of the…Yazidi…No one mentions your tears, sadness or slow death! But we feel your fallen tears, your beheaded bodies, your raped dignity.” (Widad Akrawi, Iraqi-born human rights activist)
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“How in the twenty-first century could people be forced from their houses just because they are Christian or Shi’ite or Sunni or Yazidi?” (Baghdad Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako, July 2014 sermon in Baghdad)
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“The Assad regime made no effort to protect the al-Hasakeh province…[ISIL] launched a surprise attack….along the Khabor on February 23…, kidnapped 265 men, women, and children, sold 30 young women as sex slaves, and executed all captured Syriac defense forces….Upon securing control of…Tel Hormizd, [ISIL] informed [the elders] that all crosses must be removed…In fighting for control of Tel Tamr, they seized the Saint Circis Church and burned its Bibles and broke its cross….” (Testimony of Bassam Ishak, Syriac National Council of Syria, before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, March 18, 2015)
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“The devastating attack on the Grand Mosque in Kano, Nigeria…was almost certainly the work of Boko Haram, which…has targeted the Muslim ‘establishment’ in Nigeria….” (Tim Lister, CNN, November 30, 2014)
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“Madagali in Adamawa…was overrun…Christian men were caught and beheaded; the women were forced to become Muslims and were taken as wives for [Boko Haram].” (Father Gideon Obasogie, Director of Social Communications, Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri, Nigeria, cited in December 12, 2014 article from www.churchinneed.org website)
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“Almost all of the 436 mosques in the Central African Republic have been destroyed by…fighting between Christians and Muslims, the US ambassador to the United Nations [Samantha Power] said….At least 5,000 people have been killed since CAR exploded into unprecedented sectarian violence in December 2013. Nearly 1 million of [its] 4.5 million residents have been displaced, many of [them] Muslim.” (Cara Anna, Associated Press, March 18, 2015)
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“During my last visit [to Burma] in January 2015, I witnessed how dire the situation has remained in Rakhine State. The conditions in Muslim IDP [internally displaced person] camps are abysmal and I received heart-breaking testimonies from Rohingya people telling me they had only two options: stay and die or leave by boat.” (Yanghee Lee, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, March 2015 presentation to UN Human Rights Council)
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Humanitarian crises fueled by waves of terror, intimidation, and violence have engulfed an alarming number of countries in the year since the release of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) prior Annual Report last May. The quotations above highlight five of these nations—Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Central African Republic, and Burma—and the horrific loss of human life, freedom, and dignity that has accompanied the chaos.
A horrified world has watched the results of what some have aptly called violence masquerading as religious devotion.
In both Iraq and Syria, no religious group has been free of ISIL’s depredations in areas it has conquered. ISIL has unleashed waves of terror upon Yazidis and Christians, Shi’a and Sunnis, as well as others who have dared to oppose its extremist views. When ISIL last June overtook Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, it immediately murdered 12 dissenting Sunni clerics, kidnapped Christian priests and nuns, and leveled ancient houses of worship. The recent discovery of mass graves underscores the extent of the atrocities ISIL has perpetrated on foes of its reign.
More than half a million Mosul residents have fled their homes. When ISIL seized Sinjar, the Yazidis’ ancestral homeland, 200,000 were forced to flee. In Syria, ISIL’s horrors are replicated by those of other religious extremist groups and the Assad government.
Yazidis and Christians have borne the worst brunt of the persecution by ISIL and other violent religious extremists. From summary executions to forced conversions, rape to sexual enslavement, abducted children to destroyed houses of worship, attacks on these communities are part of a systematic effort to erase their presence from the Middle East.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram has attacked both Muslims and Christians. From mass murders at churches and mosques to mass kidnappings of children from schools, Boko Haram has cut a wide path of terror across vast swaths of Nigeria.
There is perhaps no more visible testament to the human toll of these depredations than the millions of people who have been forced to flee their homes. In Iraq, 2 million people were internally displaced in 2014 as a result of ISIL’s offensive. More than 6.5 million of Syria’s pre-civil-war population now is internally displaced, and more than 3.3 million more are refugees in neighboring states. In Nigeria, Boko Haram’s rampages are responsible for the displacement of more than one million individuals. In Central African Republic, a million or more people have been driven from their homes. And in Burma, 140,000 Rohingya Muslims and at least 100,000 largely Kachin Christians remain internally displaced.
By any measure, the horrors of the past year speak volumes about how and why religious freedom and the protection of the rights of vulnerable religious communities matter. Those responsible for the horrors have made the case better than anybody can.
And so it should come as no surprise that in the pages of this report, we have recommended that the United States designate all five of these nations—Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Central African Republic, and Burma—as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs under the International Religious Freedom Act. We are identifying their governments as well as others as either perpetrating or tolerating some of the worse abuses of religious freedom in the world.
For humanitarian reasons alone, the world dare not remain silent in the face of the long trail of abuses committed in these and other countries.
But there is another reason as well. In August 2014, Archbishop Jean-Benjamin Sleiman, Latin-rite Archbishop of Baghdad, had this to say: “Unless there is peace…, I do not think that Europe will be calm. This…does not stop at territorial boundaries….”
The Archbishop’s words proved tragically prophetic. Five months later, in January 2015, the same forces of violent religious extremism plaguing the Archbishop’s country struck the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket and the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris. The victims of the supermarket attack were murdered simply because they were Jews and the victims of the assault on the newspaper were killed because their attackers considered them blasphemers deserving punishment.
All nations should care about abuses beyond their borders not only for humanitarian reasons but because what goes on in other nations rarely remains there. Standing for the persecuted against the forces of violent religious extremism is not just a moral imperative; it is a practical necessity for any country seeking to protect its security and that of its citizens.
So what can the United States and like-minded nations do?
First, the humanitarian crises of the past year require continued emergency action. The United States government should be commended for its actions which helped save numerous Yazidis from murder or enslavement at the hands of ISIL or starvation as they were driven from their homes. The need, however, remains enormous, especially when it comes to the sheer number of refugees and displaced people created by the forces of religious radicalism.
Second, emergency help, while essential to protect lives and communities from current danger, is not enough. In the long run, there is only one permanent guarantor of the safety, security, and survival of the persecuted and the vulnerable. It is the full recognition of religious freedom as a sacred human right which every nation, government, and individual must fully support and no nation, government, or individual must ever violate.
In addition, since religious freedom does not exist in a vacuum, the fundamental problems of corruption and unequal sharing of national resources and opportunities must be dealt with. And legal systems must protect the rights of both the majority and minorities.
The stories of both Iraq and Syria offer an especially grim lesson on this score. In both countries, religious minorities appeared safe for a while, but owed their safety to the whim of strongmen—Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad—who offered protection for their own purposes. In both nations, the rule of a strongman took the place of rule of law. But to rely on the favor of a single ruler, regime, or party is to live precariously. The question is what transpires when those in control pass from the scene or decide that protecting an embattled minority no longer serves stated or unstated interests. In the blink of an eye, a minority’s safety and security can vanish.
Rulers, regimes, and parties may come and go, but when a society commits itself to religious freedom, the security of religious communities—as well as that of dissenters from religion—is guaranteed no matter who holds power.
To be sure, embedding religious freedom and other human rights in a society often can seem a herculean task, but it is a vital one.
And so we must stand tall for religious freedom as an antidote to religious extremism, an aid to security, and a universal right of humanity.
June 07, 2013
Jun 7, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONMay 1, 2013 | By Katrina Lantos Swett
The following op-ed was published in the Boston Herald on May 1, 2013.
Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of the violent demise of Osama bin Laden. His death provided a measure of justice, yet recent events offer a chilling reminder of how the fanatical ideology and methodology he embodied remains. The question is how to counter this violent religious extremism.
Here is one answer: Support religious freedom abroad.
The negative relation between extremism and freedom is clear. Studies show that while countries that protect religious freedom are more peaceful and stable than those that do not, nations that trample on this freedom provide fertile ground for war and terror and radical movements.
Indeed, of the four countries - Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Pakistan - that hosted bin Laden during his notorious life, each is an incubator of violent religious extremism, and all have perpetrated or tolerated repeated religious freedom violations.
In December 2012, the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace released a ranking of countries based on the number of terrorist attacks between 2002 and 2011. Seven of them - Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Somalia, Nigeria, and Russia - are either among the Tier 1 nations listed by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for designation as the world"s worst abusers or our Tier 2 list of serious religious-freedom violators.
Why is there a correlation between a lack of freedom and the presence of violent religious extremism?
First, when governments enforce laws - such as blasphemy-like codes - that stifle religious freedom, they embolden extremists to commit violence against perceived transgressors. In Pakistan, such codes fuel extremist violence against Christians and Ahmadi Muslims.
Second, when governments repress religious freedom or fail to protect it, they drive some into the arms of radical religious groups and movements. Russia"s repression of Muslims in the name of fighting the extremist views of some has produced violent extremism in others.
And finally, governments that crack down on everyone"s freedom in the name of fighting extremists also strengthen the extremists by weakening their more moderate, but less resilient, competition. Under President Mubarak"s rule, Egypt ended up strengthening the Salafists while weakening their more liberal opposition.
Taken in reverse, a government that abandons repression for freedom creates a true marketplace of ideas, forcing extremists to compete for hearts and minds with others.
In the end, in our post-9/11 world, there is no better way to defeat terrorism than by persuading people to reject the extremist ideologies that support it. Religious freedom is a powerful and effective tool to counter violent religious extremism and prevent the rise of future bin Ladens.
Katrina Lantos Swett serves as the Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Please contact USCRIFat (202) 523-3258 or media@uscirf.gov to interview a USCIRF Commissioner.
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
May 20, 2013| By William Shaw and M. Zuhdi Jasser , and Azizah al-Hibri
When President Obama meets with President Thein Sein of Myanmar (Burma) today, he should emphasize Washington"s commitment to Myanmar"s progress, while stressing the importance of preventing discrimination and violence against ethnic minority Muslims and Christians.
WASHINGTON
When the president of Myanmar (Burma), Thein Sein , meets with President Obama at the White House today, he will undoubtedly stress how his government has taken steps toward democratic reform. Indeed, in recent years, Myanmar has released hundreds of religious and political prisoners. It has eased Internet and media controls. It has held limited parliamentary elections.
To read the entire op-ed please visit The Christian Science Monitor .