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October 28, 2015
USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George testified on October 27, 2015 before Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at a hearing titled "The Global Crisis of Religious Freedom,"Read Testimony before the Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee Of the House Foreign Affairs Committee On The Global Crisis of Religious Freedom & Its Challenge to U.S. Foreign Policy
Subcommittee Hearing: The Global Crisis of Religious Freedom (EventID=104112)
April 21, 2016
USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George testified on Tuesday, April 19, 2016 before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission at a hearing entitled "Confronting the Genocide of Religious Minorities: A Way Forward."From the testimony:
"USCIRF in 2015 called on the U.S. government to declare that ISIL was committing genocide against the Christian, Yazidi, Shi’a, Turkmen, and Shabak communities in the areas it controls in Iraq and Syria. At that time, USCIRF also called on American and world leaders to condemn ISIL’s actions against these groups and other ethnic and religious groups, including the brutal persecution and crimes against humanity against Sunni Muslims who refuse to embrace its extremist ideology."
Read Chairman George's full testimony before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. Watch the hearing below.
July 09, 2019
On June 27, 2019, Vice Chair Nadine Maenza testified at a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on violations of the right to freedom of religion of Christian communities around the world.Written Testimony
Hearing Webpage
February 04, 2008
Hearing on the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2004 and the Designation of Countries of Particular Concern
Before the House International Relations Committee of the United States House of Representatives
October 6, 2004
USCIRF Chair Preeta D. Bansal testifies before the HIRC on the State Department's 2004 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom and the Designation of Countries of Particular Concern.
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, let me begin by thanking you for the opportunity to testify today at this important hearing. I plan to summarize the Commission's testimony in my oral remarks, but would like to request that my full written statement be included in the record.
Six years after the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, or IRFA, it has become abundantly clear that promoting freedom of thought, conscience and religion and related human rights abroad is vital to U.S. foreign policy and to our strategic, as well as humanitarian, interests. When observed, freedom of religion or belief is one of the linchpins of stable, democratic, productive societies in which the rule of law and human rights are accorded value. When denied, generations of hatred and societal instability may be sown - and, as has been demonstrated all too often, such hatred and instability spill over national borders. The promotion of religious freedom throughout the world is therefore an essential tool in the war against the extremist and violent religious ideologies that currently threaten us. The State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom provides Congress and the public an opportunity to assess not only the state of religious freedom around the world but also what the U.S. government is doing to promote this key U.S. foreign policy objective.
Mr. Chairman, I am here to testify on the State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2004 and the designation of "countries of particular concern," or CPCs, at a time when the Secretary of State has recently named three new CPCs: Eritrea, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia. The Commission has long called for these new designations, particularly that of Saudi Arabia, and we welcome this decision, as it represents an important step forward in demonstrating the U.S. government's commitment to the promotion of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief as part of its overall foreign policy. At the same time, IRFA is very clear that more is required of the U.S. government than just naming these three countries as CPCs. Important obligations, in the form of consequent actions, flow from the CPC designation, and my testimony will address precisely what those obligations are. In the interest of time, I will focus particularly on the new designation of Saudi Arabia, a country on which the Commission has focused considerable attention since the Commission began its work six years ago.
In addition to the new CPCs and the next steps as required by IRFA, my testimony will touch on the situation in Iraq, where the U.S. government has a special obligation to ensure that freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi is guaranteed. As we are required to do by statute, I will comment about the Annual Report, in relation to the country reports and the U.S. refugee program. Finally, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to discuss the Commission's work with regard to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which covers a vital region including all of Europe, the former Soviet Union, Canada and the United States. The need to promote religious freedom for the growing Muslim minority populations in OSCE countries, together with the need to recognize and to combat growing anti-Semitism in the region, cannot be understated.
Three New Countries of Particular Concern: Designation is Only a Beginning - The Need for Responsive Action to Address Religious Freedom Violations
The designation of severe religious freedom violators as CPCs continues to be one of the most significant human rights decisions for any U.S. Administration. The five countries named as CPCs in the past and re-named last month by the Secretary of State, Burma, China, Iran, North Korea, and Sudan, are all subject to pre-existing sanctions, and the U.S. government has thus not taken any additional actions as a result of their designation. With the recent designation of Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and Eritrea, however, we now find ourselves in an unprecedented situation. This year, for the first time since the passage of IRFA, the State Department must do more than rely on pre-existing sanctions to meet IRFA's requirements.
Though we support the new designation of these three countries, the Commission would like to call attention to the fact that CPC designation is not an end point, but only the beginning of focused diplomatic activity to promote freedom of religion or belief. In addition to CPC designation, IRFA stipulates that the U.S. government respond with action to address violations in CPC countries. Until this year, for every country named a CPC, the only official action taken by any U.S. administration has been to invoke already existing sanctions rather than to take any additional action pursuant to IRFA. While the reliance on pre-existing sanctions may technically have been correct under the statute, it was unacceptable as a matter of policy and not in keeping with the spirit of IRFA. Moreover, the State Department has not once to date submitted to the Congress the required evaluation of the effectiveness of prior actions against CPCs. This past disregard of IRFA requirements represents a serious failure in U.S. foreign policy that the Commission hopes will not be continued.
According to IRFA, now that CPC designations have been made, the Secretary of State must do three things within 90 days of the time of designation, which would be some time in mid-December: first, consult with the foreign government in question and others; second, either take an action from one of several specified in IRFA (or a commensurate action), or conclude a binding agreement, or waive taking an action altogether; and third, report to Congress on the action taken, which should include an evaluation of the impact of that action. 1 Thus the outlined scheme consists of consultation, responsive action, and then reporting and evaluation to Congress.
With regard to the second critical step - responding substantively to the CPC designation by action, binding agreement, or waiver of action - IRFA provides some flexibility. It outlines several actions available to the U.S. government in response to CPC designation. These include: the withdrawal, limitation, or suspension of development assistance; limitations on loan guarantees or credit provided by such institutions as the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or the Trade and Development Agency; the withdrawal, limitation, or suspension of security assistance; a vote against loans from international financial institutions; a prohibition on U.S. financial institutions from loans or credits totaling more than $10,000,000; and a prohibition on U.S. government contracts with the country in question. 2
IRFA also specifies that in lieu of one of the above actions, the U.S. government can negotiate a binding agreement with the foreign government to cease, or take substantial steps to address and phase out, the act, policy, or practice constituting religious freedom violations. 3 As an alternative, the Secretary of State may waive the application of any of the actions specified in IRFA, but only if: (1) the foreign government has ceased the violations; (2) the waiver would further the purposes of the IRFA; or (3) an important national interest of the U.S. requires such a waiver. It is important to note that any waiver must be reported to Congress, along with a detailed justification. 4
As noted, the State Department has yet to take any of these formal steps with regard to previously designated CPCs, and the Commission has been concerned about this underutilization and disregard of the statutorily prescribed process. For all of the CPC-designated countries, new as well as past CPCs, the Commission looks forward to working with the State Department as it formulates statutorily required responses to religious freedom violations. In the coming weeks, the Commission intends to provide recommendations on steps that can be taken with regard to the newly-designated CPCs, in particular.
Saudi Propagation of Religious Intolerance and Hate
The Commission's long-standing recommendation of CPC designation for Saudi Arabia was based in part on the Saudi government's violations of religious freedom within its own borders, where, as the State Department itself has been noting for several years, religious freedom simply "does not exist." The Saudi government forcefully bans all forms of public religious expression other than that of the government's interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam so that ultimately, all individuals, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, are denied freedom of conscience and belief in Saudi Arabia. This impedes the development of alternative voices within the Islamic tradition, as well as debate within and dissent from prevailing state-imposed orthodoxy.
The ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom by the Saudi government include: torture and cruel and degrading treatment or punishment imposed by both judicial and administrative authorities; prolonged detention without charges and often incommunicado; and blatant denials of the right to liberty and security of the person, including coercive measures aimed at women and the wide jurisdiction of the religious police (mutawaa), whose powers are vaguely defined and exercised in ways that violate the religious freedom of others.
The Commission welcomes the fact that during last month's press conference announcing the release of the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, for the first time, raised the Commission's other serious concern about Saudi Arabia: credible reports that the Saudi government and members of the royal family, directly and indirectly, fund the global propagation of an exclusivist religious ideology, Wahhabism, which allegedly promotes hatred, intolerance, and other abuses of human rights, including violent acts, against non-Muslims and disfavored Muslims. The lack of religious freedom inside Saudi Arabia, together with the Saudi government's alleged funding and global propagation of a particular, radically intolerant interpretation of Islam, impedes the development of voices of toleration and debate within the Islamic tradition in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
The U.S. government should be highly concerned about the allegations that Saudi Arabia, by funding propagation of an exclusivist religious ideology, is engaging in activities that have a detrimental effect on the protection of freedom of religion or belief in at least 30 foreign countries, as well as in the United States. Because of its concerns, the Commission last year recommended that the U.S. government formally examine whether, how, and to what extent the Saudis are funding extremist activities, and urged Congress to fund such a study and make public its findings. In April of this year, Congress took up the Commission's recommendation, and several Members of Congress wrote to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting that the GAO seek information from the relevant agencies and consult with outside experts, including the Commission, on the promotion of religious extremism to determine what the U.S. government is doing to identify sources of Saudi funding for institutions that advocate violence and intolerance, and what the U.S. government is doing to counter that influence. The Commission looks forward to working with the GAO in carrying out this important study.
The Commission plans soon to issue recommended responses pursuant to the IRFA statute to follow up on the CPC designation of Saudi Arabia. We note, however, that there are several small steps the U.S. government can take immediately. For example, the U.S. government should urge Saudi Arabia to safeguard the freedom to worship privately; permit clergy to enter the country and perform private religious services; and permit non-Wahhabi places of worship to function openly in special compounds or in unadorned buildings. These represent the barest minimum that could be done to improve the appalling religious freedom situation in Saudi Arabia.
Other CPCs
The Commission welcomed the designation of Vietnam, a country recommended for CPC status by the Commission since 2001. Religious freedom conditions have deteriorated in Vietnam, including for ethnic Montagnard and Hmong Christians, the leaders of the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam, and "house church" Protestants, all of whom face arrests, detentions, discrimination and, in some areas, forced renunciations of faith. In view of its active repression of religious freedom in the past and for the government of Vietnam's failure to respond to the international community's repeated requests to address ongoing violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief, Vietnam unmistakably warranted a CPC designation.
The State Department's acceptance of the Commission's recommendation of CPC designation for Eritrea is also commendable. The government of Eritrea in the past two years has embarked on a campaign against various religious groups, including through the closure of all houses of worship not belonging to officially recognized religious denominations, the arrest of participants at prayer meetings and other gatherings, and the imprisonment of armed forces members found in possession of certain religious literature.
The Commission would like to note for the record that it remains troubled that Turkmenistan has not been given the CPC designation it so clearly merits. The State Department's own reports have consistently concluded that religious freedom conditions continue to deteriorate in Turkmenistan, a highly repressive country whose leader is currently imposing a state religion based on his own personality cult. Though the Turkmen government recently announced a few positive legislative changes, those small, judiciously timed measures will do little or nothing substantially to change the country's highly restrictive religious freedom conditions. Clearly, Turkmenistan deserves to be named a CPC. The Commission also found that the governments of India* and Pakistan have engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom, and recommended that they be designated as CPCs.
2003 Designations Omitted
Before leaving the subject of CPCs, the Commission would like to register concern about the delay in naming CPCs in the past two years. The fact that designations for 2002 were not made until March 2003 means that there were effectively no CPC designations at all for the 2003 cycle. CPC designations - and subsequent actions - are vital to advance U.S. protection against severe violations of religious freedom. Promoting religious freedom as outlined in IRFA and ensuring global respect for freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief and related human rights will further the U.S. government's campaign against terrorism and its goal of promoting democratic reform. The need to adhere to IRFA procedures therefore remains of critical importance.
Iraq: Religious Freedom Remains Critical
The Commission notes that Iraq is no longer on the U.S. government's list of CPCs. In addition, the 2004 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom contains no country report on Iraq. The absence of a report should not in any way be construed as an indication that religious freedom is not essential to the development of a stable and democratic Iraq. In fact, heightened awareness of the freedom of religion or belief is critical in the coming months, as the Iraqi people embark upon the historic task of crafting a permanent constitution.
The U.S. government cannot lose sight of the vital need to ensure that the fundamental right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief is guaranteed in Iraq's permanent constitution. Understanding the shortcomings of the recently adopted Afghan constitution illustrates this important policy objective with respect to Iraq. In Afghanistan, another country in which the United States has substantial influence due to extraordinary circumstances, the Constitution adopted last January does not contain explicit protections for the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief that would extend to every individual. More significantly, all of its individual rights provisions - including the right to life - can be trumped by ordinary legislation. Such law, in turn, is valid only if it conforms to the sacred religion of Islam, and the Afghan Supreme Court is empowered with evaluating the validity of legislation according to Islam. And so reconstructed Afghanistan faces the real spectre of a constitutionalized judicial theocracy in which individual rights are easily trumped. The new Constitution does not fully protect Afghans, including individual Muslims, who want to debate the role of religion in law and society, or to question interpretations of religious or other precepts without fear of retribution.
Let me give you an anecdote from the Commission's 2003 visit to Afghanistan to demonstrate that our concern on this matter is not theoretical or fanciful. The head of Afghanistan's Supreme Court is a man who has shown little regard for those who disagree with his hard-line interpretation of Islam. He told those of us visiting Afghanistan that yes, he supports international human rights standards, with the exception of three: freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and gender equality. Although we are in the halls of Congress and not the Ford Theatre, I think it is fair to say, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" It is the Afghan Supreme Court - headed by this man - that has been given the authority to interpret the suitability of all legislation.
With no guarantee of the individual right to religious freedom and a judicial system instructed to enforce Islamic principles and Islamic law, the new Afghan constitution does not fully protect individual Afghan citizens against, for example, unjust accusations of religious "crimes" such as apostasy and blasphemy. There are also fewer protections for Afghans to debate the role and content of religion in law and society, to advocate the rights of women and members of religious minorities, and to question interpretations of Islamic precepts without fear of retribution. This could permit a harsh, unfair, or even abusive interpretation of religious orthodoxy to be officially imposed, violating numerous rights by stifling dissent, which is permissible within the Islamic tradition.
It is critical that what happened in Afghanistan not be repeated in Iraq. In the early stages of the drafting of Iraq's interim constitution, the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), the sections on fundamental freedoms and human rights did not include guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi. In response, as it had done in the case of Afghanistan, the Commission developed for senior U.S. policymakers a series of specific recommendations that would ensure in the TAL guarantees to the right to freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi. The Commission met or corresponded with senior U.S. officials in the Coalition Provisional Authority, the State Department, and the National Security Council to discuss the specific concerns and recommendations regarding the TAL. The Commission wrote to then-Administrator L. Paul Bremer of the CPA expressing its concern about early drafts of the interim constitution, and the Commission also advised on the content of House Resolution 545, introduced by Representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Carolyn Maloney, expressing the sense of the House that the TAL should ensure that every Iraqi be guaranteed the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
An important breakthrough then occurred, when the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Iraqi Governing Council included the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief and practice for every Iraqi in the March 8, 2004 public release of the Transitional Administrative Law, or TAL. This precursor to the country's eventual permanent constitution is an historic step for Iraq and each Iraqi. It is also potentially a model for the entire region and its significance should not be lost in the midst of the present difficulties in Iraq. The United States must take active steps to ensure that the protections for religious freedom enshrined in the TAL make their way into the permanent Iraqi constitution.
The Importance of a High-Level Human Rights Official
Given the unique conditions prevailing in Iraq, the Commission strongly recommends that the U.S. government create a high-level position within Embassy Baghdad to advance human rights, including the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief, as a key U.S. policy objective. This senior human rights official should have the requisite experience and rank, report directly to the Ambassador and be supported by a unit of advisers based out of the embassy and its constituent posts.
In view of the unfolding situation in Iraq, the United States has an historic opportunity to infuse the Iraqi national recovery and political reconstruction process with the effective promotion and advocacy of international human rights standards. A future Iraq that respects human rights, including freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief, is more likely to be at peace within its own borders and with its neighbors. At the same time, the effective promotion of human rights in Iraq cannot be undertaken in the usual manner by relegating these issues to junior embassy staffers or overburdened ambassadors, since the combination of a number of unprecedented factors at play in Iraq demands an unprecedented high-level response from the United States.
Designating a high-level official demonstrates support for Iraqi efforts to make human rights a high-priority issue and consolidates and advances the U.S. role thus far. As noted above, the TAL commendably contains a bill of rights guaranteeing to each individual Iraqi a wide range of human rights protections, including freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Given the massive level of U.S. financial assistance appropriated for the reconstruction and relief effort in Iraq, we must not let human rights get lost in the profusion of programs, contracts, and other related efforts. U.S. goals in the region cannot move forward without institutionalizing human rights protections, and such protections can better be ensured by positioning a high-level envoy with appropriate resources on the ground during the transition period in Iraq.
The Annual Report on International Religious Freedom
The Annual Report on International Religious Freedom is a highly significant part of the process of promoting religious freedom throughout the world. The 2004 Annual Report is, characteristically, a significant accomplishment that continues to demonstrate the substantial efforts of the foreign-service officers in our embassies around the world, as well as the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and his staff at the State Department's Office on International Religious Freedom.
Individual Country Reports
Many of the individual country reports in the 2004 Annual Report continue to be lengthy and revealing. However, the Commission remains concerned about a number of informational inaccuracies in several important reports. Let me provide a few examples.
The country report on Saudi Arabia gives the impression that the religious freedom situation is improving there, despite the fact that the essential characteristic - the absence of religious freedom - remains unchanged. Although the country has for the first time been named a CPC, the report on Saudi Arabia for the first time contains a section describing purported "Improvements and Positive Developments in Respect for Religious Freedom," which perhaps too enthusiastically champions as positive developments actions that did little to alter the actual situation. What is more, the report continues to omit any mention of reports of the Saudi export of an intolerant and hate-filled religious ideology in a number of countries throughout the world.
The report on Afghanistan does not address the "fatal flaw" in the country's new Constitution that was described earlier in my testimony. Though mention is made of the fact that followers of religions other than Islam are free to exercise their faith, the report does not address the fact that individual Muslims are not granted unambiguous protections for the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Nor does the report explicitly address the profound threat to religious freedom that exists in the form of the new Constitution's repugnancy clause that states that "no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of Islam," and the fact that the Supreme Court is empowered to make this determination. Given that the Supreme Court is currently headed by a man who told this Commission last year that he does not fully accept freedom of religion, these clauses in the Constitution represent grave threats indeed to religious freedom in Afghanistan.
This year's country report on Sudan drops the previous year's treatment of the issue of abduction of women and children and the taking of slaves, a practice that was sometimes accompanied by forced conversion to Islam. It would have been useful for the report to have included an update on both of these issues, noting, for example, whether any progress had occurred, due to the lessening of north-south armed conflict, on the return to their ancestral home-areas of persons who had been displaced or enslaved.
The country report on Turkmenistan concludes that "the status of government respect for religious freedom, from a legislative perspective and in practice, improved during the period covered by this report." While it is true that four minority religious communities have been registered (Adventist, Baha'i, Baptist, and Hare Krishna) under eased registration requirements, there are also reliable reports that even members of these newly registered religious communities have continued to suffer harassment at the hands of the police. Six Jehovah's Witnesses imprisoned as conscientious objectors to military service were released, but two more were jailed. In addition, the country's former chief mufti was given a 22-year term of imprisonment, after a closed trial, during this period of reporting. Given Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov's ever-growing repressive cult of personality and its imposition on the religious life of the country via enforced pressure to praise and promote his so-called spiritual writings, including in mosques and churches, it is difficult to believe that the status of religious freedom in Turkmenistan has genuinely improved.
The report on China was more forceful than last year's report on the matter of the persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. In addition, the section on Tibet was more detailed than in previous years and in some areas contained stronger, more explicit language about developments in that region. For example, the report had better coverage this year of conditions for Tibetans in Sichuan and other regions outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
However, the report makes no mention of new laws dealing with "illegal religious activity" passed in various areas, including in the city of Qingdao and in counties in Hunan and Jiangsu. The passage of these laws in the fall of last year was followed by a spate of church closings and the destruction of church buildings in areas where these laws came into effect. The report also inaccurately describes Zhejiang as a province where unregistered religious activity faces less pressure than in other places. In fact, in 2003, approximately 10 underground churches in Zhejiang were destroyed. Some of this activity is noted at other places in the report, but the language in the report makes it seem as if the situation in Zhejiang has largely improved, and that is not the case.
Although the China country report mentions the forced postponement of the Commission's visits to China (though the reason for the postponements was not given), it does not mention the postponement of a planned visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture in June 2004, a visit that was postponed by Chinese officials who claimed they did not have time to prepare the locations, including labor camps, where visits were requested.
Finally, the report on North Korea now states more clearly that repression "has increased" in North Korea, that churches in Pyongyang are "controlled by the state," and that refusal to conform to expected rituals and practices of the worship of Kim Jong Il "may result in severe punishment." In other sections of the report, however, unnecessarily hesitant language is employed. Documentation from the reports of a number of NGOs and from numerous refugee testimonies provides ample evidence that North Korean refugees who admit contact with Christian groups in China are subject to immediate detention, torture, and sometimes execution. Yet, the State Department's report continues to use tentative language, stating, for example, that "harsher" treatment "appears" to occur. The collective weight of these NGO reports and refugee testimony offers enough evidence for the Department to remove the qualifying statements from their report language.
Absence of Reporting on U.S. Policies
The overall quality of the Annual Report is an indication that the U.S. government is taking seriously the issue of religious freedom. At the same time, the Annual Report is meant to be a report on U.S. policies and activities to promote those policies, and not only a report on conditions. However, it is not apparent from the information presented in the Annual Report that the State Department has conducted its activities in a coordinated way to implement particular policies and to achieve specific goals.
Ambassador Hanford has visited several countries of concern to the Commission and other senior Administration officials have raised religious freedom problems with foreign governments. Their efforts should be fully reported so that the Congress and the public can better determine if all of the tools Congress made available under IRFA to advance the protection of religious freedom abroad are being used. From the information presented in the 2004 Annual Report, the Commission is concerned that this is not the case. We encourage that the Congress consider requiring the State Department to report on policies, aid and other programs with respect to each country, as part of its annual reports.
Religious Persecution and the U.S. Refugee Program
Congress intended the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom to serve as an important resource for officials hearing the claims of those persons seeking asylum or refugee status in this country. The United States has a long tradition of welcoming those fleeing religious persecution. The flow of refugees and religious persecution are inextricably linked, and this is acknowledged throughout Title VI of IRFA.
Noting the Annual Report's role as a resource for immigration adjudicators, the Commission has previously testified about its concern that Appendix E of the 2003 Report, the "Overview of U.S. Refugee Policy," contained misleading and incomplete information, particularly about East Asia. The Commission welcomed changes to the 2004 Annual Report that resulted in significant improvements in this section. However, the Commission remains concerned that, as in last year's report, the 2004 Overview of U.S. Refugee Policy section contains little indication of the serious problem of intra-religious persecution, but instead focuses almost exclusively on the persecution of religious minorities by a majority religious community. Moreover, there is no mention of significant refugee-source countries such as Eritrea and Afghanistan, where serious religious freedom problems persist; indeed, Eritrea was designated a CPC this year. Saudi Arabia, a newly-designated CPC, and Pakistan, which the Commission has recommended be designated a CPC, are cited in the refugee section for their mistreatment of religious minorities, but the section does not indicate how the U.S. Refugee Program has been responsive to this mistreatment.
The report's refugee section describes in some detail how the U.S. Refugee Program is responding to the needs of religious minorities who have fled Iran. However, the document contains only generic descriptions of how the United States assists other refugee groups that are fleeing religious persecution. The Commission hopes that future reports will describe in greater detail how the Refugee Program is responding to the needs of specific groups of refugees who have fled severe violations of religious freedom.
The Commission would like to reiterate its recommendation that several steps be taken to improve the institutional linkages between religious persecution and access to the U.S. Refugee Program. These include: (1) better training of refugee and consular officers in the field on refugee and asylum adjudications and human rights, particularly religious freedom, as required by sections 602 and 603 of IRFA; 5 (2) a systematic effort to improve access to resettlement for those who have fled CPCs and other countries where there are severe violations of religious freedom; and (3) the implementation of the operational requirements imposed on the refugee program by IRFA. 6
The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have yet to implement fully some of IRFA's key statutory provisions concerning the refugee program. The Commission has recommended that the State Department carefully consider each CPC designation made by the Commission and determine how the U.S. refugee program could strategically reinforce U.S. policy to promote religious freedom, and to protect those who seek to exercise this fundamental human right. The Department has invited the Commission to participate in the recently revitalized regional working groups on refugee admissions. The Commission welcomes this invitation, which will provide one appropriate framework to improve access to the U.S. Refugee Program for those who have fled religious persecution.
Promoting Freedom of Religion or Belief in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE): Combating Discrimination, Intolerance and Xenophobia Including Anti-Semitism
Before concluding my testimony, I would like to mention the Commission's activities with regard to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). For several years, the Commission has participated in U.S. delegations to OSCE, which includes all of Europe and the former Soviet Union as well as the United States and Canada. The Commission has made recommendations relating to the work of the OSCE in both the general area of freedom of protecting the right to religion or belief and also specifically on combating discrimination, intolerance and xenophobia, including anti-Semitism, in OSCE member states. Commission participation increased in the last year, as the OSCE held special meetings devoted to both religious intolerance and anti-Semitism.
There is an important need to recognize and to address the resurgence of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic acts of violence throughout the OSCE region. Separately, in light of the declining birth rates in Europe along with the in-migration of mainly Muslim minorities into Europe, government respect for freedom of religion is important for members of Muslim minorities who will, in a few decades, represent major portions of the populations of such countries as France, Belgium, the Netherlands and England.
The 55 member states of the OSCE have agreed to extensive and forward-looking standards in protecting freedom of religion or belief and combating discrimination, xenophobia, and intolerance, including anti-Semitism. These issues comprise part of what is called in the OSCE the "Human Dimension." Working with representatives from the State Department's Office on International Religious Freedom and the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the "Helsinki Commission"), the Commission has ensured that U.S. statements at these meetings noted violations of the right to freedom of religion and belief in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Belarus, Russia, and Azerbaijan, as well as "burdensome registration requirements that hinder, instead of facilitate, religious freedom." The Commission has issued general recommendations to the OSCE regarding burdensome registration requirements that apply to varying degrees throughout the OSCE region.
In the course of its work on religious freedom issues with the OSCE, the Commission has recommended the creation of two new positions in the OSCE to be appointed by the Chairman-in-Office: a Special Representative on Discrimination and Xenophobia, and a Special Representative on Anti-Semitism. These officials would provide continuing high-level attention to these issues, including meeting periodically with the leadership of relevant countries. The Commission has also advocated concrete action by the OSCE and OSCE participating states to engage in a regular public review of compliance with OSCE commitments on freedom of religion or belief, and on racial and religious discrimination, including anti-Semitism, including by facilitating an active role by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as part of that process.
Conclusion
I have described our work in only a few regions and countries. Our work, though, has a global scope. We make every attempt to approach our work and the principle of religious freedom evenhandedly, and do not elevate the concerns of any one religious community above another. In fact, we just released a Policy Focus on Nigeria, a copy of which is attached to this testimony for the record. Nigeria is a country where religious freedom continues to be under threat, and we make several policy recommendations to encourage the Nigerian government to take steps to deal effectively with religious tension and conflict. We look forward to working with you and your staffs on implementing those recommendations.
Thank you again for holding this important hearing and inviting the Commission to testify. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding my oral or written statements.
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* Commissioners Bansal, Gaer, and Young dissent from the Commission's recommendation that India be designated a country of particular concern (CPC). Their views with respect to India are reflected in a separate opinion, attached to a letter sent to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on February 4, 2004 and available on the Commission's Website (www.uscirf.gov). Commissioner Chaput also joins this separate opinion, and would place India on the Commission's Watch List rather than recommend that it be designated a CPC.
1 See IRFA sections 402(b), 403, and 404.
2 IRFA section 405(a)(9)-(15).
3 IRFA sections 402(c), 405(c).
4 IRFA section 407.
5 Of the programs put in place in response to IRFA's training requirements, the Asylum Corps has distinguished itself with its enthusiastic compliance. The Commission urges the other refugee and asylum decision-making entities-the Consular Service, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and the nascent Refugee Corps-to comply with IRFA requirements by emulating the Asylum Corps' basic training and continuing education programs. The Commission is ready to support and participate in such training efforts. The importance of training adjudicators, judges, and consular officers, who have the authority to refer refugees to the Department of Homeland Security for an interview, cannot be over-emphasized in ensuring protection for those who are fleeing religious persecution.
6 Section 602 of IRFA contains broad requirements for the Refugee Admissions program, including: (1) guidelines for addressing hostile biases in personnel retained at refugee processing posts; (2) guidelines to ensure uniform procedures for establishing agreements with overseas processing entities and personnel; and (3) uniform procedures for such entities and personnel responsible for preparing refugee case files for refugee adjudications. There is no mention of any of these requirements by the State Department in the relevant Appendix of the 2004 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.
November 06, 2003
November 6, 2003
Remarks by President George W. Bush on the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy
United States Chamber of Commerce
Washington, D.C.
President Bush's remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy laid out in broad terms his views on the development of democracy and freedom in the world.
On China, he said:
"Our commitment to democracy is tested in China. That nation now has a sliver, a fragment of liberty. Yet, China's people will eventually want their liberty pure and whole. China has discovered that economic freedom leads to national wealth. China's leaders will also discover that freedom is indivisible -- that social and religious freedom is also essential to national greatness and national dignity. Eventually, men and women who are allowed to control their own wealth will insist on controlling their own lives and their own country."
January 24, 2002
Longworth House Office Building, Room 1302Photo Gallery:
Commission members (left to right): Richard D. Land, Firuz Kazemzadeh, Bishop
William Francis Murphy, Felice D. Gaer, Executive Director Steven T. McFarland,
Chairman Michael K. Young, Leila Sadat, The Hon. Charles R. Stith, Nina Shea.
Agenda
November 15, 2005
U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
"THANK YOU FATHER KIM IL SUNG"
November 15, 2005
Speakers:
MICHAEL CROMARTIE,
THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
BISHOP RICARDO RAMIREZ,
THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
DAVID HAWK,
AUTHOR, "THE HIDDEN GULAG: EXPOSING NORTH KOREA'S PRISON CAMPS"
REPRESENTATIVE ED ROYCE (D-CA)
REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTOPHER SMITH (R-NJ)
REPRESENTATIVE FRANK WOLF (R-VA)
Transcript by:
Federal News Service
Washington, D.C.
Download transcript as a PDF
MICHAEL CROMARTIE: Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention, we'll start momentarily. Thank you for coming. My name is Michael Cromartie. I'm the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. And due to time constraints, before I make my opening comments on this very important study, some members of the Congress are here, and we're delighted to have them.
Congressman Royce, could we hear from you first? Thank you, sir, for taking time to be with us.
REPRESENTATIVE ED ROYCE (D-CA): Thank you. I'm Congressman Ed Royce from Orange County, California, and I'll have to leave shortly for an appointment with Chairman Hyde, so I'm going to be brief. But let me begin by saying how much I appreciate the good work that Chairman Smith and Chairman Wolf have both brought to the attention of this issue and for being here today. And I'd like to thank the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for commissioning what is here a very, very important work. David Hawk, who authored "The Hidden Gulag," documenting North Korea's prison camps, has given us another excellent report. It was often said that we know very little about what is actually going on inside what we call the "hermit kingdom," but this report helps us peel back the layers of secrecy that hamper our view of North Korea and it helps us shine light on the regime in Pyongyang. North Korean defectors are the ones that are helping pull back this curtain, and we appreciate their contribution to this.
And of course, the picture that is emerging to us is horrific. In that society, replacing religion, as you and I know it is the establishment of a quasi-religious cult of personality, centered first on Kim Il Sung, and then on his son, Kim Jong Il. When the country's system of 51 social classes was developed, religious believers ranked at the very bottom, the 51st class. Religion is replaced by Juche, which is sort of a very Spartan concept of self-reliance, so those discovered worshiping are publicly executed in this society.
And I could go on with all of the violations of human rights and of religious freedom, but critics will no doubt say about this report, why are we worrying about human rights in North Korea? We need to worry about their nuclear weapons program. That should be the focus. I've heard that criticism in Seoul, as chairman of the U.S.-Korean Inter-parliamentary Exchange. I'd encourage frankly the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to distribute this report widely in South Korea as well, but I am surprised when I hear those say that bringing up the North's human rights abuses only gets in the way of disarming them of their weapons of mass destruction. And I say that because the human rights situation in North Korea is reality. And if this is how the regime treats its own people, it brings into serious question how much faith we can place with the North Korean regime. I've been encouraged by the dialogue that has begun with North Korea, but let's have a dialogue based on a clear understanding of what we are dealing with. Ignoring human rights gives us a false picture of whom we are confronting, and that's why ‘trust but verify' has to be an important part of this negotiation.
To that end, I am convinced that a concerted international focus on the North Korean regime's human rights violations is the way to bring us closer to peace and closer to stability in Northeast Asia. It is also the moral policy, given the horrendous human rights condition north of that border. This report is another step in taking us toward that goal of peace. Thank you very much, all of you who have had a role in preparing it.
MR. CROMARTIE: Congressman Smith, thank you for coming.
REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTOPHER SMITH (R-NJ): Thank you. I'll be very brief, but I want to thank Michael and Bishop Ramirez, who earlier today testified in this room on their outstanding work on behalf of religious freedom in a report that the Commission has produced that is truly not only accurate but makes a number of very significant recommendations. And just as I think many of you know, there was as Policy Focus on China, a report that was released just last week that is a very incisive piece of work in documenting the abuses, and this new report, "Thank You Father Kim Il Sung," with its eyewitnesses' accounts of the ongoing repression in North Korea is just a must-read for anybody who cares about human rights.
North Korea's human rights abuses, as we know, is a nightmare of epic proportions. The government of North Korea is a totalitarian Stalinist regime, and its dictator, Kim Jong Il, brainwashes citizens into following a cult of personality and demands god-like reverence. He enjoys a decadent, opulent lifestyle himself while hundreds of thousands of children and their parents starve to death. Inside North Korea there is no genuine freedom of speech, religion, or assembly, yet North Korea has so restricted first-hand knowledge of what goes on in its gulag society that it has managed to convince many people that the situation cannot be as bad as the critics portray it. In a sense, they are right. It is worse than any one of us could make up.
This new report, based on careful interviews with former North Koreans, makes it crystal clear that there is no religious freedom in North Korea. Religious people, their families and descendants are legally relegated to a subordinate position in society where they are last in line for education, healthcare, housing and food, in a society where even the favored classes are finding it hard to get enough to eat. A tiny number of selected individuals are allowed to practice some of their ancestral religions under the tight control of the state, but all are compelled to worship and there is no other way to describe it - Kim Il Sung. Those who are from non-Christian backgrounds who convert to Christianity, those who are caught with Bibles or Christian literature are subject to horrific punishments, including public executions.
President Bush was clearly correct in labeling North Korea, as a nation, as part of an axis of evil. The report makes many excellent recommendations, but I'd like to focus on those regarding the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, which Congress overwhelmingly passed. At a recent hearing held jointly by my committee, Africa, Global Human Rights and International Ops, and Jim Leach's committee, the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, it became patently obvious that the U.S. is acting far too lethargically in implementing the provisions of that law. I strongly endorse the Commission's recommendations to ensure that Special Envoy Lefkowitz has full authority to fulfill his mandate according to the North Korea Human Rights Act, work with countries in the region to provide safe haven, secure transit and resettlement for North Korean refugees, resolve bureaucratic issues, complicating the resettlement of North Korean refugees in the United States, expand radio, television, Internet and print information and other media to the North Korean people, and insist that the Chinese government fulfill its obligations as a party to the 1951 U.N. convention relating to the status of refugees, and the '67 protocol on the status of refugees.
By its refusal to treat North Korean refugees as refugees, China acts as the greatest-single facilitator of the crimes of this monstrous regime. China routinely classifies North Korean asylum seekers as mere "economic migrants," and returns them to North Korea without granting them proper hearings and without regard to the persecution they will face upon their return. Yet this report makes it clear, the testimony of refugees who have escaped makes nonsense of China's contention that these refugees are economic migrants.
As President Bush finally heads to South Korea for the APEC summit, and then to China for the summit with President Hu, it is imperative that he raise, with his interlocutors, not only North Korea's dangerous nuclear ambitions but also its refusal to abide by even minimal human rights standards. A regime that pays not the slightest attention to the needs, interests or rights of his own people is unlikely to care much what the international community really thinks.
Thank you.
MR. CROMARTIE: Finally I'd like to introduce Congressman Frank Wolf. Thank you, Congressman, for joining us.
REPRESENTATIVE FRANK WOLF (R-VA): Thank you. Before I begin, I want to thank the Bishop and the other members and the staff of the Commission. In the last couple of weeks they have had two profound reports, the one a week and a half ago with regard to China, and this one, to speak truth to the powerful, to make sure that this administration and other administrations around the world cannot neglect what's taking place. I think when the North Korean government falls and we get into North Korea, we're going to see things that are so horrendous. And so I just want to thank the Commission and the staff members for the great job that they have done.
A quote: "Having faith in God is an act of espionage. Kim Il Sung is God in North Korea." These chilling words came from a North Korean refugee, one of 40 interviewed by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which undertook to give a more comprehensive picture of religious freedom in North Korea, a nation which once again earned the onerous distinction of being named a country of particular concern by the U.S. State Department just last week. The Commission's extensive interviews provide a heart-wrenching picture of life inside North Korea, where the government attempts to control all information, expression and media; where they execute political prisoners, opponents of the regime, repatriated defectors, members of the underground church, and others, often and in public, where religious freedom simply does not exist.
Some of the North Koreans interviewed for the report personally witnessed public executions of religious believers. One particular account consisted of the shooting deaths of two people caught with Bibles in 1997. Children as young as 4th grade were assembled to witness their punishment. In another instance, one of the interviewees was forcibly repatriated in 1999, fettered and hung outside a window in freezing weather. He was beaten, interrogated until he admitted to the, quote, "crime" of having studied at a Korean-Chinese church while in China. Contact with both Korean and Chinese believers, and South Korean, is considered a political offense by the North Korean government.
I've heard it said that the clearest picture, figuratively and literally, of the situation in North Korea is from the air: bright lights in the South, complete darkness in the North. The maniacal cult of personality perpetrated by Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il, has led to horrific, horrific - which we now know more about as a result of this but we will know much more about when the government changes - horrific situation, virtually unparalleled around the globe. Probably nowhere else around the globe has it gone to the extent and to the degree that it's gone on here.
The commission's study and recommendations come at a key time with President Bush scheduled to meet with the presidents of South Korea and China respectively later this week. Both countries are a natural destination for North Korean refugees. Among the many human rights concerns that must be raised with China - and I saw a public report that it didn't look like a lot of these issues were going to be raised publicly, but we hope they are, and there is still time, if they're not on the list, to make sure that they raise them publicly, and also, when the president gives speeches and speaks in a public manner, not only raise them publicly with the leaders but also when he speaks out so the Chinese people can hear him, are there efforts to forcibly return North Koreans, in violation of China's international human rights and refugee protection obligation? It is critical that these issues be raised, not just privately but publicly and in tandem with other matters, including resolution of North Korea's nuclear aspirations.
Last year I included funding for the Human Rights Conference, at the request of Congressman Chris Smith and many non-governmental organizations that work on this issue, and because of Chris Smith we have passed this religious freedom bill that came out of this committee when many wanted to kill the bill, but because of Chris I'm pleased to announce that the conference will take place next month in Seoul and will be widely attended by activists and scholars from around the globe. The pictures, the stories, the desperation that marks life in North Korea is heart-wrenching and is only beginning to be known to its full extent after years of secrecy.
The Commission's report and the Human Rights Conference will shine a bright light on the darkness that is currently in North Korea. So, again, I want to thank the Commission and the Commission and the members. Thank you.
MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you, Congressman Wolf.
For the past - let me just say at a Commission hearing on North Korea in Los Angeles last year, we invited Mr. David Hawk to brief us on his acclaimed report, "Hidden Gulag." "The Hidden Gulag" was effective because it provided first-hand observations of systematic human rights abuses, detention and torture, and the testimony that David Hawk compiled from North Korean refugees and defectors provided evidence of a massive gulag system and overwhelmed objections that such claims were exaggerated and anti-North Korean propaganda.
The Commission recognized the need to produce a similar testimony on the North Korean government suppression of a once-vibrant religious intellectual life in North Korea, and since there has been a dearth of accurate information about the status of religious freedom in North Korea, we wanted to provide first-hand information on the day-to-day life of religious persons in North Korea. We wanted to lift the veil a bit on life inside North Korea and to provide first-hand observations of North Korean government's policies related to freedom of religion or belief.
Well, David Hawk agreed to undertake this study, and we are unveiling it here today. David was ably assisted by two South Korean academics, Jae Chun won and Philo Kim, and by the Commission staff, in completing this report. But before we introduce David, I want to give my colleague and Commissioner Bishop Ramirez a chance to make some comments.
Bishop?
BISHOP RICARDO RAMIREZ: It is a telling fact that "Thank You Father Kim Il Sung" is the first phrase North Korean parents are instructed to teach their children. North Korean citizens are surrounded by the all-encompassing personality cult of the great leader, Kim Il Sung and his son, the dear leader Kim Jong Il. Every home in the country has a portrait of the two Kims. Inspectors visit homes to hand out fines and admonishments if the portraits are not well kept. Every government building and subway car has two pictures visible and every adult citizen wears a button of Kim Il Sung. Movies and propaganda constantly repeat the blessings bestowed on them by the two Kims. Schoolchildren are required to memorize the wisdom of the Kims and every citizen is required to attend one of the 450,000 Kim Il Sung revolutionary research centers, which citizens visit at least weekly for instruction, inspiration and self-criticism. The veneration required is so complete that most of those interviewed for this study did not believe that any religious activity was permitted because, among other reasons, it would constitute a threat to the regime's authority.
As this study shows, the Kim dynasty is much more than an authoritarian government. It is also the ultimate source of power, virtue, spiritual wisdom and truth for the North Korean people. The study we are introducing today is the first of its kind by a U.S. government agency. It offers stringent testimony on the character of the Kim Jong Il government and the extent to which it controls the thoughts and beliefs of the North Korean people. It includes eyewitness accounts of public executions, the survival of limited religious activity in North Korea, and concerted policies to quash religious activity stemming from cross-border contacts with China. North Korea may be the only country in the world that views China's religious freedom conditions as too lenient. The Commission traveled to China in August and has recently released a trip report, which we will be happy to provide if anyone is interested.
Our desire is for this study to shed some light on the often-perplexing situation in North Korea, offer some insight into the daily lives of ordinary North Koreans, and raise a profile of the human rights situation faced by North Koreans in their country and in China. We are happy that David Hawk is here with us today.
MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you.
Now, before I introduce David Hawk, our fellow Commissioner, Archbishop Chaput, could not be here, and so I'm going to make his comments for him. Lest you think that I'm trying to dominate, I'm going to make his comments for him.
I wanted to say that President Bush will be in South Korea this Thursday, and this latest round of the six-party talks ended last week. As the region's powers deal with North Korea's nuclear aspirations, the Commission believes that human rights objectives should not be put aside. There is testimony in this report to support efforts by the international community to address ongoing human rights abuses at the United Nations through the Special Rapporteur on North Korea and other multinational forums. There is a resolution on North Korea currently pending at the U.N. General Assembly.
But secondly, there is enough evidence in this report to show that North Koreans repatriated from China, particularly if it is discovered they are Christians or have had contact with South Koreans, are considered a danger to the government and can be jailed or even executed.
And so this is important information to offer the Chinese government and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. China considers all North Koreans to be economic migrants, a point repeatedly made to the Commission during its recent trip to China. However, it is a clear, settled matter of international law that even parties who leave their countries as economic migrants become refugees if they are subject to persecution when returned, a fate, without dispute, of North Korean refugees.
Third, this report shows the need for getting more information into North Korea. Those interviewed for this study admitted they had little knowledge of the outside world and what their government was telling the international community. The government's propaganda and the veneration of the Kims virtually squelched all outside information.
Fourth and finally, we think this report shows, again, the linkage between security and human rights, the same mistrust and the same paranoia over maintaining control that drives Kim to develop nuclear weapons also drives the regime to perpetuate egregious human rights violations that have plagued the North Korean people for the past half-century. And so the Commission has recommended that the six-party forum be used to reach agreement on human rights and human security issues beyond the nuclear issue. Using ongoing negotiations about security and normalized relations, the United States and its allies should set timetables and goals for North Korea to improve in such areas such as monitoring of humanitarian aid, resettlement of refugees, family reunification, abductions, economic modernization, and other pressing human rights issues, including religious freedom, before it receives any economic assistance or diplomatic recognition.
Now, I want to introduce David Hawk to make some comments, and when he finishes we'll entertain your questions. David Hawk is a prominent human rights investigator and advocate. He's directed the Cambodian office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1996 to '97. In the early and mid-1980s, David Hawk investigated and analyzed the Khmer Rouge genocide in association with the Columbia University Center for the Study of Human Rights. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, David Hawk had established and directed a Cambodian documentation commission in New York City, which sought an international tribunal for the Khmer Rouge leadership, and human rights provisions and mechanisms for the 1991 Cambodian peace treaty and the U.N. transitional peacekeeping operation.
In August 1994, David traveled to Rwanda to investigate that country's massacres for the U.S. Committee for Refugees, and in 1995 he returned to Kigali on a mission for Amnesty International. A former executive director of Amnesty International's USA offices, he served on the board of directors of that organization and on the advisory board of Human Rights Watch Asia. And then in 2003, David Hawk researched and authored "Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps" - prisoner testimony and satellite photographs for the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
We're delighted that David Hawk is here today, and we're grateful for the important work he did on this study. David?
DAVID HAWK: The three core elements of the Human Rights Project are the elaboration and proclamation of the international norms and standards that set forth how states should treat their citizens; secondly, the documentation of human rights violations and abuses of those norms and standards; and thirdly, the seeking of refugees.
The norms and standards for the protection of freedoms of thought, conscience, religion and belief are set in the appendix, pages 116 to 124 of this report. The details of the violations of these norms and standards with respect to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief are spelled out throughout the report, throughout its hundred pages, but the gap between DPRK policy and practice and the international norms and standards of human rights - if you want a one-page look at the gap, it's on page 112 in the section on recommendations.
In 2002, the DPRK formally proclaimed to the U.N. Human Rights Committee that there is, in North Korea, respect for Article 18 of the International Covenants and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that there was freedom of religion in North Korea. This formal declaration was made on the basis of extremely constricted, circumscribed and controlled religious activity that affects one-fifth of 1 percent; that is 0.2 percent of the North Korean population engages in religious activity.
On the basis of the smallness - this is 40,000 people - and by way of contrast, half of the Koreans in South Korea are regarded as being religiously affiliated to Buddhism, to Protestantism, to Catholic Christianity, to Chondokyo, and to a welter of smaller religious sects worshiping Tangun, or something like the unification church, but nearly half of the citizens - half of the Koreans in South Korea are affiliated with one form of religious belief or another, and for North Korea the figure is 0.2 - one-fifth of 1 percent of the population. The U.N. Human Rights Committee found this so small, so unusual that they doubted that the standard set forth in Article 18 of the International Covenants or the Universal Declaration was being met, but the U.N. Human Rights Committee had not enough information, not enough detail about the actual situation with respect to freedom of thought, conscience and belief, to come to any firm conclusions or recommendations.
Similarly, if you look at the 2005 State Department report on religious freedom around the world, they note the lack of information, the lack of detail as to what the situation is. And as was mentioned, the Commission had a hearing on North Korea in Los Angeles more than a year ago and realized in the course of that hearing how little was known and how much more was known, and later had the idea that we should seek to find information where we can. And you cannot get this kind of information inside North Korea. North Koreans don't allow people who want to ask these kinds of questions into the country or have these kinds of meetings or meet with North Koreans except with the presence of a government translator or minder.
So with the assistance of South Korean graduate students from Achun (sp) and Shandong University, we set up a project that conducted in-depth interviews with 40 North Koreans who had recently arrived in South Korea, having initially fled to China in the late 1990s or early years of the new millennium, and asked them to give us their perspectives and their experience, ask them the question, is there freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief? If so, explain; if not, why do you say that? Did they ever see or encounter or participate in any religious activity or see any places of worship or see any religious literature or ever meet or see any religious officials of any religion while they were in North Korea? We asked them, how did they know - what did they know about systems of thought and belief about various religions, and how did they know it, and inasmuch as Juche and Kim Il Sung thought is mentioned in the preamble to the DPRK constitution, we also asked these North Koreans how Juche - the Juche idea, how Kim Il Sung revolutionary thought was promulgated, and was it possible for North Koreans not to observe, not to follow the Juche idea and Kim Il Sung revolutionary thought?
Their answers are contained in Chapter 3 of this report. And their testimonies provide a strong and consistent baseline that presents a viewpoint that's at total variance, total contradiction with the formal, official proclamations of the DPRK to the United Nations. There were mostly average, normal North Koreans who were not part of the privileged elite who's allowed to live in or even visit Phnom Penh - sorry, Pyongyang. And most of the Koreans we interviewed - in fact, all of them - had never heard of Article 68 of the DPRK constitution, which deals with freedom of religion, and they had never been to Pyongyang and were unaware of the constricted controls and circumscribed religious activities that take place there and only there, where there are three churches, soon to be four, in the entire country located all and only in the capital city where there are foreign visitors.
To find out more information about the situation in Pyongyang, it was necessary to interview South Korean, European and North American religionists who have some dealings with their North Korean counterparts since the North Koreans we interviewed hadn't been allowed to ever visit Pyongyang. And the description of current policy and practice in the capital city is described in Chapter 8 of this report. And Chapters 5 and 6 describe how the regime got to the situation where it is today, where only 0.2 percent of the population of Koreans in the North have any affiliation with any system of thought or belief other than Kim Il Sungism. Those are described in Chapters 5 and 6 of this report.
Just to summarize briefly what it is that is found in the report, the gaps, there are people who continue to be imprisoned for their religious beliefs - quite a number of people who are punished because of their religious beliefs. Two of the 40 people interviewed for this report personally eye-witnessed executions of religious believers. Those executions took place in the late 1990s. There is always a lag of information between the time that people leave North Korea, the time they spend in China, the time it takes to go from China to South Korea, and until we meet them in South Korea where they're accessible to foreign journalists, scholars and human rights investigators, but executions, according to the people we interviewed for this survey, continued up through the late 1990s. We have no more recent information obtained from our own interviews.
It's also the case that there are religious believers who have been imprisoned in sections within some of the kwan-li-so political penal labor colonies for decades for their religious beliefs. It's also difficult, as described in the report, because of the structure of religious federations, it doesn't seem possible for religious or belief systems for which there is no federations - there are federations for Protestantism, for the 800 Catholics that North Korea says are in the country, for several thousand Buddhists, and for the Chondokyo beliefs, but it doesn't seem possible under the structure for religions other than those four to be observed at all, or any of the - as you know, in Protestant Christianity there are many different kinds of denominations or sects, orthodox and unorthodox. There aren't any of these additional denominations or approaches other than the officially recognized federation, and those federations - the federation which runs the three churches in Pyongyang are not allowed to have any education program such as Sunday schools. They're not allowed to have any religious literature or outreach, and they're not allowed to have any of the kind of youth programs that are associated with Protestant Christianity everywhere else in the world other than North Korea.
Lastly, just let me say a word about the remedy. For North Korea we're really not at that stage yet. We're still at the stage of trying to put the human rights situation in North Korea on the international agenda. We're making progress on that. You have the resolutions of the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the last two years. There is now, in front of the General Assembly, also introduced by the EU, a resolution at the General Assembly which would recognize the extreme violations in North Korea. You had the Human Rights Act passed by this Congress last year; you had, stemming from the action in the U.N., the appointment of the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in North Korea, Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn; you had the appointment of the Special Envoy, whom we hope to meet, Mr. Leftkowitz, in the next several days.
So we are making progress in getting it on the agenda, but it's not still on the agenda enough for any remedies to have begun. There are two principles in regards to remedies that are worth mentioning, the first of which is that if - however it happens, if North Korea wants to join the political economy of the New Millennium, if North Korea wants trade and investment and aid from the rest of the international community, then the rest of the international community can say to North Korea that it's got to make progress toward observing the international standards for human rights in the treatment of its principles.
And lastly, by way of remedy, I think it will be extremely important - in my own opinion, the most important element is for human rights to be put on the engagement agenda of South Koreans in their engagement policy with the North Koreans. Those are, I think, the two principles for remedy that I hope we can work for. For the rest of the details I'd refer you to the body of the report.
MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you, David. Thank you. Well, we would like to entertain your questions, and I'm going to repeat your questions for the tape so we can transcribe what you ask. I don't see a hand yet so I get to ask the first question.
David, did you find out what they're being executed for? What is the charge when people are executed? We know they're being executed but is there a particular charge that they're being executed for?
MR. HAWK: Not seriously. There were not serious judicial processes for the people whose executions were witnessed, in this report, but frequently - and usually people are denounced as spies or traitors or traffickers is a common accusation, but these are not formal charges before a judge or in a court; these are announcements that are made at the public executions just before people are shot.
The lady here had a question.
MR. CROMARTIE: Yes? Yes, ma'am, did you have a question? Yes? Oh, could you first of all say who you are and who you're with?
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Yes, the question was who are these .2 percent of people and why are they allowed to practice their religion? Is that right?
MR. HAWK: They are either people in their 70s or 80s who were religious believers prior to the Korean War, people who were brought up in either largely Buddhism or Chondokyo or Catholic or Protestant Christianity during the tail end of the 19th or beginning or middle of the 20th century when Chondokyo took hold and when Buddhism was allowed to revive. So these were pre-Korean War religious believers, and the children of some of these families who are now allowed to - if they - are now allowed to attend a home church or one of the three churches in the capital. But that's who they are.
MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you.
Yes, ma'am, in the back.
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Mr. Hawk, are you confident that Mr. Bush will raise these questions when he is in Korea?
MR. HAWK: I have no idea one way or the other. I hope so but I have no idea what's in his agenda.
You can answer that on behalf of the Commission.
(Laughter.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Yeah, I'm fully confident the president will - no, I'm sorry; I'm just kidding. It's speculation, I mean, as to whether he'll do it or not.
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Yes, well, I'll say, David, that we're certainly hopeful. This is something the president cares deeply about. A copy of this report has been sent to his staff and to the president. The senior administration officials have been briefed about our China report and also about this report. So this report is in the hands and this information is in the hands of administration officials. So we're hopeful that these issues will be brought to the attention of the president and then he will then in turn bring it to the attention of the people he meets with in Korea, both privately and publicly - hopeful.
MR. HAWK: And we are meeting tomorrow with Ambassador Lefkowitz.
MR. CROMARTIE: Yes. We're meeting tomorrow with Ambassador Lefkowitz, yes.
Preea (sp)?
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Preea, could you stand up so we could all hear you?
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Is there a functioning house-church movement in North Korea?
MR. HAWK: First off, there are things in North Korea translated variously as house churches or home worship centers, but it should not be equated with what are called home churches or house churches in China. The North Korean government claims that there are 500 - is it 12 - 512 or 517? - 512 home worship centers, or house-churches, and these are literally living rooms where people, maybe half a dozen people, who may in many instances be family members or people in a village, can meet and sing some hymns and recite some prayers. Persons interviewed for this report had attended eight of these home worship services. So we're not in a position to verify or corroborate the existence of 504 other ones. Those are the regimes figures. We can say people we've interviewed were familiar with eight of them, and at those eight, the participants were the same as with the three churches in Pyongyang - elderly people who came from pre-Korean War religious families.
We are not able to confirm any Buddhist meditation or worship at any of the 60 Buddhist temples that are preserved as cultural heritage sites. There are Buddhist temples but none of the people we've interviewed for this report were aware of any Buddhist meditation or religious observance taking place at those temples. So for the most part we cannot confirm. This is still things that we are struggling to find out more information about.
MR. CROMARTIE: I'll come to you. Let me go to this side. Faith McDonnell.
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Before I repeat the question, yes, you can have as many copies as you like. Just call the Commission and tell them how many you need.
The question was - I'll try to repeat it for the tape, which is that the head of the Episcopal Church recently said that much of what is being said about North Korea is false; that there is actually freedom in North Korea, and would this report shed any light on those kind of comments.
Is that a fair summary, Faith? I suspect it will.
MR. HAWK: I'll give you my card with my email address, and if you would be so kind as to provide me with the statement you've referred to - (chuckles) -
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. HAWK: Please, and I'd be happy to take that up with them directly.
MR. CROMARTIE: Yes, sir.
Q: (Off mike.) I would like to ask about your recommendations and then - according to the paper I got, you recommend that the North Korean human rights issue should be a separate agenda for the six-party talks, but to me it's not - I don't think it is realistic. But I would like to know is your position. Are you saying that the United States should not make any deal on the nuclear issue without improvement of the North Korean human rights situation?
And then one more, if I may. How do you evaluate the South Korean government's policy on the North Korean human rights issue? Thank you.
MR. CROMARTIE: The second question was how do we evaluate the South Korean government's policy toward North Korea. The first question was, if I understood, is there a linkage between human rights and the nuclear threat of North Korea, and what does Mr. Hawk or the Commission take on that - position we take on that?
David?
MR. HAWK: Your second question is clearly beyond the scope and purview and mandate of this report. I mean, I don't know the circumstances under which the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom would essentially take a position on the policy of a third party. I mean, the concern of the Commission is toward the religious freedom and freedom of thought, conscience and belief in North Korea, and wouldn't comment on South Korea's policy anymore than on France or Germany or Guatemala or El Salvador's policy toward North Korea. It's the substance of the issue in North Korea that's the subject of the Commission's concern, as far as I know.
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: How should who handle this? South Korea?
Q: I mean the six-party talks. The six-party talks is basically focusing on the North Korean nuclear issue -
MR. CROMARTIE: Okay, yeah.
Q: - but you said that that forum should be filled with human rights issues.
MR. CROMARTIE: Yes, the recommendation of the Commission is that human rights should be linked to all these other security questions, and that any discussion of the larger security issues should not ignore the human rights issues. That's the recommendation of the Commission.
David, do you want to -
MR. HAWK: Yeah, you know, after the fourth round of the six-party talks, the U.S. said that human rights, along with missile export and narcotics and counterfeiting were part of the discussion of North Korea with respect to normalization of relations, which was a separate discussion from the six-party talks on the nuclear proliferation question, which in turn is a separate discussion from the talks with the North Koreans on a peace treaty to replace the armistice to the Korean War. So the U.S., after the fourth round of the six-party talks, was talking about three different discussions and human rights was part of the discussion on normalization, okay?
Now, at the round just last week, the Chinese wanted to set up three different working parties: one on proliferation, one on political normalization, and one economic assistance, but this was not accepted and we don't know where it will go next. There is an argument for trading security for security. The question is if it's not that kind of approach, if it turns into a comprehensive solution that includes all the economic development questions - the provision of aid, the ending of economic sanctions - then it's the position of the Commission that in that case, if it's a comprehensive solution that North Korea insists upon, then human rights issues ought to be part of any comprehensive approach.
Is that -
MR. CROMARTIE: That's very good, David. Thank you.
Before the next question I do want to announce that the Freedom House and the Center for Religious Freedom and the Congressional Working Group on Religious Freedom invite all of you tomorrow at 5:30 to 6:30 to attend a reception in honor of the new Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea, the Honorable Jay Lefkowitz. That will be tomorrow, November 16th, from 5:30 to 6:30 at the Senate Dirksen Building, Room SDG-50 - SDG-50 at 5:30 to 6:30. It will be a reception for the new Special Envoy for Human Rights. You are all invited.
We have time for one more question.
MR. HAWK: Take these two people in the press.
MR. CROMARTIE: Yeah, we have two more. Yes, go ahead. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, David.
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Say it again, please.
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Is there any underground church in North Korea where they can worship?
MR. HAWK: On the basis of the information obtained in preparing this report, we are unable to confirm or deny reports that there are large numbers of underground worshipers in North Korea. Most of the North Koreans - we interviewed two people who were part of this, but very, very briefly. Then they then thought it was totally unsafe and fled to China and to South Korea, which tells you something. And the others didn't believe that it was possible for there to be such a thing. They thought the police were in such control. But on the basis of the information we obtained in preparing this report, we cannot confirm or deny the existence of an underground church. We just simply didn't find out enough to say about it one way or the other.
MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you.
This gentleman was before you there. Yes, sir, and then the -
Q: (Off mike.)
MR. CROMARTIE: Yeah, the question is, could you share with us some of the emotional aspects of the people you interviewed and what their reflections were?
MR. HAWK: Well, the North Koreans basically thought if you asked them if there is freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief in North Korea, they'd look at you like what are you talking about - (chuckles) - after it was translated to them. And they say, well, how could you - this is a crazy question. So they would be surprised that the question would even be asked, all right?
One of the executions that's described in the report - five people - two pastors, two assistant pastors and two deacons were executed, and they were given the opportunity to save their lives and recant their faith and promise to devote the rest of their lives to Kim Il Sung, in which case they would be spared execution. This was said to them just before - in the site of the execution, and the person we talked to, who was the witness - well, the five persons remained mute and were killed, and the person who was observing this, who described this to us, thought at the time that these people were crazy. Why should they lose their lives for their religious belief when it was easy for them to save their lives? So, I mean, that may not be the - so that's - the North Korean thought about it after a while and thought, oh, these people have the courage of their convictions; they were willing to die for their beliefs. But at the time, as he's recounting the experience, he thought how odd it was that anyone would give their lives for their beliefs.
MR. CROMARTIE: We have to turn this room over to another group, but we have time for one quick, short question. Yes, sir. Yes, I'm pointing to you, sir.
Q: I just want to make a comment. My name is Shu No Kahn (ph). Last year - or this year I visited China and one missionary from a Western country told me that you would be surprised if you know how many underground worship places there are in North Korea.
MR. CROMARTIE: Thank you, sir. The comment was, for the record, that we'd be surprised to know how many underground churches there are in North Korea. Thank you for that observation, sir. And thank you, David Hawk, for your hard work and for the work you've done on the study. If you all have friends who are members of the Episcopal Church who need copies of this book - I mean, of this report - (chuckles) - we're glad to get them to you.
Thank you, David, and thank you all for coming.
(END)
April 17, 2008
Transcript
Introductory Remarks by Chair Michael Cromartie
Introductory Remarks by Commissioner Imam Talal Y. Eid
Remarks by Chair Cromartie
January 27, 2004
University of California at Los Angeles
January 27, 2004
Transcript
Welcome and Introductory Remarks - Michael K. Young, Commission Chair and Dean, George Washington University Law School
Panel One
- Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, United States Agency for International Development Oral Testimony , Prepared Testimony
- David Hawk, Senior Researcher, US Committee on Human Rights in North Korea, Author ofHidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps Oral Testimony , Prepared Testimony
- Suzanne Scholte, President, Defense Forum Foundation Prepared Testimony Additional Submission: List of North Korean Refugees and Humanitarian Workers Seized by the Chinese Authorities Additional Submission: China's Legal Duty Toward North Korean Refugees
- Reverend Isaac (Surname withheld), Cornerstone Ministries Oral Testimony , Prepared Testimony
- Kim Yong, North Korean refugee and former Lieutenant Colonel in the North Korean Army Oral Testimony
February 05, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 3, 2002
Contact:
Lawrence J. Goodrich, Communications Director, (202) 523-3240, ext. 27
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal agency advising the Administration and Congress, yesterday urged President Bush to make clear in U.S. talks with North Korea that significant progress on human rights and religious freedom is necessary for improved bilateral relations. The Commission's recommendation was one of several forwarded on the eve of Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly's visit to Pyongyang urging him to press the North Korean authorities for results.
North Korea was cited by the Bush Administration in 2001 as a "country of particular concern" for religious freedom. The Commission urged Administration action that would "give meaning to that designation."
"The U.S. should not abandon human rights - and be seen to legitimize the horrific abuses of the North Korean regime - for promises on military issues," wrote Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer.
The complete text of the letter follows:
October 2, 2002
Dear Mr. President:
Pursuant to its advisory responsibilities under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom respectfully urges you to ensure that renewed high-level discussions with officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) advance an agenda that gives a prominent place to the protection of human rights, including the freedom of religion and belief, the provision of humanitarian assistance, the protection of North Korean refugees, and the reuniting of Korean Americans with their family members in the DPRK.
In the past, discussions with North Korea have centered on nuclear weapons development and missile proliferation. But U.S. interests go beyond these issues. As you said in Seoul in February 2002: "I'm deeply concerned about the people of North Korea. And I believe that it is important for those of us who love freedom to stand strong for freedom and make . . . clear the benefits of freedom." In this spirit, the Commission recommends that the United States make clear to the North Korean government that measurable, significant progress on religious freedom and other human rights is a central component of improvement of relations between our two countries. The U.S. should not abandon human rights - and be seen to legitimize the horrific abuses of the North Korean regime - for promises on military issues.
The people of North Korea are perhaps the least free on earth, barely surviving under a regime that denies human rights and lets them starve while its leaders pursue military might and weapons of mass destruction. By all accounts, there are no personal freedoms of any kind and no protection for human rights. Religious freedom does not exist as the state severely represses public and private religious activities, including arresting and imprisoning - and in some cases torturing and executing - persons engaged in such activities. In addition, the state actively discriminates against religious adherents in all aspects of political, economic, and social life.
North Korea is also a humanitarian disaster of unimaginable proportions. Failed economic policies and natural disasters have reportedly left more than 1 million North Koreans dead from starvation and disease in the last 10 years. Tens of thousands of refugees have fled to China to escape the dire economic and political conditions in North Korea and many have been forcibly repatriated by the Chinese government. Those who return - voluntarily or otherwise - face imprisonment, or even death, at the hands of DPRK officials.
As recommended by this Commission, the Secretary of State has designated North Korea as a "country of particular concern" for particularly severe violations of religious freedom. We now urge the U.S. government to give meaning to that designation by pressing the North Korean authorities for results. In particular, the United States should urge the North Korean government:
- To stop seeking forced repatriation of North Koreans who have fled the country and to cease the harsh and sometimes lethal treatment of returnees;
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To abide by its international human rights commitments by, at a minimum:
- addressing the concerns and implementing the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee's recent review of North Korea's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including concerns regarding religious freedom;
- permitting the monitoring of human rights conditions by UN human rights mechanisms and extending an invitation to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief and others;
- To allow immediate expansion of both the amount of humanitarian assistance to the North Korean people and the number of providers - which should include non-governmental organizations - and to permit all assistance to be adequately monitored and not misrepresented through false claims that the aid is being provided by the North Korean government;
- To lift restrictions on the freedom of movement by foreign diplomats, independent journalists, humanitarian organizations, and others, and to invite the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and the Commission to visit the country; and
- To negotiate and enter into a binding agreement with the United States, as authorized under IRFA, to cease violations of religious freedom.
- Michael K. Young,Vice ChairFiruz KazemzadehRichard D. LandBishop William Francis MurphyLeila Nadya SadatNina SheaThe Hon. Charles R. StithThe Hon. Shirin Tahir-KheliTad Stahnke,Acting Executive Director