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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
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.
February 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONFebruary 14, 2013 | By Katrina Lantos Swett and Catherine Cosman
The following op-ed appeared in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs on Wednesday, February 13, 2013.
"Russia is now a police state."
We heard those words from civil society activists in late September during our Moscow visit on behalf of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The words captured their view of Russia today, especially given last year"s targeting of fundamental freedoms, largely in response to protests against Vladimir Putin"s return to Russia"s presidency.
Last June, Putin signed a law imposing draconian fees on participants of unauthorized gatherings that violate "public order.”
In July, laws were enacted which criminalized libel, particularly against government officials, tightened Internet control, and required foreign-funded nongovernmental groups (NGOs) involved in undefined political activity to register as "foreign agents.”
In November, Putin signed amendments expanding the definition of high treason.
How did Russia arrive at such a point?
Its religious freedom record provides part of the answer.
Special Status for Some
In 1997, Russia passed its Law on Freedom of Conscience or "religion law,” which defined three categories of religious communities, each with varying legal status and privileges. Despite constitutional guarantees of equal legal status for every religion, the law"s preface singled out Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and particularly Orthodox Christianity as Russia"s four "traditional” faiths, implying special status for adherents.
While the preface lacks legal status, it set a biased tone for relations with numerous religious groups and denominations.
Registration Required but Denied
Indeed, Protestant representatives told us that Ministry of Justice officials either required that certain Protestant churches or new religious groups submit more detailed registration data than necessary to achieve legal status or refused to register them.
Officials can initiate court cases that may result in the banning of certain communities. While the Salvation Army was re-registered in Moscow in 2009, it had to litigate all the way to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Despite the ECtHR"s ruling that Russia"s 15-years"-existence rule violated the European Convention on Human Rights, the Church of Scientology, the Jehovah"s Witnesses, and the Armenian Catholics are still denied registration based on that statute. Parenthetically, the 15-year rule refers to the number of years a religious group must have existed in Russia in order to be eligible for registration.
Lack of registration has consequences. In September 2012, police presided over the destruction of the unregistered Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church near Moscow, which Pentecostals had reportedly been trying to register for more than 15 years.
Challenges for Islam and Impact of the Extremism Law
While Russia"s religious communities that are not "traditional” faiths continue to suffer, practitioners within at least one of these faiths-Islam-are not immune from abuse.
When in the minority, Muslims face hurdles in gaining permits to open mosques. Moscow has two million Muslims, but only four mosques. In Sochi, the site for the 2014 Olympic Games, its 20,000 Muslims unsuccessfully have applied continuously for 15 years for a mosque permit.
In the North Caucasus, where Muslims are the majority, Chechnya"s Kremlin-appointed president, Ramzan Kadyrov, condones or oversees mass human rights and religious freedom violations and has instituted a repressive state based on his own religious interpretations. According to human rights groups, at least nine women have been killed for "immodest behavior,” with Kadyrov praising the murders, according to human rights sources.
Muslims have been particularly impacted by Russia"s Extremism Law, through which people are labeled, often unjustifiably, as security threats. That law defined extremism as "propaganda of the exclusivity, superiority, or inferiority of citizens according to their attitude towards religion.”
In contravention of international law, Russians who preach that their particular faith is superior to others could be prosecuted.Due to amendments in 2007, the Extremism Law no longer requires the threat or use of violence to trigger an extremism charge.
Once a higher court upholds a ruling that material is "extremist,” the material is banned, with violators facing penalties ranging from a fine to five years in prison. As of November 2012, more than 1500 titles have been banned as extremist.
When a court in 2007 banned Russian translations of 14 Koranic commentaries by Turkish theologian Said Nursi, security wasn"t the issue; it was Nursi"s assertion of Islam"s "exclusivity.”
Responding last June to an Orenburg court"s earlier banning of 65 Muslim texts issued by "literally all Islamic publishers in Russia,” the nation"s largest-ever religious text ban, the Council of Muftis protested that this constituted the "revival of total ideological control … [and is] unacceptable in a democratic society.”
Non-Muslim Groups Targeted
While most banned religious material is Islamic, Russia also targets non-Muslim groups, including the pacifist Jehovah"s Witnesses and Scientology.
In 2009, a city court in the Altai republic ruled 16 Jehovah"s Witness publications extremist. In August 2011, a Tatarstan city court ruled 13 Scientology items extremist. As of April 2012, a St. Petersburg prosecutor has targeted a film by a Scientology-funded commission on psychiatric abuse. In May, seven Scientology materials were added to the Federal List of Extremist Materials.
For a year, relations with India were affected until a higher court overturned a ruling in Tomsk that had banned a Hare Krishna version of the Bhagavad Gita.
A Blasphemy Law?
What does Russia"s future hold for religious freedom and related rights? It could include a blasphemy law. This spring, Russia"s parliament may consider a new version of a 2012 bill levying fines or prison terms for "affronting” the ceremonies of Russia"s "historical” religions.
However, in a January 27 statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Kremlin suggested that amending existing laws might substitute for a blasphemy law.
The U.S. Response
How should the United States respond to Russia"s record on religious freedom and related rights?
The activists with whom we spoke urged Congressional passage of the Magnitsky bill , and it became law on December 14.It bars Russian human rights abusers from the United States and freezes their U.S.-linked bank assets. It"stime to make public the names of Russians subject to its sanctions. The U.S. also should implement the Smith amendment , which would bar funding to Russia because of its treatment of nonviolent religious minority groups and urge Russia to reform its extremism law so that it no longer applies to peaceful groups and individuals.
Before and after our visit, USCIRF publicly criticized Russia"s abuses. Konstantin Dolgov, the Foreign Ministry"s Special Human Rights Representative, attempted to defend the NGO law by telling us that it was modeled on the U.S. "foreign agents” law. In an official statement, Dolgov said that Moscow had received USCIRF"s views with "consternation”. Ramzan Kadyrov, whom we recommended placing on the Politically Exposed Persons list to freeze his bank assets, said USCIRF"scriticisms rest on "a shallow study of the situation.”
Such reactions confirm that Russia listens to criticism. Russia must know that in the struggle of freedom, the United States and the world community will speak out.
Please contact us at (202) 523-3258 or communications@uscirf.gov to interview a USCIRF Commissioner.
April 27, 2017
Apr 27, 2017
The following op-ed appeared in the Georgetown University Berkley Forum on April 26, 2017.
The op-ed also appeared in Religious Freedom Institute: Cornerstone.
By former USCIRF Commissioner Thomas J. Reese, S.J.
The state of affairs for international religious freedom is worsening in both the depth and breadth of violations. The blatant assaults have become so frightening—attempted genocide, the slaughter of innocents, and wholesale destruction of places of worship—that less egregious abuses go unnoticed or at least unappreciated. Many observers have become numb to violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines this right to include freedom to change one’s religion or belief, and freedom—either alone or in community with others and in public or private—to manifest one’s religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.
A year ago, then Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was committing genocide. This declaration marked the first time since Darfur in 2004 when a U.S. administration proclaimed an ongoing campaign as genocide. ISIS seeks to bring its barbaric worldview to reality through violence and genocide cloaked in a distortion of Islam. While the world has come to know ISIS and expects no better, there are members of the United Nations Security Council whose assaults on religious freedom are less violent, but no less insidious. On April 20, the Russian Supreme Court issued a ruling banning the existence of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in that country. Their right to religious freedom is being eliminated thoroughly—and yet “legally” under Russian law. Russia’s continued use of its “anti-extremism” law as a tool to curtail religious freedoms is one of the reasons USCIRF has recommended for the first time that Russia be designated as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act for particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
The right to the freedom of religion or belief is an encompassing right that can be taken away directly or indirectly, and thus: You cannot have religious freedom without:
. . . the freedom of worship;
. . . the freedom of association;
. . . the freedom of expression and opinion;
. . . the freedom of assembly;
. . . protection from arbitrary arrest and detention;
. . . protection from interference in home and family; and
. . . You cannot have religious freedom without equal protection under the law.
And on it goes.
Many violations of religious freedom do not appear to be aimed at religion. Violations can seem mundane, such as requirements for building permits (to establish/repair places of worship) or less mundane, such as restrictions on association (constraining the right to worship). Nonetheless, they are violations of international religious freedoms and they are increasing in numbers and frequency.
USCIRF also finds that many restrictions on religious freedoms are done under the guise of protecting national security. However, this “securitization” of religion is a double-edged sword.
The challenge of supporting religious freedom and enhancing security can be seen in both Bahrain and Egypt. During the year, the Bahraini government has increasingly cracked down on the religious freedom of its majority-Shi’a Muslim population, yet the U.S. Administration is lifting human rights conditions on the sale of weapons to Bahrain. Egypt, on the other hand, is working toward positive progress on certain aspects of religious freedom, yet the overall state of human rights remains dismal. Outreach by the government to religious minority groups, such as the Copts, is needed and positive, but has drawn the attention of extremists, such as ISIS, that are committing violence against such groups. Efforts by the government that erode the public’s ability to associate freely and express themselves inevitably curtail broader religious freedoms and send mixed, if not contradictory, messages.
Blasphemy laws are yet another example of governments using laws as a tool for restricting religious freedom under the purported need to protect religions from defamation. In more than 70 countries worldwide, from Canada to Pakistan, governments employ these laws, which lead to grave human rights violations, embolden extremists, and are, in the long run, counterproductive to national security.
State-sponsored or condoned oppression of the freedom of religion or belief is only part of the challenge. Non-state actors represent a less official yet no less virulent threat to such freedoms. The 2016 Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act requires the president to identify non-state entities engaged in severe religious freedom abuses and deem them “entities of particular concern,” or EPCs. This directive was both appropriate and overdue. Entities that control territory and have significant political control within countries can be even more oppressive than governments in their attacks on religious freedom. In this report, USCIRF recommends that ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and al-Shabaab in Somalia all be designated EPCs.
USCIRF advocates for religious freedom through its policy recommendations to the president, the secretary of state, and Congress. USCIRF also strengthens religious freedom advocacy networks abroad through education and outreach, including:
1. Collaborating with the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief;
2. Highlighting the complexities and synergies between the rights of women and girls and freedom of religion or belief; and
3. Advocating on behalf of religious prisoners of conscience by raising awareness of the violations of their freedom of religion or belief.
Religious freedom, at its core, is the right of individuals and communities to manifest their religion or belief, and is a basic human right. Protecting that right falls to each and every one of us, requiring people from all countries, political views, and faiths to come together to fight religious persecution and work to protect religious freedom for all.
This article was taken from the introduction to USCIRF’s 2017 Annual Report, released on April 26, 2017.
January 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018
This Op-Ed appeared originally in the Atlantic Council's blog, UkraineAlert, on January 31, 2018.
By Clifford D. May and Thomas J. Reese, S.J.
(Atlantic Council) - In 2017, for the first time ever, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that Russia be designated a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for the religious repression occurring there and for its exportation of such repression to Ukraine. USCIRF’s primary role is to monitor countries engaging in or tolerating "systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom,” and to recommend those countries that should be designated as CPCs. CPC designations open the door to a wide array of possible sanctions, though implementation is at the discretion of the State Department. Even without sanctions, the designation alone serves as a powerful signal to religious freedom violators of US disapproval. In its most recent announcement of CPC designations on January 4, however, the State Department did not include Russia.
In December, we traveled to Ukraine to learn more about the conditions of religious freedom in the Russian-occupied areas of Crimea and the Donbas. What we saw and heard confirmed the reality of Russian persecution and harassment of religious minorities in Russian-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk, the so-called “People’s Republics.” In these regions, religious freedom appears to be at the whim of armed militias untethered to any legal authority.
Religious freedom in Russian-occupied Crimea is also greatly curtailed. According to the United Nations, there were roughly 2,200 religious organizations, both registered and unregistered, in Crimea before the 2014 occupation. As of September 2017, only 800 remained. In June 2017, after the Russian Supreme Court decision to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist, all twenty-two local Witnesses organizations in Crimea, representing 8,000 congregants, were officially banned as well.
Although Russian repression of Crimean Tatars is mainly motivated by political rather than religious concerns, it disrupts Crimean Tatar religious activities and institutions. Russian authorities have co-opted the spiritual life of the Muslim Crimean Tatar minority and arrested or driven into exile its community representatives.
Oppression through the judicial process also continues apace. For example, in August 2017, the main church space of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in Simferopol, the administrative capital of Crimea, was seized by bailiffs enforcing a February 2017 court decision transferring its ownership to the Crimean Ministry of Property and Land Relations. According to the United Nations, five UOC churches have been officially seized or shut down since 2014. Meanwhile, Russia’s laws on religion and extremism, strengthened in July 2016, have been used to punish believers of various churches, including Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists, for the exercise of their faith.
Although the worst excesses in the Donbas have declined since 2015, Christian minorities remain the subject of raids, harassment, fines, and official slander. In August 2017, Luhansk security forces recorded themselves raiding two Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Halls, at the end of which they claimed to have found leaflets promoting Nazism and collaboration with Ukrainian intelligence. If this incident inspires déjà vu, it is because the Russian police were caught on video in 2016 planting evidence against Jehovah’s Witnesses.
A prime example of how religious activists and scholars can fall afoul of the authorities in the Russian-occupied areas is the case of Ihor Kozlovsky, sixty-three. Kozlovsky was a professor at the university in Donetsk who studied local religious movements. Active in Protestant Christian life in the area, he had earlier worked in the regional administration, dealing with religious affairs.
In January 2016, he was kidnapped by Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) security forces and accused of storing weapons in his apartment. The forces entered his apartment and searched it for several hours while terrifying his adult son, who suffers from Down Syndrome and paralysis and was alone at the time.
In May 2017, Kozlovsky was convicted of weapons possession and sentenced to nearly three years in prison. His wife and son were forced to flee to Ukrainian government-controlled territory. As far as we could tell on our trip, he was the only religious prisoner in the DPR under continuing detention and his only “crime” was civic activity on behalf of religious groups. Just after Christmas, however, he was released.
More than ever, USCIRF believes that the United States should take a stand for the religious minorities that Russia is oppressing in Russia, as well as in Crimea and the Russian-occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk. The commissioners strongly recommend that Russia be designated a Country of Particular Concern for its severe religious freedom violations, and that appropriate sanctions be imposed against the Russian Federation, including under the Magnitsky Act and the new provisions available in the Global Magnitsky Act.
(Clifford D. May and Thomas J. Reese, S.J. are commissioners on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.)
Photo credit: Screenshot Hromadske International
July 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018
This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill on July 27, 2018.
By former USCIRF Commissioners Tenzin Dorjee and Kristina Arriaga
To the surprise of many, there is a foreign policy issue on which the White House and Democrats and Republicans in Congress have agreed for over two decades: the global promotion and protection of religious freedom, defined as the fundamental human right to believe in and be guided by any faith, or none.
As articulated in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and codified in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), freedom of religion or belief means the rights of citizens are not dependent on their religious identity, practices or beliefs. This “first freedom” is the basis for many other rights, like the freedoms of speech, expression and association. In many countries where religious freedom is denied, not only are those countries’ inhabitants at risk, their national security and stability is undermined. Relatedly, freedom of religion or belief is crucial to America’s national security.
Republicans and Democrats alike recognize that where freedom of religion or belief is restricted, poverty and violence begin. It is in the countries that deprive their citizens of freedom of conscience that human trafficking and forced labor flourish. And it is in these countries that the roots of terrorism are sown.
The Trump administration seems to be especially cognizant of these threats to human dignity and regional and global security and stability. This week, the Department of State hosted the first Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, which drew hundreds of those involved in the global fight to defend religious freedom. Representatives of governments, international organizations, religious communities, civil society and others shared information, built awareness, debated policies and collaborated on solutions for people worldwide who are oppressed and persecuted because of their beliefs.
Religious freedom violations — ranging from discrimination to forced conversions to mass atrocities — are increasing in countries with authoritarian regimes that are aligned with their countries’ majority religions, or fearful of the influence of moral principles or alternative expressions they can’t control.
Among the 16 countries that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) considers “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC),” Pakistan is an example of the former; the government both actively persecutes religious minorities and turns a blind eye to discrimination and violence perpetrated against them by others. Examples of the latter include Vietnam, where communism is the only respected ideology or “belief.”
USCIRF has recommended to the State Department that these two countries (plus the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Russia and Syria) be designated as CPCs, which, under IRFA, would require the administration to take actions such as imposing Global Magnitsky sanctions, economic sanctions or travel limitations, to encourage improvements in freedom of religion or belief.
Tools the United States and other like-minded countries can use to promote and defend religious freedom were chief among the topics raised at the ministerial.
Another issue discussed is the link between violations of religious freedom and women's rights. Along with increased rates of sex trafficking, child and forced marriages, and gender-based violence in countries that deprive their citizens of freedom of conscience, there is little room for human rights defenders to mobilize to advocate for women’s rights.
In addition to addressing the countries that violate religious freedom, ministerial attendees sought solutions to the egregious religious freedom violations being committed by “Entities of Particular Concern (EPCs)." USCIRF has identified as EPCs and called for action against three of the most violent such groups: ISIS, which has committed genocide against Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims in Iraq; the Taliban, whose extremist interpretations of Sharia law have led to honor killings and denials of women’s right to education and other basic rights in Afghanistan; and the al Qaeda-aligned al-Shabaab that that has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, in Somalia.
Countries and organizations that suppress religious freedom threaten American and global security. Everyone should be encouraged by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s initiative to hold this ministerial. Protecting this fundamental right is not just a means of demonstrating our country’s bipartisan commitment to human dignity and global peace and stability, it’s in our national security interest.
Tenzin Dorjee serves as chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Kristina Arriaga serves as vice chair of USCIRF.
August 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
August 15, 2013 | By Katrina Lantos Swett and M. Zuhdi Jasser
The following op-ed appeared in The Moscow Times on August 15, 2013 | Issue 5192
This month marks the 22nd anniversary of the "August putsch," in which hardline Communists held Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev under virtual house arrest for several days at his dacha in the Crimea. They sought to crush democratic reforms, including expanded autonomy for the Soviet republics. Who can forget Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank in defiance of the coup attempt, or the Soviet Union's dissolution several months later, leading to freedom and independence for the Soviet republics?
Yet a generation later, some of these republics are reminiscent of the old Soviet Union as they commit serious human rights violations, particularly through enacting and enforcing laws against freedom of religion or belief.
As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, detailed in its 2013 annual report, the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan fit the congressionally established criteria for countries of particular concern, or CPC, marking them as some of the world's most egregious religious freedom abusers.
USCIRF has concluded that three more — Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia — are on the threshold of receiving CPC status because of their systemic failure to respect religious freedom and related rights.
Uzbekistan can fairly be viewed as Central Asia's heart of darkness. Among many other restrictions, its 1998 law on religion penalizes independent religious activity and applies vague anti-extremism laws against many Muslims and others who pose no credible security threat.
Under such laws, the government over the past decade reportedly has sentenced or imprisoned, sometimes in psychiatric hospitals, as many as 10,000 nonviolent individuals for terms of up to 20 years.
A USCIRF delegation visiting Tajikistan last December found that its government targets religious activity that is independent of state control and jails people on unproven criminal charges linked to their religious activity or affiliation. Such abuses affect the majority Muslim community and also religious minorities, particularly Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Tajikistan's 2009 religion law and other statutes include stringent registration requirements for religious groups, criminalize unregistered activity, limit the number and size of mosques and impose state controls on publishing and importing religious literature. Turkmenistan's 2003 law on religion imposes similar hardships on religious groups. Turkmenistan remains the former Soviet Union's most isolated country, with major restrictions on foreign and domestic education, foreign travel and telecommunications.
The quasi-religious personality cult of the late Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov dominated the country's public life. Today, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is building a cult of personality around himself. Criticism of the president is often tantamount to treason, and teachers and school children are compelled to spend many hours participating in numerous public parades in the president's honor.
Kazakhstan, once Central Asia's bright spot, now is following the lead of these three other Central Asian countries. Onerous registration requirements in Kazakhstan's 2011 religion law have led to a sharp drop in registered religious groups, including Muslim and Protestant groups. The law permits regional and local religious organizations to be active only in their geographic area of registration, requires official permission to build or open new places of worship and restricts the distribution of religious materials to a limited number of government-approved premises.
Since Azerbaijan's government enacted a restrictive religion law in 2009, its religious freedom record has worsened markedly. This nation, which has a Shiite Muslim majority, bans unregistered religious activities, limits religious activities to a community's registered address and requires government permission to produce, import, export and disseminate religious materials after such materials have passed state censorship.
Russia's 1997 law on religion defines three categories of religious communities with varying requirements, legal status and privileges. By singling out Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Orthodox Christianity as the country's four "traditional faiths," the preface to the law sets an official tone that encourages discrimination against Protestants and other religious minorities.
A USCIRF delegation noted deteriorating religious freedom conditions in Russia during its September 2012 visit. First, the government continues to violate the rights of so-called "nontraditional" religious groups and Muslims. Second, it has implemented an extremism law against religious groups and individuals not known to use or advocate violence, particularly Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslim reading circles focused on the works of Turkish theologian Said Nursi, whose books are banned across Russia. Third, Russia gives outward support for and preference to the Orthodox Church. In June, President Vladimir Putin signed a new blasphemy law with possible criminal penalties against those deemed to have "offended religious sensibilities," thus opening a potential Pandora's box of abuse.
Many of these measures recall the darkest days of the Soviet Union when its republics marched in lockstep. Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan now all follow Soviet-style imprisonment of those refusing to worship according to state diktat. Soviet-style vetting to establish the legal status of religious literature is practiced by all six nations. The Soviet practice of subjecting religious dissenters to psychiatric evaluations continues, particularly in Uzbekistan.
While during the Soviet era, the false diagnosis of psychiatric illness was used against many who shared their belief in God, today the psychiatric profession is once again being hijacked — this time to persecute and falsely label those who reject a belief in a deity. For example, Alexander Kharlamov, an atheist writer in Kazakhstan, has been held against his will and forced to undergo psychiatric examination.
With the demise of the Soviet Union hastened by democratic opposition across the region a generation ago, we hoped that also meant the end of religious repression in that region of the world. But in too many post-Soviet states today, the ghost of Soviet control over peaceful religious life is alive and well.
Katrina Lantos Swett and M. Zuhdi Jasser are Vice Chairs of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact Kalinda Stephenson at 202-786-0613 or kstephenson@uscirf.gov This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
August 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
August 30, 2016 | Daniel I. Mark and Sandra Jolley
The following op/ed appeared in Religion News Service on August 30, 2016
(RNS) Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was a 6-year-old boy when he disappeared from his home in Tibet in 1995. China’s government was the culprit, abducting him three days after the Dalai Lama had proclaimed him the 11th incarnation of the Panchen Lama. Twenty-one years after this unconscionable action, he remains disappeared, with Beijing claiming he is in its custody.
Countless individuals endure a similar fate across the globe, typically at the hands of governments that repress human rights.
Tuesday (Aug. 30) — the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances — we will mark their plight. Declared by the U.N. General Assembly in 2010, this day stands as an indictment of every nation that is responsible for disappearances.
As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, on which we serve, has documented, many have been disappeared for reasons relating to religion.
The Panchen Lama is but one example from China. Among others are Catholic priests who refused to submit to China’s registration rules designed to control religious practice, and human rights lawyers like Gao Zhisheng who advocate for people of faith. Now under strict surveillance, he initially disappeared in 2009. In July 2015, Beijing launched a sweeping dragnet against other religious freedom defenders and human rights advocates, with nearly 300 arrested, detained or disappeared.
Russia is another perpetrator of religious disappearances. In the Tatarstan region, Suleiman Zaripov, a leading Russian Tatar imam, was disappeared in early 2016. In the North Caucasus region, officials wage a grinding battle against insurgent and peaceful Muslims alike, imposing “collective justice” through disappearances, as well as detentions, torture and murder.
After annexing Crimea in 2014, Russian forces began to subject its people to Russia’s religious freedom restrictions, from onerous religious registration rules to its extremism law. As in Russia, Muslims were disproportionately targeted, with the practice of Islam often conflated with extremism. In 2014, a number of Crimean Tatars were disappeared, including Islyam Dzhepparov and Dzhevdet Islayamov.
In Uzbekistan, the same government that holds an estimated 12,000 mostly nonviolent Muslim religious prisoners also is responsible for disappearing Muslim leaders such as Abduvali Mirzaev and his elder son, Obid Nazarov. In January 2016, the Uzbek government announced the death in prison of Akram Uldashev, a religious leader whose writings inspired an independent Muslim business movement.
Authorities had imprisoned him since 1999 for alleged involvement in a deadly bombing in Tashkent, a charge that human rights groups roundly dismissed as bogus. Uldashev’s family did not know his whereabouts within the Uzbek prison system since 2009.
Another country notorious for disappearances relating to religion is North Korea, which restricts every aspect of its citizens’ lives, including religious practice. Anyone discovered engaging in clandestine religious activity faces draconian penalties including disappearance, torture and public execution. Because North Korea is such a closed society, it is hard even to know the names of the disappeared.
What can we do about those who have been disappeared and the nations responsible for disappearing them?
The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which created USCIRF, holds some answers. IRFA calls upon the State Department to designate nations that perpetrate or tolerate severe religious freedom violations as CPCs, or “countries of particular concern.”
CPC designations mark these states as the world’s worst religious freedom abusers, which may make them eligible for sanctions and other consequences. Among the IRFA criteria for CPC designation is the habitual practice of “causing the disappearance of persons by [their] abduction or clandestine detention … ” Such a designation draws attention to those disappeared and the conditions that led to their incarceration.
The State Department rightly designates three of the four nations noted above — China, North Korea and Uzbekistan — as CPCs. As for Russia, its religious freedom situation is increasingly dire. If the violations in Russia reach the CPC standard of “systematic, egregious and ongoing,” then Russia, too, could earn a recommendation for CPC status.
Moreover, there are other nations that USCIRF recommends as CPCs, all of which are covered in our annual report, but that the State Department has not designated as such. Designating them as CPCs would be another important step.
Another meaningful action to take in support of the disappeared is to advocate vigorously on their behalf. One such effort that the U.S. House of Representatives undertakes is the Defending Freedoms Project.
Launched in December 2012 by the Tom Lantos Commission in conjunction with USCIRF and Amnesty International USA, the project works with members of Congress to advocate for the release of prisoners of conscience, including those who have been forcibly disappeared, and highlight the restrictive conditions that led to their imprisonment.
Equally important, beyond official action, people of conscience can and should take up the cause of the disappeared.
In the end, silence is the mortal enemy of the disappeared. Let us not be silent. Let us be a voice for the voiceless. Let us not rest until the disappeared are freed or accounted for and culpable governments are held responsible.
(Daniel Mark is a vice chair at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Sandra Jolley is a USCIRF commissioner.)
November 16, 2017
Nov 16, 2017
The following originally op-ed appeared in The Hill on November 16, 2017
By former USCIRF Commissioners Daniel Mark and Sandra Jolley
People love lists. And when those lists are in the news, people generally want to be on them: The Top Ten. Who’s Who. Best Dressed.
But no one wants to be on our lists.
That is because our job, as members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), is to list the countries responsible for perpetrating or tolerating the world’s worst violations of religious freedom.
These lists, mandated by Congress, are the centerpiece of our annual recommendations for promoting religious freedom abroad through U.S. foreign policy. From there, our lists go to the State Department, which must determine whether to adopt our recommendations for designating the world’s worst violators as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs).
Thanks to new legislation, the designation of CPCs by the State Department — which did not occur every year and which has not happened since October 2016 — is expected in November. And we, as chairman and vice chairwoman of USCIRF, very much hope that the Trump administration’s list of CPCs will look a lot like ours.
Unfortunately, the State Department designations, which were required by law no later than Nov. 13, still have not been made. Failing to designate CPCs tells the violators of religious freedom around the world that the United States is looking away. The State Department should make such designations without delay.
In our annual report, released in April, USCIRF recommended that 16 countries be designated CPCs: Burma, Central African Republic, China, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Unfortunately, since that time, there has been plenty more bad news to confirm the judgments on our list: Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed the Jehovah’s Witnesses, wiping out the legal existence of an entire religion; Rohingya Muslims are fleeing Burma in the hundreds of thousands as that country’s military leaders conduct what United Nations officials have described as ethnic cleansing; and Pakistan continues its persecution of the Ahmadiyya community, particularly through the use and abuse of blasphemy laws (including death sentences) that have no place in the 21st century.
Meanwhile, USCIRF commends the Trump administration’s nomination of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. If confirmed before the CPC designations are made, Gov. Brownback’s first priority should be to see all 16 countries designated as CPCs by the State Department.
For now, let us look at just three.
Russia: This year is the first time USCIRF ever recommended that Russia be designated as a CPC — one of the worst of the worst when it comes to religious freedom violations. We did not come to this conclusion lightly, and Russian actions since have only reinforced our position.
In outlawing the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Russia absurdly claimed that this pacifist, non-political group was a threat under Russia’s anti-extremism laws. The Witnesses can no longer proselytize, their organization’s property is subject to seizure, they face sanction for gathering to worship, and they now occupy a category of “extremists” with neo-Nazis and jihadists.
Another target of Russia’s attacks is Scientologists. After the Supreme Court ruling against the Witnesses, Russia’s Federal Security Bureau arrested, detained and interrogated five Scientologist leaders in St. Petersburg: Anastasiya Terentyeva, Sakhib Aliev, Ivan Matsytski, Galina Shurinova, and Konstantia Esaulkova. Alleging crimes related to “commercial activity,” these arrests make it clear the Supreme Court ruling against the Witnesses simply cleared the way for more harassment of minority groups.
Moreover, Russia has the dubious distinction of being a country that not only oppresses its religious minorities — it also exports such oppression, as is evidenced by the treatment
of religious minorities in Russian-occupied Ukraine and Crimea.
Burma: Burma’s Rohingya Muslim population has been called the most persecuted religious minority in the world. Now that truth is being underlined — in ink throughout the world’s headlines and in blood on the earth, as more than half a million have fled for their lives. They flee burned villages and slaughtered families. They flee barefoot over barbed wire and landmines. Now is surely not the time for the U.S. to reverse its longstanding designation of Burma as a CPC.
Pakistan: A U.S. ally in counterterrorism yet also a supporter of extremism in many forms, Pakistan is a conundrum for U.S. policymakers. On religious freedom grounds, however, the issue is clear: Pakistan is among the world’s worst violators. Its blasphemy and anti-Ahmadiyya laws are indefensible, and, through acts of commission and omission, the government deserves blame for the virulence and violence against the Ahmadiyya community throughout Pakistani society.
And the Ahmadis are but one notable example of religious persecution in Pakistan. For years, the State Department has declined to take up our recommendation, but we believe that the new Trump administration will take a principled stand and finally designate Pakistan a CPC.
Also thanks, to new legislation, USCIRF recommended this year for the first time three non-state actors for designation as “entities of particular concern” (EPCs): the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria; the Taliban in Afghanistan; and al-Shabaab in Somalia.
The administration does not need to make its designations of EPCs in November, but there is no time to waste. We look forward to working with the White House and the State Department on identifying EPCs and the tools to use against them.
For now, the administration can make a strong start in advancing international religious freedom by naming those 16 countries as countries of particular concern.
Daniel Mark and Sandra Jolley are, respectively, the chairman and vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.