[Senate Hearing 105-352]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 105-352
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST; FACES OF THE PERSECUTED
=======================================================================
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND
SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
May 1 and June 10, 1997
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
40-890 CC WASHINGTON : 1998
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
PAUL COVERDELL, Georgia PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming CHARLES S. ROBB, Virginia
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
BILL FRIST, Tennessee PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
James W. Nance, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
______
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon CHARLES S. ROBB, Virginia
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Religious Persecution in the Middle East--Thursday, May 1, 1997
Coffey, Steven J., Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State,
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.................... 15
Phares, Dr. Walid, Professor of International Relations, Florida
Atlantic University, Miami, Florida............................ 29
Shea, Nina, Director, Puebla Program on Religious Freedom,
Freedom House, Washington, DC.................................. 26
Wolf, Hon. Frank, U.S. Representative From Virginia.............. 3
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Ye'or, Bat, Author, Geneva, Switzerland.......................... 24
Faces of the Persecuted--Tuesday, June 10, 1997
Anonymous Witness From Pakistan.................................. 60
Barakat, Colonel Sharbel, Lebanon................................ 63
Bennett, Hon. William J., Co-Director, Empower America,
Washington, DC................................................. 42
Prepared statement (with Senator Lieberman).................. 44
Ebrahimi, Esmaeil, Iran (through his interpreter, Fannoosh
Carr76a).......................................................
Horowitz, Michael J., Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute,
Washington, DC................................................. 48
Lieberman, Hon. Joseph I., U.S. Senator From Connecticut......... 40
Prepared statement (with William J. Bennett)................. 44
Roderick, Father Keith, Coalition for the Defense of Human
Rights, Macomb, Illinois....................................... 53
Appendix
A. Documents Detailing Efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to
Supress ``Illegal'' Religious Activities
A Document of the Donglai Township Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party............................................ 77
A Document of the Tong Xiang City Municipal Public Security
Bureau/Chinese Communist Party Tong Xiang City Committee,
United Front Works Department.............................. 84
B. Prepared statement of Steven J. Coffey........................ 88
C. Prepared statement of Bat Ye'or............................... 93
Dhimmitude: Jews and Christians Under Islam, by Bat Ye'or.... 96
D. Prepared statement of Nina Shea............................... 103
E. Prepared statement of Michael J. Horowitz..................... 108
F. Prepared statement of Father Keith Roderick................... 111
G. Prepared statement of Colonel Sharbel Barakat................. 118
H. Prepared statement of Esmaeil Ebrahimi........................ 121
(iii)
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
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THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1997
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam
Brownback, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Brownback and Smith.
Senator Brownback. We will go ahead and get this hearing
started.
Thank you all for joining me this morning on this first
hearing on religious persecution in the Middle East. I think it
is particularly appropriate that we are having this hearing
today, on the National Day of Prayer in our country, and that
we recognize the issues of religious persecution taking place
in the world.
Intolerance knows few boundaries. It is a problem that, in
one form or another, plagues most of the world. Men and women
of faith endure harassment, discrimination, imprisonment,
torture, and risk death; because they choose to practice their
faith, whatever that faith may be. From the Copts in Egypt to
Shiites in Iraq, to Christians and Baha'is in Iran, systematic
persecution and discrimination directed against religious
minorities occurs throughout the region.
Because of many diplomatic reasons and sometimes,
unfortunately, just sheer indifference, our government and
others in our country have not chosen to speak out in some
cases. The press is always hyper-sensitive to the observation
of civil and human rights, but finds the idea sometimes of
religious freedom less interesting. Our silence has only
emboldened the persecutors.
I thought it particularly interesting in a column that A.M.
Rosenthal put forward in Tuesday's New York Times that he
underscored this point. He specifically warned that American
Christians' lack of knowledge about the persecution of
Christians in the Middle East ``tends to make Americans passive
about the persecution of Christians. As long as passivity
lasts, so long will persecution continue.''
[The information referred to follows:]
The Well Poisoners
[by A.M. Rosenthal]
The New York Times/April 29, 1997.--They are outsiders among us.
They use their foreign religion to poison our wells, and destroy our
belief in ourselves and the God we must follow.
Throughout the persecution of Jews, that has been the accusation
and justification: an evil religion of the evil outsider.
In their terror and helplessness, sometimes victims pleaded that
the charge of foreignness was not true--look at us, we are like you--
almost as if being different made their persecution at least explicable
to the human mind.
Now foreignness is the weapon used by persecutors of Christians in
Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Islamicist inquisitors use the weapon
in the name of heavenly righteousness, the Chinese political police in
the name of their frightened, last-ditch nationalism.
Both types of persecutors of Christians benefit from a peculiar
protection--the attitude of many Western Christians that Christianity
is indeed foreign to Asia and Africa, a valuable export certainly, but
not really, well, indigenous, to the soil. So they see faraway
Christianity as separate from themselves. This profits persecutors, by
preventing the persecuted from getting the succor they need, and due
them.
The aloofness of Christians to their distant persecuted is a denial
of the reality that Christianity was not only born in the Mideast but
spread wide and deep in Asia and Africa long before Islam or Western
Christian missionaries arrived.
By now, according to David B. Barret's Annual Statistical Table on
Global Mission, 1996, there are 300 million church-affiliated
Christians in Asia, the same number in Africa--and 200 million in all
of North America.
Americans are waking up to the persecution of Christians in
Communist China. Their own Government, however, gives it zero priority
compared with Washington's lust for the bizarre privilege of trade with
China granted by Beijing: to buy eight times more from China than China
does from America.
But how many Americans know or care about the increasing
persecution of Mideast Christians, like the 10 million Copts of Egypt--
the largest Christian community in the region? Copts are vilified as
outsiders, though they have lived in Egypt since the seventh century.
In February and March, 25 Copts were shot to death in Islamicist
attacks on a church and a school. The attacks were part of the worst
outbreak of Christian-killing in 25 years. And Islamic fundamentalists
have been allowed to carry out year-round harassment of Copts,
including destruction of churches that Copts then are not allowed to
rebuild.
In early April Mustapha Mashour, ``general guide'' of the Muslim
Brotherhood movement, a fountain of Mideast terrorism for 50 years,
announced a new goal: to bar Copts from the army, police and senior
government positions on the grounds that they were a fifth column. He
also demanded that a ``protection tax'' be imposed on Christians, as in
the time of the Prophet.
Elsewhere in the Mideast, persecution includes the Sudan's trade in
Christian slaves. But the Egyptian Government boasts of fighting
extremists and has received praise and billions from America.
In the U.S., a coalition of 60 human rights and ethnic
organizations watches out for persecution of minorities under
``Islamization.'' The coalition's definition is a political and
cultural process to establish Islamic law, the Sharia, as the ruling
principle of all society, to which all must conform.
This is what the Very Rev. Keith Roderick, an Episcopal priest, who
is secretary general of the coalition, reports about Egypt:
``The government has created an atmosphere of bigotry and hatred
toward the Coptic minority, allowing the Copts to become human safety
valves for Islamic militants. . . . A significant reduction in [U.S.
foreign aid] for Egypt would send a strong signal that the U.S. has
adopted a serious priority objective in its foreign policy to eliminate
Christian persecution.''
Ignorance of the history or huge number of Christian worshipers in
faraway countries tends to make American Christians, and Jews too,
passive about the persecution of Christians. As long as passivity
lasts, so long will persecution continue. It has always been so.
Senator Brownback. And persecution does, indeed, continue.
In Iran, two men were recently sentenced to death because they
are Baha'is. In Egypt, Coptic Christians were gunned down in a
church by Islamic militants. In Iraq, since 1991, thousands of
Shiite Muslims have been slaughtered by Saddam Hussein's troops
and had their mosques destroyed.
In other countries in the region, believers have been
imprisoned for attending worship services and religious
minorities have suffered lootings, burnings, and beatings at
the hands of mobs.
Less violent discrimination also persists. In many
countries in the region, persons may not freely change their
religion, religious minorities are prevented from building new
places of worship, and some religious literature is banned.
With the help of our distinguished witnesses here today, I
want to bring these abuses to the attention of the American
people, the Congress, and to the administration. I will not
tolerate at this hearing any religion being made a scapegoat
for this problem. The answer to the problem of religious
persecution does not lie in blaming another theology. It lies
in the actions of individuals and governments who do not value
freedom of worship for all.
I hope our witnesses will address specifically what the
United States should do to promote and protect religious
freedom in the Middle East. But I have no doubt that action
must be taken.
As Americans, I believe that we have a unique obligation to
speak out against religious persecution. The right to freely
practice the religion of one's choice is a freedom central to
democracy. We must not fail to defend a principle that our
Founding Fathers viewed as fundamental to our democracy. We are
a people grounded in faith, yet tolerant of different
manifestations of belief. To fail to protect those who suffer
persecution would be to repudiate our convictions before the
world.
I look forward to the testimony from the various witnesses
here today. I look forward to particularly focusing on two
areas. Number one is what is specifically occurring in the
world, in the Middle East region, or in other areas that people
would like to identify. But what specifically is occurring that
we can identify and raise the visibility on.
Second, what should we do? What should we do as a
government, what should we do as a people in trying to address
this particular issue?
We look forward to the testimony. We have appearing first a
very good friend of mine, Representative Wolf, Frank Wolf, from
Virginia, who in the Congress is one of the leading, if not the
leading, expert about this issue. He has traveled around the
world. It is a passion of his. It is in his heart and in his
soul. He is very knowledgeable about it as well.
Representative Wolf, welcome to the committee, and thank
you for all you have done. The microphone is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK WOLF, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA
Mr. Wolf. Thank you very much, Senator. Thank you for
inviting me, and I really want to thank you particularly for
having these hearings. They are very, very important. In fact,
just having the hearings will set the tone in a way that I
think maybe people do not even understand. Just by having them
I think raises the visibility of this issue.
I do not come before the panel to give you all the facts
and figures on persecution, the historical reasons behind the
violence, or even to tell you all the stories about the cases.
The experts you have assembled today are more than capable of
doing that. I have had the privilege of meeting and working
with all of them, and they are very capable and very
knowledgeable people.
Once you have heard the testimony, I hope you will agree
that the facts speak for themselves. In the world today, and
particularly in the Middle East, Christians are being
persecuted in great numbers. In many of the countries under
this subcommittee's jurisdiction, Christians are being
murdered; they are being raped; they are being beaten; they are
being mutilated, and they are being imprisoned.
Copts in Egypt face daily terror by militants. Evangelicals
in Iran have watched in sorrow as key leaders have been
mysteriously assassinated in recent years. The year before
last, three Evangelical pastors were killed.
Assyrian and Chaldean Christians in Iraq face persecution
by Saddam Hussein and some Kurdish factions. For Saudis, non-
Muslim worship is out of the question for fear of execution.
Christians also face discrimination and harassment. They
are pressured to convert to other religions. They are refused
the right to build or repair churches, and as Bat Ye'or will
later describe today, they are subjugated to second class
status.
Persecution and discrimination is not unique to Christians,
and I appreciate the chairman's opening statement with regard
to not blaming any particular faith. Similar treatment is given
to members of other religious minorities, such as the Baha'is
or those of the Jewish faith. It should be said that
persecution of political dissidents, and women, and others is
also prevalent in many of these same countries where human
rights standards are not in line with international norms.
Though we are talking about countries where Islam is the
predominant religion, I want to stress up front and
categorically that I am not condemning Islam or people who
practice the Islamic faith. There are many, many good,
overwhelmingly decent Muslims who desire nothing more than to
raise their family, earn a living, and participate in the
democratic political process.
What I am condemning are the governments or the radical
militants who persecute and oppress the people.
It is important to note that in these same countries, many
moderate Muslims or Muslims of different denominations than the
majority of the people, such as the Sunni Muslims in Iran, are
also falling victim to the violent acts of authoritarian
regimes or radical factions seeking to overthrow fragile
democratic governments.
We must be honest when and where persecution occurs.
Otherwise we do a disservice to all Christians, Muslims,
Baha'is, and other religious believers who suffer at the hands
of thugs. If you are a Muslim, your right to practice religion
should be respected. If you are Baha'i, your right to practice
should also be respected. If you are a Christian, your right to
practice religion should also be respected.
Where it is not, we should recognize the fact and speak out
boldly and courageously. Where there are countries that are our
allies and friends, we even bear a greater burden. Where we
give foreign aid, we bear a greater burden.
By speaking out on behalf of the least of these, society's
vulnerable victims, we also raise the comfort level of moderate
Muslims and others seeking to live in peace and promote
democracy, thereby making the world safer.
I learned this lesson in 1989, when Congressman Chris Smith
and I visited Perm Camp 35, the last gulag in the Soviet Union,
deep in the heart of the Ural Mountains. Many of the political
prisoners told Congressman Smith and myself--this is in the
Ural Mountains in Perm Camp 35, where Sharansky had been in
there for years, and, in fact, we even saw and interviewed
Sharansky's cellmate--they told us that they knew that
President Reagan had taken a strong stand on behalf of human
rights and religious freedom and it gave them hope.
I can never understand how. They didn't have fax machines
or telephones. This is a gulag in the Soviet Union, and they
knew of the position that President Reagan had taken on this
issue. Even in the darkest places, one of the darkest places in
the Soviet totalitarian system, these prisoners knew. It gave
them hope. It gave them hope that someone was brave enough to
stand up to the dictators. It gave them hope that somebody was
brave enough to stand up for freedom, and it gave them hope
that people were willing to go and visit those places.
So by having a hearing like this, to put the Congress on
record, the Senate on record, the administration on record, the
House on record, sends a message.
I can still remember after we denied MFN to Ceaucescu in
1987. When I visited, Romanians told us that the next day they
heard on Radio Free Europe that the House of Representatives,
the people's House, had taken away MFN from Ceaucescu, and it
gave them hope.
Now they don't have to listen to the little crystal sets.
Now they have fax machines, they have E-mail, they have all of
these things, and it is very hard for any government to shut it
down.
So by doing this and hoping the AP, the Washington Post,
the New York Times and all of the others that cover this will
cover that this hearing is held, it will give a message of hope
to these people. Does the United States care? Does anybody in
the Congress care? This really makes a big difference.
The shining example was in Perm Camp 35, where Sharansky
spent 5, 6, or 7 years. They knew of this and knew of the
actions that the Congress took. In those days, in the days of
Jackson-Vanik, the House and the Senate, in a bipartisan
effort, Republicans and Democrats came together to make this an
issue of no partisanship. Hopefully we are able now to put
together the same coalition--Republicans, Democrats, liberals,
conservatives, moderates, all religious faiths--to come
together to speak out on these issues.
This is because when we come to the defense of the least of
these, we really come to the defense of everybody in the world.
In the Middle East today, my instinct tells me that those
suffering at the hands of today's dictators will be encouraged
by a sign of support from the United States. Congress needs to
speak out. We know the facts about Christian persecution in
Iraq. We know it. It is not something we have to read a story
about or get a briefing from the CIA on. Just read the paper.
We know it.
We know what is taking place in Iran. We know what is
taking place in some of these other places. Now we must take
decisive action.
Frankly, our conscience demands it. The members of this
body ought to think about it, that 10 or 20 years from now,
when they leave here, did they use their position in Congress
to do what they should have done or did they just take a quiet
way and not look at these tough issues?
The American Christian community is also now beginning a
growing concern with regard to this issue. Understand, this
fall tens of thousands of church-goers will participate in a
second annual International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted
Church. Christian leaders from Don Argue, President of the
National Association of Evangelicals, to Richard Land,
President of the Southern Baptist Convention, to many, many
others will be joining together whereby on one Sunday they will
pray for the persecuted church around the United States.
In January 1996, the National Association of Evangelicals
issued a Statement of Conscience and Call to Action on
Christian persecution.
Let me quote from its conclusions.
Religious liberty is not a privilege to be granted or
denied by an all powerful state, but a God-given human right.
Indeed, religious liberty is the bedrock principle that
animates our republic and defines us as a people. We must share
our love of religious liberty with other people who, in the
eyes of God, are our neighbors. Hence, it is our responsibility
and those of the government that represent us to do everything
we can to secure the blessings of religious liberty to all
those suffering religious persecution.
Last year, the House and Senate unanimously passed
resolutions condemning the growing problem. That was a positive
step, but there is much more to do.
In the coming weeks, along with Senator Specter, a group of
us in the House plan to introduce the Freedom from Religious
Persecution Act. It tracks the NAE statement of conscience and
will be what I hope will be landmark legislation addressing
this very issue. It is not country-specific, but it creates a
mechanism in our government to determine which countries are
engaged in state-sponsored persecution and which countries turn
a blind eye while anti-democratic thugs roam the countryside
killing, raping, and mutilating innocent victims.
This bill sets targeted, limited sanctions aimed at
pressuring offending governments to rein in the vigilantes or
cease its state-sponsored persecution.
Today, in closing, Mr. Chairman, is the National Day of
Prayer. Many people of all faiths have gathered here in
Washington to pray for our country and its freedom. It is our
obligation as a country which has been blessed so abundantly.
It says in the Bible, ``To whom much is given much is
expected.'' There is even a version, I think, which says, ``To
whom much is given, much is required.'' Maybe it is not just
``expected,'' but it is ``required.''
So I think this is our opportunity to continue to use our
freedom to help the Egyptian Copts, the Iranian Evangelicals,
the Algerian Catholics, the Assyrian Christians in Iraq and
Saudi Arabia, help people to convert and to acquire their
freedom or do whatever they want to do but where there will not
be pressure against them.
This starts with condemning persecution, killing, rape,
imprisonment, torture, and abductions wherever they occur.
I just want to again thank you for holding this hearing.
This hearing actually will probably--we will never find out
about its effect. It's like sometimes you do things and you
never hear about it.
But this hearing, if covered well, will probably mean that
somebody does not go to jail. This hearing, if covered well,
may mean that somebody may get out of jail quicker in some
other country.
You will remember during the days when there was
persecution of those of the Jewish faith in the Soviet Union.
When we would send letters to the Soviet Union, the prisoners
would tell us that it would actually change their lives in
prison. Sharansky would say that when the warden got all the
letters coming in, they knew that there was somebody or a lot
of people in the United States who were concerned with their
individual cases.
So just little things like this can make a big difference.
We won't know whom we have helped by this hearing, but I can
guarantee you from previous experience that just holding this
hearing will have helped a lot of people. I thank you very,
very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wolf follows:]
Prepared Statement of Congressman Frank R. Wolf
Mr. Chairman, Senator Robb and members of the Subcommittee. Thank
you for inviting me to present my views on the issue of anti-Christian
persecution--the untold human rights story of the decade. I commend
you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on this important and
timely issue. I wish such hearings did not have to be held.
I do not come before this panel to give you facts and figures on
persecution, historical reasons behind the violence or even to tell you
stories about cases. The experts you have assembled today are more than
capable of doing that. I have had the privilege of meeting and working
with all of them.
Once you have heard their testimony, I hope you will agree that the
facts speak for themselves. In the world today, and particularly in the
Middle East, Christians are being persecuted in great numbers. In many
of the countries under this subcommittee's jurisdiction, Christians are
being murdered, raped, beaten, mutilated and imprisoned. Copts in Egypt
face daily terror by militants. Evangelicals in Iran have watched in
sorrow as key leaders have been mysteriously assassinated in recent
years. Assyrian and Caldean Christians in Iraq face persecution by
Saddam Hussein and some Kurdish factions. For Saudis, non-Muslim
worship is out of the question for fear of execution.
Christians also face discrimination and harassment. They are
pressured to convert to other religions, refused the right to build or
repair churches and, as Bat Ye'Or will describe later, subjugated to
second-class status of ``dhimmitude.''
Persecution and discrimination is not unique to Christians. Similar
treatment is given to members of other religious minorities such as the
Bahai's or Ahamadi's or those of the Jewish faith. And, it should be
said, that persecution of political dissidents, women and others is
also prevalent in many of these same countries where human rights
standards are not in line with international norms.
Though we are talking about countries where Islam is the
predominate religion, I want to stress up front and categorically that
I am not condemning Islam or people who practice Islam. There are many
good and decent Muslims who desire nothing more than to raise their
family, earn a living and participate in the democratic political
process. I am condemning governments or radical militants who persecute
and oppress people.
It is important to note that in these same countries many moderate
Muslims or Muslims of different denomination than the majority of the
people (such as Sunni Muslims in Iran) are also falling victim to the
violent acts of authoritarian regimes or radical factions seeking to
overthrow fragile democratic governments.
We must be honest when and where persecution occurs. Otherwise we
do a disservice to all Christians, Muslims, Bahai's and other religious
believers who suffer at the hands of thugs. If you are a Muslim, your
right to religious practice should be respected. If you are a Baha'i,
your right to religious practice should be respected. And if you are a
Christian, your right to religious practice should be respected. Where
it is not, we should recognize that fact and speak out boldly and
courageously. Where these countries are our allies and friends, we bear
an even greater burden.
By speaking out on behalf of the ``least of these,'' society's
vulnerable victims, we also raise the comfort level of moderate Muslims
and others seeking to live in peace and promote democracy. That helps
make the world safer.
I learned this lesson in 1989 when Rep. Chris Smith and I visited
Perm Camp 35, the Soviet gulag deep in the heart of the Ural Mountains.
Many of the political prisoners told us that they knew President Ronald
Reagan had taken a strong stand on behalf of human rights and religious
freedom and it gave them hope. Even in one of darkest places in the
Soviet totalitarian system, these prisoners knew. It gave them hope
that someone was brave enough to stand up to the dictators. It gave
them hope that someone was brave enough to stand up for freedom.
In the Middle East today, my instinct tells me that those suffering
at the hands of today's dictators or persecutors would be encouraged by
a sign of support from the United States.
Congress needs to speak out. We know the facts about Christian
persecution in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and elsewhere. Now we
must take decisive action. Our conscience demands it.
The American Christian community is also beginning to understand
this growing scourge and demand action. This fall, tens of thousands of
church-goers will participate in the second annual International Day of
Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Christian leaders from Don Argue,
President of the National Association of Evangelicals, to Richard Land,
President of the Southern Baptist Convention, to Ralph Reed, President
of the Christian Coalition, to Dr. Jim Dobson, President of Focus on
the Family, have begun to speak out and call for action. In January
1996, the National Association of Evangelicals issued a Statement of
Conscience and Call to Action on Christian persecution.
Let me quote from its conclusions ``Religious liberty is not a
privilege to be granted or denied by an all-powerful State, but a God-
given human right. Indeed, religious liberty is the bedrock principle
that animates our republic and defines us as a people. We must share
our love of religious liberty with other people, who in the eyes of God
are our neighbors. Hence, it is our responsibility, and those of the
government that represents us, to do everything we can to secure the
blessings of religious liberty to all those suffering religious
persecution.''
Last year, the House and Senate unanimously endorsed resolutions
condemning this growing problem. That was a positive step, but there is
more we can do.
In the coming weeks along with Senator Specter, I plan to introduce
the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act. It tracks the NAE Statement
of Conscience and will be, what I hope will be, landmark legislation
addressing this very issue. It is not country-specific, but it creates
a mechanism in our government to determine which countries are engaged
in state-sponsored persecution and which countries turn a blind eye
while anti-democratic thugs roam the countryside killing, raping and
mutilating innocent victims. The bill sets up targeted, limited
sanctions aimed at pressuring offending governments to rein in the
vigilantes or cease its state sponsored persecution.
Today is the National Day of Prayer. Many people of faith have
gathered on the Washington Mall to pray for our country and its
freedoms. It is our obligation, as a country which has been blessed
abundantly, to continue to use our freedom to help Egyptian Copts,
Iranian Evangelicals, Algerian Catholics, Assyrian Christians in Iraq
and Saudi Arabian converts acquire their freedom.
This starts with condemning persecution--killing, rape,
imprisonment, torture and abduction--wherever it occurs. I hope you
will join me in this effort.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. We thank you, Representative Wolf, for
your passion, your commitment, and your knowledge of these
subjects. I have held you up as a model legislator to a number
of people over the years just because of the way you treat
issues and how you know them. You have heart and soul about it.
Let me ask you, if I could, about this. You will be
bringing out the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act. You
identified, Frank, that a lot of what we need to do is just
lift this issue up. We need to get it to the light of day,
being seen by those who are being persecuted in different
places around the world.
You also identify a legislative component on this. Could
you generally outline what you think we ought to be doing
legislatively or providing what sort of tools to the
administration to be able to use?
Mr. Wolf. The bill will set up, will create, an Office of
Religious Persecution in the White House. It will either have
someone called a Director or a Special Advisor. That person
will look at all these issues, will write reports, and make
statements to the President so that it is forced to be
monitored.
Right now, the country by country reports really do not get
into religious persecution. They get into some human rights
issues. But sometimes, because of different issues, they kind
of don't want to get into them too deeply.
There will be an annual report that the President or that
the Director or Special--whatever you want to call him--will be
required to submit to Congress as a report indicating whether
or not there are different types of discrimination or
persecution. Category 1 are countries directly; category 2 are
activities in those countries that the government itself will
be involved with.
The sanctions will be very, very narrow. It will not be the
sledgehammer of cutting off MFN to an entire country if the
secret police of that country--and I'm not going to use a
particular country--does something. It will have a narrow,
narrow scope.
There will be sanctions, and we will also, then, urge our
international representatives on groups such as the IMF and
World Bank to begin to use their vote to speak up on behalf of
those who are being persecuted.
That is what Reagan did so well. Frankly, I must say that
Reagan and also the Democratic Congress in the 1980's and the
1970's called attention to it. They focused in narrowly, and
the spotlight really made a difference.
If you will recall, in 1985 or 1986, 250,000 people rallied
on the Mall on a Sunday afternoon on behalf of those who were
persecuted--those of the Jewish faith, the Pentecostals, and
others in the Soviet Union. That rally made a tremendous
difference.
Then they began to focus in on different activities.
This will be putting the spotlight on narrow sanctions, on
class 1, government sponsored, and class 2, whereby the
government knows that activity is taking place. For instance,
this is where the government is not directly involved in
persecuting, but they know there is a group in their country
that is doing this activity, and then they speak out.
Senator Brownback. I want to turn the microphone over to
Senator Gordon Smith for questions or comments, as he would
like.
Congressman--I'm sorry--Senator Smith.
Senator Smith. ``Congressman'' is fine, too.
Representative Wolf, it is very nice to meet you. I know of
you. I thank you for your work in this area.
Do you have any comment upon a recent article in the New
York Times about persecution of Catholics in China. Do you have
anything to elaborate on the truthfulness of that?
Mr. Wolf. I do. Yes, I can.
But before I answer that, I would say that I know very well
of you. I used to work for your dad.
Senator Smith. I am aware of that.
Mr. Wolf. I remember you when you were much smaller. I
worked at the National Canners Association when Senator Smith's
dad, Marlon Smith, was the head of it. Our motto in those days
was ``Nature's best is best canned.''
I now know you moved into frozen foods.
Senator Smith. So I would say it's best frozen now.
Mr. Wolf. Yes, best frozen. But I remember your dad and I
remember you. I was very, very pleased to see you get elected.
Yes, there is tremendous persecution. I will put together a
letter and send it to you.
There are Catholic priests who are in jail and have been in
jail in China for a number of years. There are Catholic bishops
who have been in jail for a large number of years.
Nina Shea, who will testify, can document the length of
time and the number of bishops.
We have a document which Nina will perhaps submit for the
record and if not, I will, from a certain province in China
whereby the goal of the Communist Party of that province is to
eradicate the Catholic Church.
[The information referred to by Mr. Wolf appears in
Appendix A on page 77.]
Mr. Wolf. There are two Catholic Churches. There is one
that is above ground, which are those who are controlled and
selected by the leaders of Beijing. Then there is the
underground church, whereby they are selected, as they should
be, from Rome.
There is great discrimination against the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has been very bold and the Pope has been
very bold in speaking out. So I think that the Chinese
Government fears the Catholic Church very, very deeply.
There also is persecution of Evangelicals and Protestants.
Literally not a week goes by whereby they do not raid house
churches and take people away.
There is also, though, in fairness, persecution of
Buddhists. They have plundered Tibet, have destroyed
monasteries in Tibet. They have expelled the Dalai Lama, they
have captured the Panchan Lama, who is scheduled to succeed the
Dalai Lama, and they are trying to eradicate Buddhism there.
Last, they are persecuting the Muslim faith. In the
Northwest portion of the country, the Muslims, the Yegors that
no one seems to be focusing on or caring anything about are
under tremendous pressure.
So they are trying to eradicate the Catholic Church, they
are hurting the Protestant Church, they are bulldozing
monasteries with regard to Buddhism, and the poor Muslims just
have nobody to speak up for them. Frankly, I don't think people
know that they are there and there may be 50 million to 80
million of them there. But they are in a very remote area. So
yes.
Senator Smith. Are there things, Congressman--I happened to
have had the privilege to meet the Dalai Lama last week in
Washington. I had hoped to ask him a question. Are they--
Tibetans--forming coalitions with the Catholics to help address
the issue of persecution in China?
Mr. Wolf. Yes.
There is a coalition developing in the United States today
of the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, the Dalai Lama,
and a lot of different human rights groups. They are beginning
to come together, just as on this legislation. All groups are
beginning to come together.
If you just wait until you are the one they go after, then
it is too late. It's just like in Nazi Germany. They came after
this group and I said nothing; they came after that group and I
said nothing. Then they came after me. I think it was Banhofer
who said that.
It's the same thing here. We are trying to develop a
coalition of the Jewish groups, the Christian groups, the
Buddhist groups, the Baha'i faith, for all of these to come
together to where you go after the least of these.
It's like for Jesus in Matthew 25. When you go to the last
of these, you do it unto me. Well, it's the same way that we
say if you go after the least of these groups, even if it is a
little denomination that maybe nobody has heard about, we still
stand with them.
As a young boy, I stuttered very, very badly. I remember in
the class how people would kind of come after me and give me a
hard time. When the teacher came to my defense, she literally
came to the defense of the whole class, because the whole class
had its comfort level raised when somebody would come to the
defense of somebody who was having a difficult time.
It's the same way here. Every religious denomination,
whatever it may be, whatever faith, has its comfort level
raised when we come to the defense of anybody.
So yes, there is a coalition developing. What the Chinese
Government is trying to do is they are legally trying to
eradicate Buddhism from Tibet.
We have had testimony from Buddhist monks and nuns that
tell you of the horrible conditions they have to go through.
Senator Smith. I have heard of those recently on a
Christian radio station and was asked at great length about
religious freedom in China. I have discussed the issue with
Ambassador Li, China's Ambassador to this country, because I am
concerned about it.
I am looking for other recourse. What can we do beyond
holding hearings? I am here, because I care about this issue
and want to lend my voice in support of sort of this threshold
issue of religious tolerance among civilized people. I think
that to be a nation among civilized nations you have to
guarantee religious freedom.
You mentioned Ceaucescu and what we did to withhold MFN.
That has serious consequences to this country and to the world
if we do that with respect to China. Are there other things
that we can do or is that our only and best recourse as it
relates to trying to change internal politics in China?
Mr. Wolf. Well, no. There are other mechanisms.
I, personally, am at the point now where I favor--and I
know this is not the issue of the hearing--denying MFN. There
are some fundamental values here. Not to be overly emotional
about it, but coming from Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote the
words, ``We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men
and women are created equal, endowed by their Creator''--by
God, not by the House, the Senate, or by an Executive Order--
``life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.''
Those words were not just for people in Charlottesville,
Virginia, or just in the United States. They are for everybody.
The fact is if you meet with the dissidents, if you meet
with the students in Tiananmen, they look to Jefferson more
than sometimes we do. So I am at the point now where it has
gone on for too long.
What I say to those who say we cannot deny MFN to them is
this. I say this. There are good men and women on both sides.
There is no official good position for MFN or against. But for
those who favor granting it, why are they silent? Why does
Boeing not speak out for the Catholic bishops? Why do they go
there and meet with the butchers of Beijing, Li Pong and people
like that, and never speak out?
When Harry Wu, who is an American citizen, was arrested, I
tried to get Harry's wife in to see President Clinton. Clinton
wouldn't see Mrs. Wu, but he saw the thugs who were trying to
sell the guns to the L.A. street mobs.
All of a sudden our values become different. I went to some
of the companies. I went to Boeing through another member and
asked Boeing to speak out. Boeing wouldn't speak out.
So for those who favor MFN, which is a valid position
though not the one that I agree with, they are silent. And
their silence is deafening. The silence of Boeing and the
people who favor MFN is deafening.
It is the sound of this silence that resonates. So the
dissidents come to me and say why don't we speak out.
No, that is not the only thing that we can do, but it is
the only mechanism that we now have been given. Quite frankly,
this Congress, even if it votes to deny MFN, which I think it
should do and I pray that we do it, but even if we do it, we
are not probably going to take it away from them, because the
President will override our votes.
But if we would not give MFN to the Soviet Union in the
1980's, and we didn't give it to any Eastern Bloc countries, we
didn't even give it to Poland when Lech Walesa and Solidarity
was moving, I don't understand now why we would then turn, when
militarily there is a threat from the Chinese. But forget the
military. They are selling weapons to Saddam Hussein. Forget
that. They are selling weapons to Iran. Forget that.
They sold weapons that were used against American soldiers.
Forget that. They are aiding the Sudanese Government which has
been responsible for a million and a half Christians dying in
the south of Sudan. But forget that.
Still, on this issue of religious freedom, I don't
understand how we made that decision then and not now. But for
those who want to continue granting it, I would hope that at
least the business community would speak up and be bold. And if
they are afraid to speak up publicly, I would hope that they
would at least speak up privately.
But if you are not willing to make a public confession, to
say this, then I wonder when the day comes what does that
really, really mean.
So there are two positions. I don't know the right one or
the wrong one. But if they favor granting it, let them at least
speak up.
Senator Smith. Let me just make one other comment,
Representative Wolf. I am sympathetic to that. I have been
saying to Americans who do business there to do what you have
done, that is, to speak up about it. Don't just put profits
before our principles, our fundamental principles.
I hope there is another way other than MFN with China,
because I think it has enormous ramifications beyond this
issue, which is a threshold and a very, very important issue.
I am here to find new ways to help highlight this problem.
I would, for the record, note one other emerging problem or
potential problem. It wasn't that long ago that General Lebed,
of Russia, made the comment to the New York Times, I believe,
or it was reported in the New York Times that Mormons and Jews
are scum. That is a real concern.
If this man, who may well be the next President of Russia,
is making such a comment, it is a real concern.
We are not beyond the day where we can rest and feel like
persecution of people of faith is behind us. America needs to
stand up for this issue.
Let's keep working together and find out the best ways to
do that.
Mr. Wolf. Senator, you are absolutely right. I remember
when General Lebed made that statement. I signed a letter in
the House. I think Matt Salmon circulated it, though I forget.
It was condemning General Lebed on that point.
There are evil people who will always be pushing and
pulling, and only when good people speak out and are vigilant
will it stop.
There is more persecution of people of faith, of all
faiths, today than perhaps there has been at any other time in
the history of the world in modern times. That is why these
hearings are important, because many people believe that when
the Soviet Union fell and when the Wall fell down, it all
stopped. But it's quite the contrary. It has been broken up
into little areas, but it has gone on big, big time--not only
there but in so many other countries which we do not even have
the time to document, and that certainly do not even come
before this subcommittee.
But I appreciate it. I am pleased you are interested.
Senator Smith. I had occasion with Senator Roth to confront
General Lebed with this issue. For the record, he did say that
he had been misquoted, and he has become much more tolerant
since he made those comments.
Senator Brownback. Good visibility does that.
I particularly would invite you, Congressman Wolf, on Egypt
and particularly toward Coptic Christians, if you have specific
items that you think we ought to be doing in Egypt, that is a
country where we have substantial foreign aid and substantial
relationships, and yet a very documented situation taking place
of religious persecution. If there are narrow, specific items
you think we should do toward Egypt, I would invite you to
submit that to the committee.
Mr. Wolf. One thing you could do is you could call the
Egyptian ambassador in. I saw the Anti-Defamation League send
out about a month ago some very anti-Semitic cartoons that are
now appearing in the Egyptian press. Their press is somewhat
controlled. It is unacceptable that they go there.
I think the first thing our government ought to do is to
call in their Ambassador and say it is unacceptable, these
anti-Semitic cartoons to be in your paper, and it is
unacceptable what you are doing to the Copts.
I mean, maybe there are a lot of good, decent people in the
Egyptian Government. So they may, if hearing from us, be
willing to speak out. But if they never hear, then they may say
maybe they don't really care.
So I say that would be a good starting point. We don't
always need to use the club and the hammer to go after things.
I think we are dealing with a lot of good people in a lot of
these governments, who, to be brought in, they may say hey, I
didn't really know you were that interested in it, and we are
now going to go back and look at it. So we will look at it with
regard to some things.
But I think a good step would be to meet with their
Ambassador. And when President Mubarak comes over here, or our
people go over there, we should sit down with them.
That is the problem in China. When our people go to China,
they only meet with the leadership. They only meet with Li Pong
or they only meet with these people. They don't meet with
others.
When under Ronald Reagan--God bless him--when the Reagan
people, and also before that Jimmy Carter, when our people,
when our Secretary of State, whether it be Shultz, Jim Baker,
or whoever, used to go to Moscow, they met with Brezhnev. They
met with him. But they'd also meet in the American Embassy with
the Jewish community who wanted to emigrate. They met in
Solidarity. And the Russian Government, the Soviet Government,
knew that our people were meeting with these people. They knew
that Shultz was meeting with them and talking about it.
So that, I think, can go a long, long way without clubs,
hammers, sanctions, and things of that like.
Senator Brownback. Congressman Wolf, thank you very much.
We appreciate it a great deal.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Brownback. The next panel will be Mr. Steven
Coffey. He is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor,
representing the administration on this issue.
We certainly appreciate, Mr. Coffey, your willingness to
come and to testify in front of us. If you want to submit a
longer statement for the record, you can, and you may condense
your overall statement.
Again, as I mentioned to Congressman Wolf, our objective
here is to hear what is taking place and what we can do to be
of assistance. Mr. Coffey, the microphone is yours.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN J. COFFEY, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF STATE, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR
Mr. Coffey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like
to begin by associating myself with Congressman Wolf's remark
to you, that you certainly are to be commended for convening
this session devoted to this very, very important topic. It is
a great honor and privilege for me to represent the
administration here before your committee.
I would like to submit my full remarks to the committee,
and I will try to abbreviate them. But I would like to make a
few key points.
Religious freedom is an issue, and I think this is the
first key point, to which the Department of State has been
devoting increasing attention. It is a complex problem. Issues
of religious freedom are often laden with emotion,
misunderstanding, political overtones, ethnic implications, and
deep historical wounds.
This is especially true in the Middle East, where three of
the world's major religions trace their origins and where it is
often difficult to separate religion and politics.
The promotion of religious freedom in the Middle East and
elsewhere is a growing priority in our foreign policy.
Religious liberty is, after all, a core American value.
Our Nation was founded in large part by refugees fleeing
from persecution, and the Framers of our Constitution enshrined
religious freedom among the most sacred of the rights
guaranteed to our citizens. And America today is a country
where people freely worship and where hundreds of religions
flourish.
We have to remember that our religious liberties do not
thrive in a vacuum. They thrive in the context of a free
society, a society that guarantees full personal liberties to
all its citizens--freedom of conscience, freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly. These are among the basic elements of any
democratic society. As we look around the world we see that
where political freedom, individual rights, and democracy are
on the rise, so is religious freedom.
We need to look no further than the revival of religious
activities in Russia and Central Europe for all the problems
that were just talked about following the fall of communism, to
see how increased political freedom leads to increased
religious activity.
This, then, is the context in which we must formulate and
implement our policy in the Middle East and around the world.
Where political freedoms thrive, so do religious freedoms.
Where political freedoms are constrained or repressed, the same
is often true for religious freedom.
Religious freedom can only truly flourish in free
societies.
So one of our operating principles, therefore, is that when
we work to expand the family of democracies around the world,
to build free societies, to encourage tolerance, and to defend
all fundamental human rights, we are also working to promote
religious freedom.
Our global policy seeks to build a framework of peace,
freedom, and respect for law, in which all human rights can
thrive, including religious liberty.
Very serious issues of religious restrictions,
discrimination, persecution, and conflict exist in the Middle
East. The region is diverse; and as I pointed out, we should be
careful not to make too many sweeping generalizations about the
region.
In most of the Middle East, there is little or no
separation of religion and state as we practice it here in the
United States. Although this is manifested differently in each
nation, the close association of religion and the state in the
Middle East and the lack of tolerance and pluralism poses a
special challenge to protect adherents of religions other than
the state religion.
In most countries of the Middle East, Islam is the official
state religion. In some countries, such as Jordan and Morocco,
the King derives his legitimacy in part because his heritage is
traced back to the Prophet Mohammed and the beginnings of
Islam.
In many countries, religious law is imposed by the state.
In others, civil law and religious law exist side by side. In
some, such as Israel, religious political parties are active in
government. In others, such as Algeria, religious parties are
banned. In Lebanon, the most senior government positions are
allocated according to religious affiliation.
With these variations in mind, it is worth highlighting the
following issues. Most Middle Eastern states impose significant
legal obstacles to religious freedom, contrary to the
provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Some governments, such as Saudi Arabia, prohibit entirely
the practice of religions other than Islam. This prohibition on
non-Muslim religions forces Christian and other expatriates who
seek to worship to do so only at great personal risk and under
extremely discreet circumstances.
In others, from Israel to Kuwait, religious affiliation is
a prerequisite of granting citizenship to new immigrants.
One of the most serious issues concerning religious freedom
in most Middle Eastern countries is a strict prohibition on
proselytizing. Conversion of Muslims to other religions is
often illegal. Apostasy can carry heavy penalties, including in
some countries death. Iran, for example, has issued a decree
seeking the death of writer Salman Rushdie, who is called an
apostate for authoring The Satanic Verses.
In addition, the Government of Iran has decreed all Baha'is
to be apostates, regardless of whether they were born Baha'i or
are converts. Four Baha'is have been sentenced to death for
apostasy, and Christian evangelists have died in Iran under
extremely suspicious circumstances.
Most countries in the region prohibit or restrict
proselytizing, and there is serious societal discrimination and
intolerance against converts. This, of course, is contrary to
the Universal Declaration's provision that protects the right
of all people to change their religion or belief.
In some states, specific religious groups are persecuted or
their practices restricted. For example, in Iraq, the
government has severely restricted its majority Shi'a Muslim
population, banning the broadcast of Shi'a programming on
government television and radio, the publication of Shi'a
books, and even the commemoration of Shi'a holy days.
The Assyrian Christian community has suffered various forms
of persecution and abuses by Iraqi forces, including harassment
and killings.
Even where legal obstacles do not exist, societal
discrimination on a religious basis does. Jews throughout the
Middle East, especially since the creation of the State of
Israel, have experienced societal discrimination or repression,
resulting in the large-scale emigration of traditional
communities.
Anti-Semitism remains a widespread problem in many Middle
Eastern countries today. The Coptic Christian community in
Egypt is subject to discriminatory practices in addition to a
number of legal restrictions. And, discrimination against women
remains a pervasive problem throughout much of the Middle East;
in some instances, discriminatory actions against women
resulting from societal traditions are erroneously attributed
to Islamic doctrine.
Some Middle Eastern states legislate in ways that
discriminate against religious groups. In some cases, legal
restrictions on a particular community exist, but are not
enforced in practice. In Israel, Orthodox religious authorities
have exclusive control over marriage, divorce, and burial of
all Jews regardless of the individual's orthodoxy.
In Iran, Baha'is are legally restricted in their
educational and employment opportunities as well as in almost
all other ways.
Violence, which chooses religion as its standard bearer, is
all too common in the region. The 16 year Lebanese civil war
included elements of sectarian violence. In Algeria and Egypt,
armed groups have carried out acts of terror against both
Muslims and Christians in the name of religion.
In Algeria alone, thousands have been murdered, hundreds in
the past 2 weeks, purportedly to advance a certain Islamic
agenda.
And, of course, the Arab-Israeli conflict, while not a
religious conflict per se, is laden with religious overtones
and has provided grist to extremist groups, some of which, such
as Hamas, use religion to rally supporters.
Given the absence of separation of religion and state, it
bears highlighting that Middle Eastern governments are often
active in regulating and restricting the practice of Islam as
well as of other religions. This is an important element of the
religious context in the region that is sometimes overlooked.
For example, it is common in many Middle Eastern states for
governments to be involved in appointing Islamic clergy,
funding mosques and religious workers' salaries, providing
guidance for sermons, and monitoring Islamic religious services
for unacceptable content. Such restrictions on Islam sometimes
exist even in states that accept the free and open practice of
other faiths.
I raise the issue of restrictions on the practice of Islam
in the Middle East to underscore the same point that
Congressman Wolf made, that it is not just religious minorities
in the region which face constraints on religious liberty. In
some instances, the restrictions placed on minorities are
mirrored by similar restrictions or regulations of the Islamic
majority. Some of these restrictions, moreover, overlap with
constraints on other freedoms, such as freedom of speech or
freedom of assembly, reinforcing the key point I made earlier
that religious freedom is only likely to thrive in free
societies; and where political freedoms are restricted or
repressed, the same is often true for religious freedoms.
In my remarks so far, I have tried to lay out for you the
general basis of our policy on religious freedom and the
context and priorities of the situation regarding religious
intolerance in the Middle East. I would now like to address the
crucial question of what are we trying to do about it.
In fact, we are trying to deal with the question of
religious freedom on several fronts.
First, we are speaking out for religious freedom. President
Clinton has issued several proclamations on religious freedom
and Secretary of State Albright, soon after taking office,
stated that freedom of religion is a priority human rights
concern for her and made it clear that it should be treated as
an important issue in our human rights policy.
Religious freedom, as I said before, is one of our core
human rights basic to American values, and it is more than an
American value. International human rights instruments in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrine religious
freedom as one of the basic internationally recognized rights
of all men and women.
One of the reasons I am pleased to be here, Mr. Chairman,
is the opportunity this gives us to reiterate our message on
religious freedom and to do so in a way that will be heard
around the Middle East, and elsewhere.
Second, we are making it clear when there is a problem in a
country. Our annual human rights reports to Congress each
contains a section on freedom of religion. Here I do take some
exception to Congressman Wolf's remarks that this is not a
required section of our human rights reports. It is. These
human rights reports, the religious section in particular,
spell out in detail the situation in every country in the
world, highlighting the problems we see. This is a public
document that gets wide distribution, and we bring the reports
and our concerns directly to the attention of the governments
concerned.
This year, we will also be presenting a report to Congress
on persecution of Christians around the world, which will
include portions on the Middle Eastern countries.
Beyond these reports, the State Department comments
regularly and publicly on instances of religious intolerance
and persecution that come to our attention in all countries,
including the Middle East.
Third, we have begun to take a much more activist approach
in the field on questions of religious freedom. I think we all
recognize that more needs to be done. In the past not enough
was done.
But in December, the Department of State instructed all
U.S. Embassies around the world, including in the Middle East,
to be alert to the high priority we attach to religious
freedom. We asked our posts to report more actively on these
issues, to identify religions, denominations, or sects being
discriminated against or persecuted, and to provide suggestions
about how the United States might most effectively address
questions of religious freedom and religious persecution in
their countries.
This initiative has already begun to show results, with
more information coming our way and some useful suggestions on
how to approach certain governments on this issue.
Fourth, in February we convened the first session of the
Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom
Abroad. This new committee brings together 20 of America's most
prominent religious leaders, activists, and thinkers to help us
forge new policy directions on religious freedom.
The creation of the advisory committee reflects our
recognition that more can and should be done to promote
religious freedom abroad. Already the committee's members are
hard at work and have formed subgroups on religious persecution
and on conflict resolution.
By this summer, we hope to have the committee's first
recommendations for action.
Fifth, we have taken an increasingly active approach in
raising with Middle Eastern and other governments specific
cases of individuals and groups who are suffering
discrimination or persecution on religious grounds. Generally,
we have done this quietly and through diplomatic channels. We
have also encouraged governments to state publicly their
opposition to acts of violence and discrimination aimed at
individuals or groups because of their religion or belief.
In a number of cases, we have seen positive results.
Sixth, we have been active in multilateral fora in raising
questions of religious freedom. In the United Nations Human
Rights Commission earlier this month, for example, we co-
sponsored a resolution on religious intolerance and delivered a
strong statement on religious freedom. The United States was
instrumental in the creation of a Human Rights Commission
Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, and we have been
strongly supportive of the Special Rapporteur's activities.
We have also drawn attention to specific cases of gross
abuse including Iran's treatment of the Baha'i community and
Iraqi persecution of several religious groups.
Seventh, we have sponsored and funded programs to promote
religious liberty and tolerance. Some of these programs are
specifically targeted at this issue while others are broader in
scope but still have an impact positively on the problem.
For example, USIS posts in Arab countries have sent
clerics, journalists, politicians, and academics to the United
States to participate in the annual International Visitor
Program on Religion in America, in which they meet with
American Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Ecumenical groups to
discuss ways of promoting religious tolerance.
Participants have returned impressed with the extent of
religious freedom in the United States and the possibilities
for cooperative relationships among people of different faiths.
With the National Endowment for Democracy, we are funding
several programs to support tolerance and secularism--for
example, a project to enable an independent literary journal to
organize debates on religion and democracy among theologians,
historians, and lawyers; and another project to translate into
Arabic and publish important works on democracy, tolerance, and
pluralism.
Beyond programs focused specifically on religious issues,
we are also actively pursuing democracy building programs
around the world on the basis that building open, democratic
societies will lead to improved respect for all human rights,
including religious freedom. We have some democracy building
programs in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Morocco,
and the West Bank and Gaza.
Some additional programs also focus on related issues, such
as conflict resolution and the human rights of women.
Eighth, we have reached out to religious groups and leaders
throughout the Middle East. Our embassies maintain close
contacts with a broad spectrum of Middle Eastern religious
leaders, especially those representing groups suffering
discrimination, to reassure them of American interest and see
how we can be helpful.
Finally, our overall policy toward the Middle East, while
not determined by questions of religious freedom, in fact is
aimed at creating the kind of conditions under which religious
freedom has a chance to emerge and to prosper.
I've spoken, for example, about how the Arab-Israeli
conflict has given rise to extremist groups, such as Hamas,
that have exacerbated religious tensions and intolerance in the
region.
I have pointed out that our chief emphasis is on the Middle
East peace process when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
By establishing peace in the region and building bridges
between communities previously at war, we are also establishing
a framework for greater tolerance.
Likewise, our effort to build open societies and encourage
the growth of democratic institutions in the Middle East will
contribute over time to a climate for greater religious
freedom.
Our efforts to fight terrorism also help strike at the
roots of intolerance and religious persecution and also play a
role here.
And, our work to isolate rogue regimes will help weaken
many of the leaders most responsible for severe repression in
the region.
In these ways, our general approach to the Middle East
policy is helping to build a framework in which religious
tolerance will be more likely to emerge and to grow.
Mr. Chairman, there is a long way to go to resolve the many
aspects of religious intolerance, restriction, and persecution
in the Middle East, and I won't sit here before you to tell you
that we in the executive branch have all the answers. Nor can I
assert that the United States has the power to bring about
changes in religious practices abroad even if we did have the
answers.
What I can tell you, however, is that we are committed to
making the effort and to working with you in this regard. We
have structured a broad policy toward the Middle East that is
helping to lay the framework for peace and democratic societies
which are essential components of an atmosphere conducive to
religious freedom.
We are speaking out for religious freedom. We are raising
the issue with governments, and we are undertaking a range of
policy initiatives to advance our goal of a world where every
individual would be at liberty to follow their beliefs and to
practice their religion freely.
We appreciate your interest in this issue and would welcome
your comments and suggestions. As I have said at the outset,
freedom of religion is a basic American value. I believe it is
an issue on which the administration and the Congress can see
eye to eye and one on which we can cooperate together
effectively.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Coffey appears the Appendix
B on page 88.]
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Coffey. I appreciate that
and I appreciate the background of your statement as well as
the context in which you have put it all forward. We appreciate
that a great deal.
What else should we be providing to you, to the
administration, as additional tools? You outlined a very active
agenda and a number of points that you are pursuing. Are there
additional policy tools that we need to be providing you from
the Congress?
You heard Congressman Wolf talk about some that he has
suggested. What are your thoughts on that?
Mr. Coffey. Well, I very much agree with Congressman Wolf
that one of the key, the key instruments in this effort to
improve the climate for religious liberty and religious
tolerance is publicity. I think that these hearings and others
like them that bring public focus on this issue are very
valuable.
I think it is helpful for Members of Congress to speak out
on this issue, just as the members of the executive branch
intend to speak out.
As I mentioned in my remarks, this is a key priority for
Secretary of State Albright. She was at the opening session of
the Advisory Commission on Religious Freedom Abroad and she is
very committed to this.
We would like to see similar expressions such as those made
here today from Members of Congress. I think that Members of
Congress in their own contacts----
Senator Brownback. What about policy tools? I appreciate
your point about we can speak out and do these sorts of things,
and the administration is. I appreciate them doing that. But
what about specific policy tools? Should we be bringing more of
those forward? Do you need more to be able to address those
issues?
Mr. Coffey [continuing]. Well, I don't know if you consider
this a policy tool, but certainly we in the executive branch
consider resources a key policy tool. I think we certainly need
the resources to do a lot of the things I mentioned that USIS
is doing. A lot of the democracy building programs around the
world have an impact on this issue. So it is very, very
important to fund those issues.
In terms of specific pieces of legislation, I am not sure
that we need new legislation in this area because there is a
lot of legislation currently existing.
In terms of the things that Congressman Wolf mentioned, in
terms of setting up an office in the White House to look into
these issues, frankly, our position has been in the State
Department that this is not necessary. What we are trying to do
in the State Department is trying to integrate this concern for
religious liberty into the fabric of our foreign policy. This
is a responsibility of the State Department. In particular, it
is a responsibility of the bureau that I represent, because we
consider religious liberty to be a key human rights issue.
We have set up the special advisory commission precisely to
look at this question of what more instrumentalities are
necessary, if any, and how we can better go about using the
instrumentalities that we have.
Senator Brownback. So to date you are saying that you will
be coming forward with additional requests for policy changes,
that that is still maturing in the system? Did I understand
that last statement correctly?
Mr. Coffey. Yes. I think that that is very much the work of
the advisory committee. It is going to look at and make very
specific recommendations on policy. There is a sub-group set up
on specifically this question of religious freedom and they
will be making some very specific recommendations.
These will be made to the Secretary and those will be
reviewed. But we do expect to energize and to come forth with
initiatives to give enhanced priority to this issue.
Senator Brownback. Do you have any sort of timeframe that
you can give us that those might mature forward, those
initiatives?
Mr. Coffey. We are hoping that there will be at least a
tentative report this summer.
Senator Brownback. To the Secretary?
Mr. Coffey. To the Secretary.
Senator Brownback. Good. Certainly I would want to know the
administration's position as they look toward pieces of
legislation like Frank Wolf or others have proposed in
consideration in these areas.
Mr. Coffey. Mr. Chairman, I have not had a chance, and the
department has not had a chance to review the final text of
this legislation which, as I understand it, will be presented
next week. But we will look at this, and we want to work with
the Congress on this legislation.
Senator Brownback. Or tell us of additional things that you
identify that you think would be useful, that you disagree with
this point within that drafted legislation, or that you know
what would be helpful, or that we are blocked by virtue of what
Congress has done previously.
I was really struck by what Frank said, that in the early
1980's, a Republican President and a Democratic Congress worked
very carefully together on a number of these issues and were
highly successful in the things that they did.
I would certainly like to see us be able to create the same
sorts of synergies or the same sort of dual purpose and united
focus between the Congress and the President as we look at
these issues.
It looks to me like there is a growing list of them in
places around the world, in places where we have significant
relationships, that are not just isolated regimes in a
particular area.
So I want to be able to do that with you and I assume you
will be our first point of contact. I hope as well that the
Secretary will be completely engaged and the President as well.
May I ask you on that line, what about his comment that
when we send top people around the world, when the President
goes somewhere, when the Vice President goes somewhere, what
about them meeting with some of these persecuted groups in
various regions around the world, such as the Catholics in
China? What about pushing that forward within the
administration?
Mr. Coffey. I think that is an interesting idea. I want to
stress that the President has been very actively involved on
this issue, the President and the Vice President. In fact, the
President was very actively involved in setting up the advisory
committee, and their recommendations will, in fact, be going to
the President through the Secretary.
The question of contact with these religious groups is, I
think, an important one. I think that a lot of this contact is
going on. You know, every situation, every mission has to be
considered on its own terms. But a good example of this, though
not an example from the Middle East, is the Secretary's and
President's meeting with the Dalai Lama. When President Mubarak
was here earlier these spring, these issues were very much
discussed with him and particularly the question of anti-
Semitism. I know that those issues were discussed with him both
in the executive branch and also up here on the Hill.
I think that those contacts had a very, very beneficial
effect, because when President Mubarak went back, he made it
clear publicly that there is a distinction to be made between
criticizing the policies of Israel, which the Egyptian press is
free to do, and anti-Semitism.
I think that that was a very, very helpful statement. So I
think these contacts do take place and do play a role.
Senator Brownback. I hope you will keep working with us on
those and will keep putting pressure forward on that.
Mr. Coffey. I will definitely keep working with you and,
Mr. Chairman, we very much share your spirit of bipartisanship
on this.
This is an issue that really cuts across all party lines
and encompasses all groups of Americans.
Senator Brownback. Good. Mr. Coffey, thank you very much
for joining us and for your presentation. We may be submitting
some additional questions to you in writing and we would
appreciate it if you would get back to us in a timely fashion
on those.
I would now ask our third panel to please come forward.
They are Bat Ye'or, author, from Geneva, Switzerland, who will
be testifying; Ms. Nina Shea, Director of Puebla Program on
Religious Freedom, Freedom House, Washington, D.C.; and Dr.
Walid Phares, Professor of International Relations, Florida
Atlantic University of Miami, Florida.
If you will excuse me for just a moment while the panel is
convening, I will be right back.
[Pause]
Senator Brownback. Thank you all for joining us. I
appreciate that a great deal.
We will start with Bat Ye'or, and I understand that that
name in English translates into ``Daughter of the Nile.'' Bat
Ye'or is a distinguished author on the subject of what this
hearing is about.
The microphone is yours. Welcome to our committee. We are
delighted you are here.
If you would like to, you can submit your written statement
for the record and summarize. It is up to you. It's your
choice.
STATEMENT OF BAT YE'OR, AUTHOR, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Bat Ye'or. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As time is short, I
would like to only highlight the main points of my statement. I
request you to put it in the record in its entirety.
Senator Brownback. Without objection, it will be done.
Bat Ye'or. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am most grateful for
having been invited to give testimony on religious
persecutions, especially on the religious persecutions of
Christians and other minorities, which is a very grave
phenomenon now in many Muslim countries.
But I would like first to stress that many Muslim political
trends and Muslim individuals are strongly opposed to religious
persecutions since it is written in the Koran, ``No compulsion
in religion.''
However, the religious persecutions against Christians and
other religious groups exist in some Muslim countries. They are
inscribed in a historical and ideological pattern that we must
know in order to be able to refute it and to eliminate those
prejudices which provoke persecutions.
This pattern is already a millennium old. So it means that
the efforts to eliminate these prejudices that have survived to
the present time--the historical prejudices against religious
groups other than Muslims--this struggle will be very
difficult. However, it must me done.
I think that this hearing is very important, because I hope
it will start the struggle for the implementation of religious
rights.
The persecution of Christians in Muslim countries is of two
sorts: military and legal.
The military aspect comprises military aggression, like in
Sudan, for instance, or in other parts of the Muslim world, in
order to ``Islamize'' Christians and, in the case of Sudan, the
Christian and Animist population.
The tactics of the Jihad war which is waged in Sudan allows
extermination, destruction, slavery, deportation, and also
abduction and slavery of Christian and Animist women and
children.
Muslims who are opposed to the regime in Khartoum are also
victims of those practices.
The second aspect that is conducive to the discrimination
and oppression of Christians and other religious groups is the
legal one. Those laws that allow discrimination are Shariah
laws. They were written down by Muslim jurisconsults from the
8th and 9th centuries onward. They impose legal discriminations
and inferiority on the ``People of the Book''--that means Jews
and Christians--as well as other non-Muslim groups.
Here it is important to stress that the condition of Jews
and Christians in Islamic legal codes is exactly the same.
Therefore, all kinds of demonization of Jews or contestation of
their right to live in security and dignity is also a
contestation of Christian rights. One cannot separate the two
groups.
Those Shariah regulations, which enforce persecution in the
legal domain, remained in force until the 19th and 20th
centuries, when they were abolished and replaced by European
legislation. Now we see that the Islamist trends are trying to
impose again those Shariah provisions.
These rules concern the law of apostasy, of blasphemy, the
refusal of Christian and Jewish testimony in some cases, an
inequality--according to the difference of religion--in
financial compensation for crimes or for punishments, and
discrimination in education and the professions.
It is important to understand that religious rights must be
respected in those countries and we should, therefore, organize
a campaign to denounce religious oppression. The reason why
this oppression of Christians and other religious groups is not
well known is because of the economic interests of the West,
the implications of the cold war, a policy of appeasement with
Muslim governments, and also--in the Church leadership--a trend
toward the building of an Islamic-Christian peaceful
coexistence. And, of course, this is a very important political
agenda, to create those elements of peaceful coexistence.
But, nevertheless, this effort of the Churches to always
appease the Moslem world has led them to overlook the
persecution of Christians and to try to find a scapegoat, like,
for instance, the State of Israel or the Israeli-Arab conflict,
so as to blame on the Jews and on Israel the persecutions of
the Christians in the Muslim world. But, in fact, the
persecutions of Christians, Jews, and other groups are the
consequence of those Shariah laws which were written down in
the 8th and 9th centuries.
So it is very important to understand the roots of this
persecution so that one can bring an adequate response to it.
Now I suggest in order to remedy this ongoing human tragedy
that the silence on this human suffering should be broken, that
the policy of appeasement should be abandoned, that the real
culprits should be denounced, that these laws and prejudices
should be addressed, that economic sanctions should be brought
against the countries who are practicing these oppressions, and
I propose the creation of an office that will monitor the
religious persecution, as has been suggested by Congressman
Frank Wolf.
I suggest also that the present campaign of
delegitimization and demonization of Jews, Christians, and
Baha'is should cease and, instead, be replaced--encouraged in
the West--with a campaign promoting esteem for every religion
and respect for all religious rights. We should understand that
it is in our interest in the West that Muslim countries respect
those rights, because if those rights are not recognized and
respected, then our own rights in Europe, in the West, will
also be threatened by the same terrorist campaign and religious
fanaticism.
[The prepared statement and an article by Bat Ye'or appear
in Appendix C on page 93]
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Bat Ye'or. I
appreciate your testimony.
I look forward to our exchange in questions.
Next will be Ms. Nina Shea, who is well known in this
country for her work in this area of religious persecution and
what we need to be doing as the United States, and what we need
to be doing as a people and as a government. Ms. Shea.
STATEMENT OF NINA SHEA, DIRECTOR, PUEBLA PROGRAM ON RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM, FREEDOM HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Shea. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to express
Freedom House's deep gratitude to you for holding these
hearings on this important topic today and for inviting me to
testify on the long neglected atrocity of the religious
persecution against Christians in the Middle East.
Mr. Chairman, when Freedom House sent a fact finding team
to Sudan a couple of years ago, they brought back a film
documentation of children who had been redeemed from slavery,
Christian children. They were bearing scars on their bodies
from brands they had received from their Muslim masters while
they were in captivity.
We brought back a sensational film, took it around to the
different television news magazines, and the producers told us
well, this is all very interesting, but what is the peg, what
is the angle, we don't get it--we can't use it.
I just want to say that your hearing helps give a peg and
an angle to this important story.
Christians in many parts of the world suffer brutal
torture, arrest, imprisonment, and even death, their homes and
communities laid waste for no other reason than that they are
Christians.
Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the
world today.
In my new book, In the Lion's Den, I have identified and
given reasons for why militant Islam is one of the two
political ideologies--the other being communism--that have
consistently oppressed Christians as well as other independence
groups and individuals.
I want to stress that Islam is a diverse religion and has
been at periods extremely tolerant relative to other religions.
It was during the religious repression of the Hapsburg Empire
or the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, for example,
that Jews and even minority Christian groups fled to Muslim
lands for protection.
So what I am looking at today is the strain within Islam
that is highly politicized and militant.
It is important to understand the distinction between
persecution and discrimination or bigotry. The most egregious
human rights atrocities are being committed against Christians
living in militant Islamic societies solely because of their
religious beliefs and activities. These atrocities include
torture, enslavement, rape, imprisonment, forcible separation
of children from parents, killings and massacres, abuses that
threaten the very survival of entire Christian communities,
many of which have existed for hundreds or even 2,000 years.
Right before this hearing I was talking to Bat Ye'or about
the cousins of the Jews in the Middle East. I thought it was
shocking that she revealed to me that there are less than 50
Jews in Egypt, in the country of Egypt. Fifty years ago, there
were 85,000 Jews. It goes on throughout the countries of the
Middle East.
We are seeing the same thing happening right now with the
Christian communities. They are vanishing before our eyes under
the relentless persecution.
At the beginning of the century, most Middle Eastern
countries had a Christian population in the 30th percentile.
Now it is down to single digits in practically every country in
the Middle East.
In Iran, just for example, the Christian population has
shrunk from 15 percent at the beginning of this century to 2
percent today.
In some cases, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, it is the
regime that is the oppressor. In other cases, including
Pakistan and Egypt, societal forces are at work while the
government, out of weakness, acquiesces, failing to stop the
persecution despite well organized assaults or known
instigators.
In the countries of the Middle East that are under scrutiny
at today's hearings, Christians are vulnerable minorities
within the society. I will start with Saudi Arabia, which
completely bans Christianity. There are no churches, Bibles,
Christian artifacts, symbols or literature permitted there.
Religious police seek out secret worship services by raids on
private homes.
It is important to remember that a quarter of the
population in Saudi Arabia are foreign workers, many of whom
are Christian. Hundreds of these people are in prison for
Christian worship, secret Christian worship. Some are sentenced
to be beheaded.
Amnesty International reports that the oppression against
Christians has worsened in Saudi Arabia since the Gulf War.
Egypt's Coptic community, believed to have been evangelized
by Mark in the in the 1st century is vanishing under a violent
onslaught by Muslim extremists. Thousands of Coptic Christians
have been forced to flee their homes or convert to Islam after
large mobs of fanatical Muslim youth laid waste their villages
in Upper Egypt in 1996.
In February and March this year, two more pogroms by
Islamic terrorists were directed against the Copts in Upper
Egypt, leaving over 30 dead, including select young people
being groomed for leadership roles in the church. They were
massacred, by the way, while they were meeting in their church.
According to statistics reported by the Center of Egyptian
Human Rights for National Unity, there have been 543 incidences
of violence against Christians during the past 5 years in
Egypt. As many Christians have already been killed in the first
quarter of this year as had been killed in the 20 year period
starting in 1973.
Reverend Keith Roderick, the Secretary General of the
Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights Under Islamization,
reports that the Egyptian Government has failed to stop the
surge of terrorism against the vulnerable Christian minority
and has helped create an atmosphere of bigotry and hatred
toward them.
Various Egyptian human rights groups report that there have
been no prosecutions and convictions for the murders of the
Coptic Christians. Over 70 were detained in those murders and
they were all soon released. And 1\1/2\ years ago, Egyptian
authorities withdrew police protection from the mainly
Christian towns where the massacres took place.
Egypt also has laws that ban repairs or constructions on
Christian churches unless a decree is signed and issued in each
case by the President of the Republic. During the 1980's, only
10 buildings and 25 repair permits were granted to the Coptic
Orthodox community which comprises about 90 percent of Egypt's
Christian population.
As a result of these laws, just last December an army unit
bulldozed the Christian Cheerful Heart Center for disabled
children without any warning. The army just came in and
flattened it. It is located 15 miles outside of Cairo. This was
done even though the center possessed the necessary permits,
because there was a rumor that they did not.
Converts from Islam to Christianity are considered
apostates and are treated very harshly, including many cases of
forcible reconversion through kidnapping and forcing women into
marriage.
Pakistan has blasphemy laws that mandate the death penalty
against ``whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by any
imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly
defiles the Prophet Mohammed.''
Hundreds of blasphemy cases are pending against Christians
and others in Pakistan's courts.
Amnesty reports that in all known cases, ``the charges
appear to have been arbitrarily brought, founded solely on the
individual's minority religious beliefs or on malicious
accusations against individuals who advocate novel ideas.''
The minorities being affected, of course, are Christians
and also Ahmadis.
In February, inflamed about a rumor of blasphemy, a Muslim
mob 30,000 strong went on a rampage in Pakistan's Punjab
province setting fires in the Christian village of Shantinagar.
The town of 15,000 was nearly razed, and thousands of
Christians were left homeless. When Pakistani Christians
marched on the capital a few days later to protest the
destruction and demand greater protection, they were brutalized
and arrested by police, that is, the Christians were.
Iran's militant Islamic president delivered a fiery sermon
in 1994 declaring that ``there is no longer validity to other
religions,'' and that ``Iran and the entire Muslim world must
adopt the Prophet and Jihad, or holy war, as a model.''
Soon after that, Iran's tiny Protestant community was
devastated by the brutal murders of three key pastors. Terror
struck the Christian community again last October. The body of
a fourth prominent leader from the Assemblies of God church was
found hanging from a tree near his home. He had been a convert
from Islam. We believe that he was murdered.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the Baha'is have
suffered terribly in Iran as well. They have no legal rights.
Killing a Baha'i is not considered homicide. In the last 20
years, 200 Baha'is have been murdered.
The persecution of Christians is on the rise as advances
are made by a militantly politicized strain of Islam where
extremists, distorting Islam's tolerant values, seek to use
religion to grab state power. It is no accident that the places
where Christians are most severely persecuted are also among
the countries rated as being the least free in Freedom House's
annual survey, ``Freedom in the World.''
If Christians are being persecuted and even martyred on
such a massive scale throughout the world, why don't we know
about it? Well, Mr. Chairman, I think that our own
discriminatory attitudes and secular myopia have prevented us
from recognizing the problem of persecution of Christians
abroad.
With various exceptions, our political leaders have been
unaware or else have turned a blind eye. Our Presidents in
recent years have repeatedly spoken out about human rights
abuses against vulnerable minorities throughout the world, but
they have failed to address the persecution of Christians, even
though it is among the most pervasive international human
rights problem.
After the pogrom against the Christians in Egypt in March,
President Mubarak visited President Clinton in Washington. I
wonder if he raised our concern for this religious repression.
I know my time is up. I refer you to my written text. Let
me just say that I want to point out just two quick examples.
One is Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. Government has repeatedly
failed to speak up for the religious rights for even American
citizens there and has capitulated to Saudi demands to restrict
Christian worship services on U.S. Embassy soil in Saudi
Arabia.
Our soldiers in the Gulf War were told that they had to
hide their Bibles and their crucifixes. They were also
restricted in their worship while they were defending Saudi
sovereignty.
Also in the matter of asylum, this is an area where there
can definitely be steps taken, reforms taken in the United
States. There is a case currently that I am involved in of an
Iranian Evangelical woman who managed to flee to Turkey and
asked for political asylum based on religious repression. She
was considered an apostate in her own country and would be
killed.
The U.N. certified that she had refugee designation, but
she was turned down by the U.S. asylum officer. I reviewed her
transcript and, apparently, he had never heard of adult
baptism.
Her case was so strong that she has been given political
asylum based on religion by Canada but not the United States.
My time is up. I thank you very much and maybe we can get
back to some of the other points I make in my testimony in the
question and answer session.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Shea appears in Appendix D
on page 103.]
Senator Brownback. Good. Thank you very much, Ms. Shea. You
paint a very discouraging picture, but we are happy that you
are here to present that and we look forward to further
questions.
Mr. Walid Phares is Professor of International Relations at
Florida Atlantic University. Thank you very much for joining us
and the microphone is yours.
STATEMENT OF DR. WALID PHARES, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, MIAMI, FLORIDA
Dr. Phares. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to be a
part of this panel. I am honored, first of all, because I have
been researching the matter for the last 16 years; and, second,
because I am Middle Eastern and I am from a Christian
background. I can assure you that back in the Middle East, 18
million Christians will consider this hearing as an historic
moment.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to cover four issues: first,
understanding the fact; second, I will try to answer the
question of why is it happening; third, why is there a silence
about it; and, fourth, what can the U.S. Government do about
it.
But first, allow me to make a few remarks.
While the United States leads the international community
in many diplomatic and rescue initiatives, such as in Bosnia,
many here and overseas wonder why parallel action is not taken
in similar, sometimes worse, nightmares, such as the tragedies
in Southern Sudan, Upper Egypt, and Central Lebanon to name a
few.
Of course, United States resources are limited to a certain
extent and world hotspots must be evaluated for their priority
within American interests and capabilities.
When should Washington get involved? Of late, the United
States participated in treaties to stop the massacres in Bosnia
and to convey political rights to the Palestinians. The
problems within these groups and the delicacy with which they
had to be handled are well known. Less known, however, are the
plights of various Christian minorities.
Not supporting the rights of the Christians while
supporting the rights of other communities has, at times,
seemed ironic, particularly given the Judeo-Christian religious
roots of most citizens as well as Members of Congress.
Minimally, it had sent a message of indifference. In some
cases, this disregard has been construed as a ``green light,''
a green light to proceed in actions taken against minorities in
the region. At worst, the silence in the United States has
actually caused an increase in persecutions against the 18
million Christians in the Middle East.
Over the past decades, the persecutions and oppression of
Middle East Christians were rarely reported in Western media.
While other accusations of abuse in the region have been
investigated exhaustively by audio-visual and printed media,
the suffering of millions of Christians has been downplayed or
simply ignored.
It is only now and after persecution has reached its zenith
that fact finding is underway, such as today's hearing.
Another problem stems from that lack of information. The
groups which have a natural tie to the Middle East Christians
have done little despite their vast resources and commitment to
activism on better known topics. Domestic, as well as
international, Christian churches have not paid enough
attention in the past to the large scale persecution of
Christians in the Middle East. Their resources can make a
significant difference if they raised the issue nationwide with
all their strength.
Even those who do not need the media to illuminate them
have all too often by-passed the problems of Christians in the
Middle East. I am now talking about many in the academic
community of this country.
Despite easy access to facts, many Middle East experts have
chosen to research and write about the ``majority'' rather than
the minorities in the region. This course of study has been
facilitated by cooperation and financial support, either from
governments or business with interests abroad, to institutions
or researchers who published about topics deemed
``acceptable.''
Now let me go to the questions. First is understanding the
facts. I have five points, quick points. First is size,
location and background. What are we talking about in the
Middle East?
The Christians in the Middle East are not a monolithic
group. They are the descendants of the first Christians in the
world and the heirs of the ancient and native people of the
region. While many Christians are recent converts, the
overwhelming majority of the Middle East Christians came from
nationalities which did not convert to Islam after the Arab
conquest of the 7th century.
The largest Christian community of the Middle East is found
in Egypt, which has 10 to 12 million Copts. This Christian
group comprises one-fifth or one-sixth of the country's
population. The Southern Sudanese have about 6 million.
Christians are the largest monotheist group. As for the
Christians of Lebanon, about 1.5 million still reside there,
and more than 6 million live in the Diaspora, including about a
quarter of that number in North America.
Among the Lebanese Christians, the largest group is the
Maronites, which are Catholics which follow Rome. Other smaller
religious entities include Melchites, Orthodox, and
Protestants.
The Assyrian Chaldeans, around 1 million in Iraq and in the
Diaspora, have a large concentration in the Kurdish zone and,
of course, in Chicago and Detroit. The Christians of Syria,
about 1.2 million, include Aramaic, Armenians, Melchites,
Orthodox, Evangelicals. There are small, but significant,
Christian communities in other countries, such as Iran, Jordan,
and Israel, and less significant in Turkey and Algeria. By law,
there are no Christians in Saudi Arabia.
Point 2 is types of persecution. There are various types of
persecution of Christians in the Middle East. We can sort them
into two categories.
First, religious persecution of individuals, technically
human rights abuses. This persecution is conducted against
individuals because of their religious affiliation. In Saudi
Arabia and Iran, as highlighted by many speakers, for example,
individuals are punished for displaying crosses or stars of
David. They are jailed for praying in public and, in some
cases, are punished by death for not complying with the
religious tenets.
In these countries, as well as in Egypt and Sudan, converts
to Christianity are sentenced to death.
More important, perhaps more tragic, there is a political
oppression of religious communities which I call ethno-
religious cleansing.
In this case, ruling regimes are oppressing entire
religious communities on political, security, and economic
levels. The objectives of such oppression is to reduce the
influence of Christian communities and, in certain cases, to
reduce it physically.
The ethno-religious cleansing of Christian peoples in the
Middle East alternate between military suppression and
political oppression. In Egypt, the large Coptic nation is
systematically discriminated against on the constitutional,
political, administrative, and cultural levels. Moreover,
paramilitary fundamentalist groups are conducting pogroms
against the Christians, which include burning churches and
assassinating civilians.
In Sudan, the stated objective of the ruling regime is to
Arabize and Islamize the African Christian and Animist
population of the South. Since 1992, the Sudanese Government
has been waging a military campaign aimed at dispersing,
enslaving, and subduing the southern blacks.
Last, but not least, let us review the third largest
Christian community of the region, the Lebanese, who are under
political and security oppression in their own homeland. Under
occupation by a Muslim power, Syria, the Christian community is
systematically being suppressed by the Syrian controlled regime
of Beirut.
The smaller Christian groups do no better. In Iraq, for
example, the Assyrians are another group targeted by the Saddam
regime.
Third is slavery. Religious persecution of Christians in
the Middle East has reached extreme forms of human degradation.
In Sudan, for example, abundant reports by international human
rights organizations have documented the enslavement by the
northern fundamentalist forces of southern African Christians.
According to the experts and to reports, there are today
between 600,000 to 1 million black slaves from Sudan who have
either been taken to the north of that country to work as
domestics or sold in other Arab countries.
Fourth is the authors of the persecutions.
One religious group can act against another religious
group. For Christians, this has been the case in Egypt, Sudan,
Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan. Of course,
persecution can also be conducted by members of one particular
group against other members of the same religious group on the
basis of religious fundamentalism--against women and seculars
in Algeria, in Afghanistan, and in Iran, of course; or racism
in Mauritania. But this is not the topic of today's discussion.
Persecution of ethno-religious groups, the Mideast
Christians in particular, is conducted by legal governments--
Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan--or by organizations--the
National Islamic Front in Sudan, the Front Islamique de Salut
in Algeria, the Hizbollah in Lebanon, et cetera.
Point number 5 is evolution. It is interesting to notice
that under the cold war, the oppression of Christians was
mostly, but not exclusively, conducted under pro-Soviet regimes
in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, and in the PLO-Islamic controlled
areas during Lebanon's civil war. Since the Iranian revolution
and after the end of the cold war, persecution has spread in
most of the region's countries. Ironically, in the wake of the
Arab-Israeli peace process, persecution has reached larger
scales and was conducted with bolder ideological attitudes.
Why is it happening, Mr. Chairman? There are four reasons.
First is the historical pattern. Persecution of non-Muslims
in the Middle East is deeply rooted in history, as Bat Ye'or
has said. It is the result of 13 centuries of dominance by
regimes which legally and politically discriminate against
Christians.
Ideological patterns exist, too. More recently, Christians
have become a specific target of radical Islamic
fundamentalism. The more political fundamentalism grows, the
more Christians are persecuted.
There is a regional pattern. In many cases, the increase of
persecution is caused by regional government toleration and
sometimes participation.
The most important is international patterns. A less
investigated factor is the American and Western political,
intellectual, and moral abandonment of human rights policies as
a priority. The less the United States intervenes in protecting
the rights of Christians and others, the more these communities
will suffer.
Why is there a silence about it? The victims of the
persecution in the Middle East are denied the right to raise
their plight by their oppressors. While other minorities,
amazingly, or non-state communities in the Middle East are
allowed by their dominant regimes to express their cause, not
one, single Christian community is able to articulate its claim
and protest peacefully.
Have you seen one Christian demonstration in the Middle
East, just one? Never.
Two, as indicated above, the victims of the persecution
have little access to American and international press. While
the dominant national-religious movements from the Middle East
have easy access to TV, radio, and newspapers, Mideast
Christians do not. Because they lack the resources to purchase
time, to have department chairs in universities, or expensive
lobbyists, their message is not getting out.
Three, their problems are not ``convenient'' ones, either.
Because of regional, diplomatic, and economic considerations,
the causes of these persecutions are marginalized in the
political and academic world of the United States.
Finally, because of a variety of factors, including the
above-mentioned, oppressed Christian communities in the Middle
East did not, historically speaking, obtain a credible support
from worldwide Christians.
As a result of the factors I mentioned, grassroots of
American churches and the general public in the United States
are simply not aware of the persecutions and, therefore, cannot
support these unknown and unpublicized causes.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, what can the U.S. Government do
about it?
I would like to commend the current initiative which
allowed this hearing to occur and other similar initiatives in
Congress. I also commend President Clinton for forming a
special advisory commission to investigate the subject and
report to the White House.
However, I believe the U.S. Government should take further
steps. The U.S. Congress must, in my mind, (1) take the
leadership on this issue and encourage the administration to
take practical measures which would have effect in the region;
(2) hold additional hearings and organize a conference on the
rights of religious minorities in the region here in Congress.
It is crucial that representatives of these communities will be
invited to express their concerns. Invite the persecuted
people.
Third, and finally, we must legislate. We should legislate
linkage between foreign policy issues, such as foreign aid and
trade and human rights abuse. Those countries and organizations
responsible for this persecution should be held responsible for
their behavior.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the U.S. Government can act in
order to save the lives and preserve the individual rights of
millions of individuals in the Middle East. There is little
hope for the 18 million Christians in the Middle East if the
United States does not take a leadership role.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Boy, you make me grieve with the
testimony that you put here in front of me about the extent and
the breadth of what is taking place to people in that region of
the world, or, for that matter, in many places around the
world, but particularly in the Middle East, which is the
subject of this hearing.
Do I hear you correctly to state that the level of
persecution of Christians is at the highest level in recorded
history? Is that a correct statement?
Ms. Shea. That is correct. Yes. This is the worst century
of anti-Christian persecution in history.
Senator Brownback. What level are we talking about total
number-wise? I am hearing, unfortunately, so many numbers that
you are putting out. What could the number be placed at of
those being persecuted by death, or slavery, or torture?
Ms. Shea. The century opened up with the massacre of the
Armenians in Turkey. We then moved on to Stalinism, Maoism, and
Nazism took its toll on Christians as well as Jews and some
others. There is also Pol Potism. This has been a dreadful
century.
Right now the Catholic bishop of El Obeid province in Sudan
has come out saying that there is genocide against the
Christian population in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. 1.5
million people have died in the 10 year war there, a war of
forcible conversion, by the way, and most of those people are
Christians and non-Muslims.
Senator Brownback. Currently, in 1997, are we experiencing
now in the world the highest level of Christian persecution in
recorded history--period?
Ms. Shea. I don't know if this year so far is higher than
any other previous year. But certainly we have seen an increase
in this decade in the Middle East.
One of the lessons absorbed by the dictators and tyrants of
the world from the collapse of the Soviet Union was that it was
the churches and the Christian community who helped to bring
them down; that the Christian population of the then Soviet
empire could never accept the notion that there was an absolute
power called ``The Communist Party'' and that individuals did
not have dignity and human rights. That is a very Christian
notion there.
So they have come to crack down on the churches within
their borders during the 1990's. We see an increase in Egypt,
and the last 5 years has been worse than the previous 20 years.
The Sudan has a genocidal situation in the Nuba Mountains.
There are slavery and massive human rights abuses in general.
In Pakistan it seems to be on the ascendancy as well. In
Iran there is a greater intolerance against Christians. There
has always been intolerance against Baha'is, but so-called
``People of the Book,'' Christians and Jews, had some
protection under Iranian law. It does not seem that they have
that kind of protection anymore.
For Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International has documented that
it has gotten worse since the Gulf War for Christians.
Senator Brownback. So we are talking of millions in the
Middle East being persecuted?
Ms. Shea. We're talking about millions and we're talking of
a downward trend.
Senator Brownback. Currently.
Ms. Shea. Currently.
Senator Brownback. And it could be at the highest level
ever.
Dr. Phares.
Dr. Phares. If we look at it from a historical point of
view and in slow motion, yes, we are at the peak now.
I would like to make just one note here. We should
distinguish between individual persecution and ethnic-religious
persecution. The Christians in the Middle East are oppressed
under these two items.
If you look at individual persecution, you have hundreds,
by hundreds--the numbers are in the hundreds--of cases,
separate cases, of either assassination, or jailing, or
sentencing.
If you look at the collective question, we are talking
about the entirety of Christians in the Middle East. 18 million
Christians are suffering--the same way the Muslims in Bosnia
are suffering; the same way other communities worldwide are
suffering politically.
Senator Brownback. And you would consider all 18 million of
the Christians in the Middle East being persecuted in some way,
either by the regime or by the regime turning its head the
other way and not noticing what is happening? All 18 million
are being persecuted in some way or another?
Dr. Phares. There were only two areas in the Middle East
where Christians were able to practice freely. One was Lebanon,
the second is Israel.
Lebanon is gone in the 1990's, under Syrian occupation
today. So there is no more Christian freedom in Lebanon. In
Israel, the Christian community is too small and their problems
are not of an ethnic background but of a religious background
and political background. Therefore, there is no place in the
Middle East, in the entire Middle East, where Christians can
breathe freely. Therefore yes, I would agree with you.
Bat Ye'or. I would like to stress that it is very important
for the West that the Middle East should not become
monolithically Islamic because the Middle East was the cradle
of Judeo-Christian civilizations, mainly Christian, which had
flourished there. The West should encourage the remnants of
Christian and Jewish populations to remain--they are mainly
Christian because the Jews have disappeared now from the Arab
countries. The West, in encouraging those populations to remain
there is, in fact, affirming that Muslims must respect the
human rights and religious rights of the Christians. Otherwise,
if Islamists will refuse these rights to Christians and Jews,
they will threaten the liberty of the Western World also.
So, in fact, we have to consider that it is in our
interest, not only in the interest of those remnant populations
but in our interest, to struggle for the respect of their
rights.
I would like to add also one word, that if the Christians
have not expressed their sorrow and their grief in public, it
is because they are afraid of terrorism and reprisals in their
own country. It is absolutely forbidden for a Christian or a
Jew to criticize any aspect of Islamic law. This is part of the
blasphemy law.
If they do so, they are condemned to death. So they are
afraid of criticizing the regime under which they are living.
Senator Brownback. The other thing that is so striking
about it, that is so stunning, is the silence on our part. It
is almost stunning if you think of the numbers that we are
talking about and the horridness of the crime. You are talking
about slavery, child slavery, and murder taking place. And yet
the deafening silence really is absolutely striking.
Are we embarrassed to raise this?
Bat Ye'or. Yes.
Senator Brownback. Do we have too many commercial interests
at stake?
Bat Ye'or. It is an ideological problem, because the
Western World has turned away from its Judeo-Christian roots;
and we have seen it from the beginning of the century with
Communism, then with Nazism, then with the trend of
Islamization, which is very strong in Europe and which has led
to total censorship on all the suffering of the Christians
under Islam because the focus was only on anti-Zionism in the
media and in the policy of European states.
So criticizing the Arab countries with which Europe was
allied would undermine this alliance with Arab-Muslim regimes.
Therefore, the Christian communities, unfortunately, were
abandoned through this policy, this anti-Zionist policy, which
in some ways was anti-Jewish.
Dr. Phares. Mr. Chairman, in answering your question I
would like to say it is an organized silence. There are many
walls that suppress the voices of those who are suffering, and
if you do not hear these voices, then you cannot act or react.
The first wall is in the regimes. Have you ever seen a
Christian persecuted in the Middle East being interviewed on
CNN? When you have incidents in the West Bank, when you have
incidents in any other region in the Middle East, you have the
victim interviewed, the son-in-law, the father, and the
grandfather. When you have massacres in Egypt, CNN does not
even mention it nor does the major media. It is only lately,
when the New York Times and other brave voices are starting to
talk about it that now you are holding these hearings.
So you have this wall from the Middle East. We have another
intellectual wall here. The academic community is not
responding. It is their moral and intellectual duty to address
these issues and they are not.
Third, the third wall is the U.S. Government. Of course the
U.S. Government is under the pressure of not raising these
issues. I heard the report of the State Department--an
excellent report--I would like to mention this.
It is not just a question of getting some people out of
jails in the Middle East. It is a question of getting nations
out of captivity. We are talking about a major, Biblical-sized,
from a historical point of view, cause.
Senator Brownback. I want to reiterate my statement at the
outset, that this hearing is not here to blame any particular
religion, not here to blame Islam at all for any of this. It is
to notice what is taking place and that much of it is
governmentally sponsored in a region. As I read and as a number
of you have testified, Islam is a very peaceful and loving
religion as well.
Let me ask you this. Do we need symbols of what is taking
place? Do we need an Alexander Solzhenytsyn? Do we need a
person there to symbolize what is taking place to so many? Is
the problem because there are so many there is not a face to
it?
Ms. Shea?
Ms. Shea. I don't think that is the problem. We know of
cases. There are symbols. There is Salamat Masih, a 12 year old
Christian boy in Pakistan who was charged with blasphemy with
absolutely no evidence. This was a couple of years ago. His
case became well known, because one of his co-defendants was
gunned down in the streets after they emerged from a court
hearing. He survived that attack with some wounds, went on, got
convicted, and there is a mandatory death penalty for
blasphemy.
Again, there was no evidence. The imam who charged him with
the crime refused to repeat what the alleged blasphemy was.
There were no witnesses, and he claimed it was some kind of
blasphemous graffiti, and the kid was semi-illiterate.
Anyhow, under international pressure he was eventually
acquitted of the crime. But then radical Islamists within
Pakistan put a $30,000 bounty on his head, and the 12 year old
fled into hiding, to live in Germany where he lives today.
This is directly parallel with the Salman Rushdie case. We
know about this child. We have his picture. We have film
footage. CBN had film footage of his court hearing. But for
some reason it does not catch on.
In fact, I think the reason was well articulated by Richard
Land, President of the Christian Life Commission of the
Southern Baptist Convention. He said that too often people in
the West, peering through the selective prism of Christian
history in the West, reflexively think of Christians as the
persecutors rather than as the persecuted, and, further, an
increasingly secularized West and its leadership elite tend to
be indifferent and often uncomprehending of a spiritual world
view, which endures persecution and death for the sake of
belief.
We just cannot comprehend that anymore in the West. It is
the old example of the young man in front of the tank in
Tiananmen Square, who was recognized by the West, rightly, as a
hero, a hero for democracy. But if a person were to lay down
his or her life for Jesus Christ, for the Bible, he would be
considered a fanatic, crazy, and as not worthy of our
intervention.
But there is no dearth of individual cases. We know about
them.
Senator Brownback. But do you not make my point, perhaps,
which is I don't see, as you described this young man, I don't
see his face coming up in my mind. Is it that we need to have a
face?
Ms. Shea. That is because our media elite don't pick it up
and our political leaders don't pick it up. If President
Clinton were to pick up that case and were to talk about it, or
Mrs. Clinton, people would know about it.
Senator Brownback. I think maybe that is my point, that we
need to pick out faces in the crowd to make them symbols of
what is taking place in our broader cross section.
You all have been very instructive to me. I hope that you
will be willing to work with us on this committee to identify
perhaps some who are persecuted throughout the region of
various faiths that may be willing to come forward and testify
so that we can get their clear story and put it in front of the
American people and, hopefully, in front of the world
community.
You each have done your job in doing that and I greatly
appreciate it, from the writings that you have done, from the
speaking and the study that you have put forward. Also, as we
consider legislative action, please apprise us of your ideas.
Particularly, Ms. Shea, I think of your comments on asylum laws
and some things that we may be able to do in that particular
area. I took note of that.
This is the first of a number of looks at this and work in
this area.
Thank you all very much for coming. Thank you as a panel.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION: FACES OF THE PERSECUTED
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1997
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 2:06 p.m., in room SD-419, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback, chairman of the
subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Brownback and Robb.
Senator Brownback. I would like to welcome everyone to this
hearing on religious persecution in the Middle East. Our
hearing today will focus on the faces of the persecuted. In
addition to witnesses who have dedicated their lives to the
betterment of the lot of oppressed Christians, we have a few
witnesses today who will provide first hand testimony to the
persecution they have endured for their faith.
We greatly appreciate the courage of these witnesses in
speaking out. They do so at potential risk to themselves and
their families and yet they remain committed to getting out
word of the persecution being perpetrated in their countries.
Indeed, this is a subject that for too long has remained
unnoticed or deliberately ignored. But silence has only served
to give free rein to the persecutors.
Today's hearing is the second one on this subject held by
this subcommittee and we are planning more. This is a subject
about which--unfortunately--there is much to say.
After the last hearing I chaired on religious persecution,
I received critiques to the effect that our hearings deal only
with Christians. I would like to say that this hearing, like
the last one, is one of a series that this subcommittee will be
holding. Future hearings will not only focus on the persecution
of Christians but also that of other religious minorities in
the Middle East.
As I mentioned at the last hearing, I believe that as
Americans, we have a unique obligation to speak out against
religious persecution. The right to freely practice the
religion of one's choice is a freedom central to our republic.
We must not fail to defend a principle that our founding
fathers viewed as fundamental to our democracy.
We have Dr. Bennett, who is co-director of Empower America,
who has done a number of very good things for the United States
on cultural renewal and cultural reform and has now taken up
the picture and the issue of religious persecution who will
soon be holding a forum through Empower America on the issues
of religious persecution.
He is joined by Senator Joe Lieberman, and Joe and I have
been kidding each other about whether he is becoming a
Republican or I am a Democrat. We agree on so many issues any
more that it gets embarrassing to both of us. But he has spoken
out strongly as well on the issue of religious persecution.
So, we are delighted to have them as a panel laying out
this issue first to us overall, and we appreciate them coming.
As I understand by previous agreement, Senator Lieberman, you
have some other obligations you need to go to and so we would
put you forward first and invite your testimony in front of the
committee. Thank you for being here.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM
CONNECTICUT
Senator Lieberman. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman, for your
kind introduction, for your interest in this problem, and I am
delighted to be here and share this table with my friend and--
well, occasionally I refer to him--I hope he does not mind--as
my rabbi, Bill Bennett.
Secretary Bennett and I, under the sponsorship of Empower
America, as you indicated, recently committed ourselves to lead
an effort to raise public awareness about ongoing religious
persecution around the world. These hearings that you have
chosen to hold are a welcome and very important step toward
addressing this very serious problem by raising public
awareness of it.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak about those
who literally today around the world are dying for their faith.
The fact is that in too many corners of the globe innocent men,
women, and children are being suppressed, tortured, imprisoned,
and murdered simply because of their religious beliefs. They
number at least in the thousands, perhaps in the tens and
hundreds of thousands. The persecution they suffer is familiar
and it is often fatal.
It did not stop, sadly, with the defeat of Nazism or the
cease-fire in Bosnia. It goes on today. The fact is it goes on
today mainly targeted against Christians and mostly occurring
in a few remnant communist countries in what I would describe,
choosing my words carefully, as fanatical Islamic states. In
fact, it seems to be gaining strength as the millennium
approaches.
Some of the most awful persecution is being perpetrated
against, for instance, Coptic Christians in Egypt, the Bahais
in Iran, and Christians in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and other parts
of the Middle East, that region which this subcommittee you
chair focuses on.
According to knowledgeable observers, including Amnesty
International and the U.N. Special Representatives, and as
documented by Nina Shea of Freedom House and others, the
persecution of Christians and others who refuse to convert to a
fanatical brand of Islam is on the increase in too many
countries in the Middle East. While much of the evidence is
anecdotal--these governments, after all, are not anxious to
catalog and share this damning information--it is nonetheless
compelling.
Where we can quantify this problem, it is shocking enough.
For instance, we have enough evidence to conclude that in Saudi
Arabia more than 1,000 Christian expatriates have been arrested
and imprisoned since 1990 for simply participating in private
worship services. And where we can only describe it without
quantifying it, it is a call to action, branding Christian
children in Sudan, driving Copts from their homes in Egypt,
beating and then murdering evangelical pastors and Bahais in
Iran.
But the question will be asked naturally, why should we
care? Why should this subcommittee care? Why should you as
chairman of this distinguished subcommittee care?
I think the answer is contained in what you suggested in
your opening remarks. We Americans cannot help but be repulsed
by the kind of savagery that turns faith into a death sentence.
Our Nation was founded by religious people seeking freedom to
follow their faith. Their political vision, as expressed in the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, was based on
their spiritual conviction that freedom and especially freedom
of religion is an endowment from our creator, not a gift to be
granted or taken away by governments. This is at heart of what
it means to be an American, and it has to be at the heart of
what it means to be America, a nation leader of the world. As
Americans we have a unique obligation I think to speak out and
to act against religious persecution wherever we find it.
We are here to ask you to help put an end to this tragedy.
Persecution of people of faith must stop and America by her
very nature and convictions must lead the effort to stop it.
Raising public awareness, which is what we are about here
today under your leadership, will clearly do part of the job,
and so will energizing the churches and synagogues and temples
of the United States to stand up and cry out against the
persecution of our brothers and sisters around the world.
Part of the effort we must make is to collect reliable
information about this issue and to disseminate it widely. We
need to marshal the facts here, to get them reliably, and then
to make them known.
But public awareness is not enough. We also need to make
sure that the many arms of our Government become more actively
involved in this fight to put it at the center of our relations
with the countries of the world in multilateral and bilateral
discussions from the President and Secretary of State to
Ambassador or a consular officer or an INS inspector or even
intelligence analyst. We need to make sure that the people who
set and enforce and implement our foreign policies understand
that one of their priorities must be to take seriously these
claims of religious persecution and thereby to help stop the
flow of innocent blood.
Congress needs to establish that expectation through
hearings of this kind and, if necessary--and I believe it will
be--through legislation. The legislation introduced by Senator
Specter and Congressman Wolf is a very strong and comprehensive
beginning in that regard.
Mr. Chairman, finally I believe it was Ambassador Paul
Wolfowitz who suggested a while ago that the main goal of our
foreign policy in this hour of our history should be to make
sure that the 21st century is not a repeat of the 20th century.
Two World Wars, a cold war, several genocides, and a host of
smaller conflicts makes the last 100 years among the bloodiest
in our history, although in many other ways it was a glorious
century for this country.
A frightening number of the victims of the 20th century
have been perversely singled out because of their faith. In
fact, according to reports that I have seen and believe, more
Christians have died because of their religious beliefs in the
20th century than in the first 19 after the birth of Jesus.
For too long the world has ignored the plight and pain of
these victims. It is time now for us to make clear once again,
if I may paraphrase the words from Genesis, that God spoke to
Cain that we in fact do hear the blood of our brothers and
sisters crying out from the ground. It is time for us once
again to embrace our most fundamental values and to put an end
to the innocent suffering of the faithful.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the leadership role that you
are playing in that effort.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Senator Lieberman
for your testimony, and I look forward to some questions here.
Dr. Bennett, thank you very much. You honor the committee
by joining us and by being willing to be here as well today,
and the microphone is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM J. BENNETT, CO-DIRECTOR, EMPOWER
AMERICA, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Dr. Bennett. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I want to
thank you as well for convening this hearing or meeting,
whatever you determine it will be. It is very thoughtful of
you, and as I will say several times in the next 4 minutes of
my remarks, attention must be paid, and this is a very good
place to start.
I am delighted to join my friend, collaborator, colleague,
Joe Lieberman again. I am delighted to be called his rabbi,
though I am not worthy. The other day, after I finished a
speech, someone came up to me and said, ``I knew you were
Catholic, but I did not know you were that Catholic.'' I will
now tell that person that I am your rabbi just to add further
to the confusion. But we appreciate the ecumenical nature of
this get-together.
As far as you and Joe Lieberman collaborating so often that
it is becoming indistinguishable, let me suggest that this is
not only very good for each of you, it is also very good for
the country. Where Joe Lieberman and Sam Brownback meet might
be a very good place for the country to be, and we may want to
think about that as the next couple of years unfold.
I will be very brief. Could I ask, Mr. Chairman, if we
could present the advertisement that Senator Lieberman and I
made? It has now played. It has played some in different parts
of the world. It has played principally in the United States,
and we went to some trouble to present it. It will set up my
remarks. If we could. It lasts 1 minute.
Senator Brownback. Yes, please. [Videotape shown.]
Dr. Bennett. Many people are playing many parts, Mr.
Chairman, in this drama, attempting to get this story told. I
think Joe would agree with me that in many ways our part is the
easiest. There are people who are surviving this story and some
who are not, suffering persecution daily, people who are dying
for their faith, people whose names we do not know, names we
may not ever know, and they are indeed the real heart of this
story.
Second, there are people who have worked long and
anonymously in the vineyards on this issue, trying to identify
it, trying to bring it to people's attention, trying to
persuade a sometimes indifferent, even hostile world of the
nature of this. In a few minutes you will get to the important
part of the proceedings, which is talking to some of them,
people behind me to my right and to my left. To stay with the
religious allusion, I see our angel Michael here on my left
shoulder who has been one of those people who has been so
laboring.
Joe Lieberman and I come to this late, and we admit we come
to it late, but we hope, coming to it late, we have at least
tried to come to it loud. We have tried to raise our voices as
best we can using whatever microphones or megaphones or means
we have at our disposal, and one of the great means is this
hearing today. Again, attention. Attention must be paid.
It was Lincoln who said that if you have public opinion on
your side, you have everything. Get the public opinion of the
American people and your answer will be found.
Our job, as Joe Lieberman and I see it, is to try in
whatever way we can that seems sensible and hopeful to bring
the message, to bring the word of this tragic and horrible
story to the American people. In this we are aided by the
people from whom you will soon hear. Indeed, without them we
would have nothing to say.
It seems to me that in all the things that compete for the
attention of the American people, there must be some sorting
out. People must decide what merits attention today, what can
wait till tomorrow, what can wait till next year, what can be
deferred and what deserves attention immediately.
Saint Augustine talks about the ordo amorum, the order of
the loves. It seems to me in the ordo amorum of today, there
can be no higher priority. Much competes for our attention but
little, it seems to me, could compete in terms of importance
with the issue that we address today.
The blood of the faithful is being spilled around the
world. It is an offense not only to the law of God and to the
law of man, but to every reasonable person wherever he or she
may live. It cries for justice. It cries for punishment in many
cases, and it cries for resolution.
There are three main targets, it seems to me, as we go
forward in our deliberations. I will just mention them briefly.
One is the media. One of the ways we get stories told in
this country is for them to be told not one at a time, but
through the mass media. It has been difficult frankly, Mr.
Chairman, to get this story out. We have not been as successful
as we would like in getting this story on the TV screens of
America and in the newspapers of America. There are some
notable exceptions, but it seems to us more efforts must be
made.
We do not suggest an order of the Government. That would
not be appropriate. That would not be right and certainly would
not be constitutional. But what we would ask of the media is to
look at the various things in their day book this week and next
week and the week after and decide how they stack up in
importance to this question.
Second is the political realm and there we would urge the
President of the United States, we would urge your colleagues
in the Senate and House to take up this issue, to have more
hearings, to bring in more testimony, and to make this issue an
ingredient in the discussions that we have with our Ambassadors
with representatives from other nations, with the heads of
other nations, and to make it part and parcel of all our
deliberations on the international front.
Third, of course, is the churches. This issue must be
spoken out from the pulpit, the real pulpit, by those in
position of authority. The faithful must come to the aid of the
faithful around the world who are suffering for that faith, and
we think in the end that will be the most important, the single
most consequential kind of action that we can take.
Then finally just to come full circle, it is the American
people, led by their political leaders, informed by the media,
and instructed and counseled by their religious leaders as to
what to do who will in the end I think take up this issue and
see to its resolution as best they can.
It is in Death of a Salesman that Linda Loman says to her
two boys about their father, ``boys, attention, attention must
be paid.'' Again, it is a world where so many things cry out
for our attention. All of us have priorities. All of us have
issues. All of us have things we need to do, but as we sort
them out, can we fairly say, can we honestly say that there are
many things more compelling and more demanding for our
attention resolution than the problem we present to you and
others will present to you more eloquently today? ``We hold
these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal
and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.''
That is not just something of 200 years ago. That issue is a
life and blood issue today.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Senator Lieberman and Dr.
Bennett follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman
and Dr. William J. Bennett
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
It is a pleasure to address this Committee on a subject of enormous
importance. We commend the Committee decision to focus attention on
this issue, and the commitment expressed by some Members to find ways
to combat this widespread and terribly underreported problem of
religious persecution.
More persecution of religious believers has taken place in this
century than in any other. And instead of abating, the problem is
intensifying. We are not talking about ``persecution'' as many
Americans think of it (i.e., as biased or unfavorable news coverage, or
ridicule of conservative Christians); we are talking about unspeakable
acts of horror, including the imprisonment, slavery, starvation,
torture and murder of many thousands of people. The vast majority of it
is directed against Christians.
There are, of course, less gruesome but still serious forms of
persecution. Paul Marshall, author of Their Blood Cries Out, has
written that around 200 million Christians are suffering the denial of
the basic human right of religious freedom and live under the threat of
violence if they practice their faith. Other persecuted groups include
the Bah'is in Iran and Buddhists in Tibet and Vietnam, among others.
According to the International Campaign for Tibet, growing numbers of
monks and nuns who have protested religious expression have been
arrested and tortured. In Iran, Baha'is are denied the right to
organize and worship, and as ``unprotected infidels'' have no legal
rights.
These are some of the terrible realities of the late twentieth
century. Unfortunately, the issue has been largely ignored by much of
the political class, by mainstream journalists, and by many churches
and religious institutions. Indeed, with a few honorable exceptions,
virtually no attention has been paid to this issue.
What accounts for this indifference? One explanation is that there
is a reluctance among some people in influential positions to rally
public opinion behind the issue of Christian persecution. To many
opinion-makers in this country, there is a little sympathy for
Christians as an oppressed group. They are not de rigueur. Other
religious faiths do not have the influence to make their concerns
known. Religious suffering is therefore neglected in ways that other
kinds of suffering are not.
Today, many people look back at past generations and wonder how
they could passively allow terrible atrocities to go unchallenged. But
of course it is easier for us to muster condemnation against past
generations than it is to muster moral resistance to present evils.
Ultimately, however, we must answer for ourselves. And we cannot say
that we do not know, for we know quite a bit.
We know, for example, that the worst religious oppressors include
China, Cuba, Egypt, Laos, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
Sudan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. According to Nina Shea of Freedom House,
Sudan is waging a jihad against its Christian and non-Muslim
population. Christians in southern Sudan are sold into slavery;
Catholic Bishop Macram Max Gassis from the Nuba mountains has
determined that Khartoum's campaign against the Christians in his
diocese has reached genocidal proportions. Egypt's Christian Coptic and
evangelical community is the target of violent aggression by Muslim
extremists. Between 60 million and 100 million Christians in China
violate government edicts by worshipping in underground ``house
churches.'' Since 1979, more than 200 Baha'is in Iran have been
executed because of their religion. And there is much more.
Recently we have begun a campaign with our colleague Jeane
Kirkpatrick, under the auspices of Empower America, to draw attention
to these and other examples of worldwide religious persecution. We hope
this campaign, combined with the efforts of others, will help make this
issue a prominent part of our national political debate. For
philosophical and historical, as well as humanitarian reasons, this
subject deserves our concentrated attention. This republic, after all,
was founded on the self-evident truth that ``all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights.'' These are not just words; they are the American creed. When
these ``unalienable rights'' are systematically violated, abroad as
well as at home, we have a moral obligation to speak out. And because
many of the first immigrants to set foot on American soil came to this
nation in order to seek refuge from religious persecution, it is an
issue to which we should be particularly sympathetic.
What, then, should be done? We recognize that there are intrinsic
limits to what the United States can do to influence the internal
policies of other nations. At the same time, there are practical,
concrete actions available to the world's mightiest nation. We need to
press the many arms of our government to become more actively involved
in the fight against religious persecution. In multilateral and
bilateral discussions, from President to Secretary of State and
Ambassador, to consular officer, INS inspector, and intelligence
analyst, we should insist that the people who set and execute our
foreign policies understand that one of their priorities is to take
seriously claims of religious persecution. Right now, that is not being
done. Ambassadors and diplomatic officials should meet regularly with
church and religious leaders. There should be comprehensive and updated
reports on religious persecution. And where appropriate and effective,
we should restrict trade and non-humanitarian aid to nations that
sponsor religious persecution.
President Clinton would do tremendous good by delivering a major
address on the problem and significance of religious persecution. When
a president uses the ``bully pulpit'' to name names and cite specific
examples, it has the effect of concentrating the mind of persecuting
nations. Consider the remarkable influence Ronald Reagan exercised when
he uttered two simple words: ``evil empire.'' We should not hesitate to
speak truth to power, and to tyrants.
We also need to energize the faithful themselves. They--we--are the
natural American constituency to support a sustained campaign against
worldwide persecution. The churches, synagogues, and temples of the
United States have the resources and the moral authority to lift their
congregations to the challenge. Religious leaders should speak out
publicly on this issue; they should maintain contact with overseas
believers who are persecuted, and regularly inform their congregations
of the state of persecution abroad. And we should regularly pray for
those enduring the real cost of discipleship.
Finally, we need to educate and illuminate, to let the American
citizenry know what is happening. Here the media are critical; they are
the ones who do so much to determine the issues that we talk about and
care about. We hope the media pursues this story with the same
intensity they pursued the story of apartheid in South Africa, or human
rights violations in Central America, or, say, the ``coming out''
episode of the television comedy ``Ellen.'' Attention must be paid.
In the fourth chapter of Genesis, the Lord asks Cain, ``What have
you done? Listen. Your brother's blood cries out to me from the
ground.'' Today, in many parts of the world, the blood of Abel's
descendants still cries out from the ground. Do we have the ears to
hear? Do we have the courage to act? Now, as then, these questions need
to be answered.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Dr. Bennett, I appreciate
that testimony, and yours, Senator Lieberman, as well.
One thing that I was struck by, when we held the first
hearing on this, is the thousands of people that have been
murdered last year, and it just did not seem like there was
anything out there on it or that anybody even noticed that any
of this was going on. I was just struck by the amount of
silence for how long.
I guess I am searching with this as to why has there been
silence for so long, and working with you, how do we break
through that silence? Hearings are one thing. Are there others
that you see? You both have worked on issues of forming public
opinion which seems like part of what this is about. If you can
identify other specifics of what we can do in Congress using
the pulpits that we have to try to get these issues on forward.
Would you care to address that? Why the silence for so long?
Senator Lieberman. Part of the problem here I think, Mr.
Chairman, is that some of the worst perpetrators of persecution
based on faith are dictators or despots who are running closed
societies, so the proverbial CNN cameras do not get in there.
Reporters do not cover it too much. So, that is a real problem
and we have to try to break through it.
The other problem is--people in the media have been
extremely courageous when they have been motivated to do so.
Part of what I think we want to say here is that there is a
story that has not been told. There is a need for some
aggressive reporting to bring the truth back to the United
States and the rest of the world from these closed societies.
Maybe in some sense it was not fashionable. I do not know why,
but it is a desperate situation. And you are right. Thousands
of people are suffering or being killed as a result of it.
Part of what I hope we can do, and again maybe with the
leadership of this committee, is to push the agencies of our
Government to be aggressive themselves in seeking out the truth
and assembling that information and disseminating it. That may
include not only the formal diplomatic branches, but
intelligence analysts as well to get them into the business of
preparing reports on persecution based on faith and then
publishing reports on a regular basis to Congress and to the
public.
Those are two thoughts that I have about why this is
happening.
The other part of it is a lot of us just have not known.
What Bill said before--Mike Horowitz who is here, Nina Shea,
these folks have issued a clarion call. They have opened our
eyes. They have shown us something we had not seen. They have
made us listen to cries that we had not heard. Now it is our
obligation, having seen and having heard, to echo their cry
until something is done about this.
Dr. Bennett. I think there is some laziness on the part of
the media born of indifference. That is the only account I can
give.
At the press conference that Joe Lieberman and I had on
this, a member of the press said--a perfectly good question--
well, you have talked about the Sudan, but we hear from people
in the Sudan that it is not a problem. What do you say to that?
Well, there is a lot to be said to that, but I think the real
answer is go. Go and find out.
If we were talking about South African apartheid, when that
was going on, many Afrikaners said things are fine here for
blacks. There is no problem. What was the media's response to
that? They went on their own.
If you had one case reported of one more case of sexual
harassment at an Army base, the press would be there in force,
as they should be.
If you had an incident of racial bigotry or of defamation
or vandalizing a synagogue, the press would be there, as they
should be.
Well, why when we hear reports of 50,000 or 60,000 or
100,000 people killed, is the press not in its busy and
aggressive and nosy way that it can be--we all know that. We
have all experienced that--getting into those places and
finding out?
This country--what--3 months ago, 4 months ago, whenever it
was, a large part of this country watched Schindler's List on
television and said, never again, never again. Now, I am not
suggesting what is going on now is of that scale because it is
not of that scale, but when you are talking about the kinds of
numbers we are talking about, when you are talking about 50,000
deaths perhaps, 100,000 deaths of Christians, you are not
talking about something that is an inconvenience. You are
talking about something that is real and present and must be
addressed.
Again, what is the answer? Go there. Look. Talk to people.
Bring back the pictures. Bring back the stories. Let us have
debate about this topic.
I finally got some reaction. I was on CNN, which Joe
referred to, the other night on the news, and talked about some
problems in Saudi Arabia where Bibles are not allowed and other
things, and I heard from some friends, or maybe former friends,
from Saudi Arabia about this. So, I think we need to push.
Flannery O'Connor said once you need to push as hard as the
age that pushes against you, and this age, in terms of
religious persecution, is pushing pretty hard. We need to push
back pretty hard.
Senator Brownback. Legislative vehicles?
Senator Lieberman. Well, I mentioned before, Senator
Specter and Congressman Wolf have legislation which I have
spent some time working on and discussing with them. A real
good beginning I think. I hope that Mike Horowitz can talk to
you more about it. He has worked on it. I hope that perhaps
this committee--did it go to this committee? It was sent to a
number of committees, but perhaps this is the appropriate one
to take the lead on this with a series of requirements for fact
determination and then a series of sanctions.
I think it is time to put this concern into law as a
measure of our seriousness.
Senator Brownback. Dr. Bennett, you would agree with that?
Dr. Bennett. Yes, absolutely.
Senator Brownback. Gentlemen, thank you both very much for
coming. Sorry about the inconvenience as to what we call this.
But the important thing frankly I think, as both you
identified, is we have just got to get some visibility to this
so people understand the clear and present issue that this is,
and we have turned our head the other way for too long. So,
thanks for stepping up. Thanks for the commercial. I hope it
gets lots of airings across the country.
Dr. Bennett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. The second panel will be Mr. Michael J.
Horowitz. He is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute,
Washington, D.C., has been an outstanding educator of what has
taken place in this field and on these issues as well. Along
with him will be Father Keith Roderick. He is with the
Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights out of Illinois.
Father Roderick will also be testifying in this panel.
Gentlemen, I am looking forward to your testimony. You are
both well known advocates and, as I say, educators of the
American public about what has taken place in these areas
regarding religious persecution. I do not know if the two of
you have agreed upon an order of presentation. Mr. Horowitz, I
look forward to your testimony and some questioning afterwards.
Thank you for joining us.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. HOROWITZ, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON
INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for
conducting the hearing today, the second in a series that you
have conducted. As I said in my prepared testimony, one of the
reasons I have a sense of optimism--an important reason--is
that we have got a young Senator, sure to be a leader in the
Senate for years to come, whose feelings on this are those of
implacable hostility to the kind of persecution we have been
talking about.
I want to give this testimony on an optimistic note,
because while it is possible to talk about how little has
happened--I have earned what gray hairs I have in 20 or so
years in Washington--I have never seen a movement come so far
so fast as this one has. We are not much more than a year, year
and a half or so from the time that some of us started to make
a blaze of the flames that were just barely flickering, lit by
the human rights advocates like Father Roderick over years when
nobody did listen. The fact is the country is listening.
I think I would like to start my brief remarks, Senator, by
addressing, if I may, the question you put to Joe Lieberman and
Bill Bennett, why the silence to date. Silence is always there
or there is a period of time before the terms of national
consciousness, the terms of any national debate on great
subjects begin. Nobody can wave a wand and make it happen
overnight for nothing.
But we have had to saw some wood before we could get to the
point now, and it is a point, Senator, where there is a prairie
fire of passion within the Christian community. You do not see
it reflected in the front pages of the newspapers, but they are
not indicative, as we know from elections and lots of other
respects, sadly, of what the country is feeling, what it is
thinking, and most importantly where it will shortly be going.
That level of interest is extraordinary and growing and growing
by orders of magnitude.
To put it simply, I think the American Christian community,
whatever it is, the 30 percent of the American electorate, is
in the process of raising the issue of Christian persecution as
perhaps one of the two or three signature issues that define
this movement. And it is very exciting for the Christian
community because this issue is one that elicits followership
and gratitude from the rest of the country. The feedback has
been extraordinary, thereby building up the confidence of this
community, that if they say something, people will listen.
That really brings me to the point of responding to your
question. I think when some of us began this a year, year and a
half ago to start to blow the trumpets, there were two problems
we confronted. The first was in the media itself there is this
caricature view of who Christians are. Are they not the ones
who burned people at the stakes? Are they not the retrograde
bigots? We do not like them much. They are not our kind of
crowd.
They also could identify with the kid in front of the tank
at Tiananmen Square as a symbol of bravery, but if you told
them that there were people who were daily risking exactly the
same kinds of threats and tortures for witnessing a belief in
Christ and going to church on Sunday, they would look at you as
if you were wrong because they did not know anybody of that
kind, and if they did, they thought that these people probably
brought it on in some way themselves.
So, separating the blind from the bigots about who
Christians are and what Christianity is has been an important
task. I can tell you, Senator--and you know this--the blind
overwhelmingly outnumber the bigots and we are opening up their
eyes.
The second thing I think we had to do was generate a
measure of self-confidence within the Christian community, that
they could ask on behalf of their own, and that if they did,
they would not be caricatured; and that if they did, the people
in the pulpits and the ministers and the people in the pews
would follow. There was some fear that if the trumpet blew,
nobody would respond and it might make matters worse.
I think that we now know that that is not so, that the
ministers, that people, whether it is on the Christian radio
shows or in a whole variety of ways, are hungry for information
and for some leadership, some sense of where to go and how to
make non-utopian, reasonable demands that our Government could
meet that would begin to turn this one around and impose
impossibly high prices on the thug regimes who were murdering
their fellow believers.
So, we have cleared the field, as it were, over the year,
created the hunger for information and for action on the part
of the American Christian community and begun to open the eyes
of the major national media so that you now begin to see
interest. You have been around, Senator. I have in my own way
been around. I have seen stories develop from nothing to front
page stories. This cannot miss. It is happening now and it is
going to happen, and they ain't seen nothing yet because this
is a story that touches us in terms of who we are as a people,
what our history is, and the one point I wanted to make in this
testimony, our self-interest as well is very much implicated by
this whole undertaking.
Now, I want to give a couple of indices. I just want to say
that as one looks at the indices of what is happening here,
leadership like yours, like Bill Bennett's, Joe Lieberman's,
much of it began with a very eloquent statement issued by the
National Association of Evangelicals about a year and a half
ago, a statement of conscience, again to give a sense of how
this can be a bridge that will unite Jews and Christians and
others in this country. If you believe in miracles, Senator,
here is a statement of the National Association of Evangelicals
that has been adopted not only by the Southern Baptist
Convention but by the Episcopal and the Presbyterian churches.
That is an index of where we are headed and the unity that is
theirs. This issue has been posed.
The other thing that is exciting is this little explosion
of books and articles. None of them make the establishment
media's best seller list yet, but the book by Paul Marshall,
referred to in today's Abe Rosenthal column, Their Blood Cries
Out, is shaking up matters. If and as this book sells, as I
expect it to, in the hundreds of thousands of copies, ministers
will not know peace in their pulpits from their own congregants
unless they address this issue and deal with it.
We have talked about the Wolf-Specter bill, and I expect,
by the way, Senator, on this there is a timing issue that is
taking place. This issue of Christian persecution is being
debated in the context of the MFN China matter at this time,
and by design of all of us, it is its time for center stage
now. But after that issue is dealt with and the President's
veto threat gives us some index of what will happen, whatever
one thinks, on this much more complicated question of MFN,
Wolf-Specter as amended, as modified, as strengthened, I hope,
will be the vehicle in the fall. The chairman of the House
International Relations Committee has indicated that there will
be major hearings on that bill in September. China will be a
focus, but not the only one. But Jiang Zemin will be here in
October.
Then, Senator, I want to come to the last and the critical
point and I think the exciting thing about this movement. This
is not a political movement in its ordinary sense. When some of
us started it, we could have gotten more publicity than we had
by going to the usual sources, even to Bill Bennett whose
capacity to draw media, given his eloquence and his passion, is
real. Many of us chose not to do it in the immediate sense out
of fear that it would be the story of the day without any base
built into the movement. So, by design I think we tried to
create a movement that was rooted in the churches of this
country.
We had last year organized at the 11th hour a day of prayer
in which thousands of churches participated. The key to this
whole movement, Senator--and it is coming in November--is the
day of prayer being planned on an interdenominational basis for
November 16th. It will be a day of action, education, and
prayer on behalf of persecuted Christians. Church bells will
ring across the country. Other non-Christian groups will, I
think, join, but modeled in part on the campaign against Soviet
anti-semitism. You remember those signs in front of every
synagogue that said Save Soviet Jewry. I think the churches are
going to act, and that is as it should be. The world is going
to be watching.
As important as this hearing is, there is a young man in
Wheaton, Illinois now, Steven Haas. He is the coordinator of
the day of prayer. He has done an extraordinary amount in
organizing churches to participate. They are getting together
primers, video material, model sermons, scripture passages, all
for this explosive day on November 16th which will be a
culminating day. What we need to do is follow that wave. It
will be there, and I think we will make history in the process.
So, my note is one of optimism not of pessimism. The press
is coming along. We do not need the press to get the press.
They are there. They know it is a big story. You see columnists
beginning to write about it. It has not quite crashed the front
pages as news yet. Senators, as the night follows the day it
will happen, and if the day of prayer is what I expect it to
be, men like you who have led when there were not big parades
that were visible will thrill, as we all will. You will not be
able to do enough to make a difference on this score, and your
colleagues who are indifferent to this issue will not be able
to vote against the kind of legislative initiatives that you
will be proposing as this day of prayer forms. This is a
prairie fire, and it is growing.
Now, I wanted to make, if I might, Senator, one last point
pertinent particularly to the jurisdiction of this committee.
It is the one thing I would add to Senator Lieberman and Bill
Bennett's otherwise customarily superb testimony.
We talked about this issue in terms of our moral obligation
to care for the lambs, to protect the underdog, of our American
tradition of being a country that was a haven for victims of
religious persecution, of our moral obligation. All this is so,
but it is interesting to me that when we pursue our moral
obligation and do what is right, right gets done by us as well.
One of the things that inhibited this effort at the
beginning was this presumptive charge, sometimes explicit, oh,
this is Muslim bashing they are engaged in here. One of the
things I want to tell you in particular, Senator, as chairman
of this subcommittee, is that the most poignant expressions of
gratitude that we have received since beginning this effort
have come from Muslims. What is going on today in the world is
a battle for the soul of Islam between the modern day
Kharajites who struggled and lost for control of that great
faith in the first century of Islam's history. We are now
trying again to capture the soul of Islam.
We patronize that faith when we say, oh, that is the way
they are. They kill people. The faith requires them to kill
people they disagree with. Historically Islam has been as
hospitable to strangers as Judaism and Christianity. There are
sins committed in the names of all of our faiths, but Islam is
a great faith that the thugs are looking to take over right
now.
One of the things I understand as a Jew and one of the
things that has moved me in this is an understanding of how
thugs use scapegoats. The thugs need to get those Christian
communities who are beyond the reach of the bribes and threats
on which they rely to stay in power because a vibrant Christian
community by itself poses a threat to them.
But there is another thing that goes on at the same time.
As they are persecuting the Christian communities, as they are
burning churches, as they engage as they do in murder, rape,
torture, assassination, crucifixion, starvation, the whole
litany of persecutions of the lambs, of the vulnerable
Christian communities, they are saying to the moderate Muslims,
look the West is silent as we kill their own. What do you think
they are going to say when we turn to you? You best start
saluting right now.
That is how Hitler made it. He did not attack the
Protestant churches first. He attacked the lambs, and the world
was silent, and everybody else fell into his arms.
That is really the message, and that is the good news about
this undertaking; and it is the story of the campaign against
Soviet anti-semitism. We focused on the Jews particularly who
were being tortured in the Soviet Union even though they were
torturing everybody else. But it is almost a leverage device.
When the word went out that those big, powerful communists
could not even beat up a bunch of Jews, walls that the
communists had built around the churches and around political
dissidents started to crumble. They were cut down to size.
That is why the moderate Muslims have come to us and said
thank you. You are developing a political domestic constituency
in this country that recognizes who these people are. They are
not the Muslims. Anwar Sadat--his brand of Islam did not think
of them as the radicals.
Now, I may say, Senator, that as we remain silent, as we
patronize the faith of Islam and say that is who they are and
how dare we intrude as they murder anyone they disagree with,
we empower the radicals; and we force even good men, as in
countries like Egypt, to appease the radicals, because the
radicals are the only voices being raised. We have gotten some
extraordinary back channel comments from senior officials of
governments now engaged in appeasement of radicals saying keep
it up. We cannot say so publicly. That will give us the means
to take on the radicals who are the only voices, and the
loudest voices at least, being heard.
So, Senator, we are in the midst today of an extraordinary
phenomenon. It is the largest, greatest explosion and rise in
Christianity in all of its history. Twenty years ago the
Christian model would have been a white Western male. Today it
is probably a Philippine or a Pakistani woman. This is a
religion that is disproportionately female, even when you
assume that there are more women than men. It is perhaps the
largest religion in the world today, surely the most widely
distributed. It is growing explosively and in areas
particularly subject to the jurisdiction of your committee,
Christians--Paul Marshall numbers them at about 225 million--
largely in the radical Islamic territories, live under threat
of literal torture of the sort we have spoken.
So, you are addressing the national interests. We are
stepping in and stopping the thugs from beating up the lambs
and offering possibility for everybody else there. If we let
them go, if we appease them now, if we say, oh, the Christians
are not our crowd, or they do not really count, we only put
back the day when we are going to have to confront that kind of
radicalism, and as history teaches us, it is going to be a
darned sight harder to do it then. These are people on the
margin in the battle between staying in the dark ages and
entering the 21st century.
This would be a great lesson to some of the media who put
down Christians. Christian communities are today the greatest
forces for modernity, for dignity in that world. That is what
they really stand for beyond their own security, dignity for
all of us.
So, I thank you. I commend you for your leadership. With
the aid of an aroused conscience in this country, I think we
are going to make history over the course of this year. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Horowitz appears in Appendix
E on page 108.]
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Horowitz, for
that uplifting suggestion; because as I first started into
this, I was stunned by the silence, but the perspective that
you give is an encouragement.
Father Roderick, thank you very much for joining this
committee and for being here and for your work that you have
given, and the microphone is yours.
STATEMENT OF FATHER KEITH RODERICK, COALITION FOR THE DEFENSE
OF HUMAN RIGHTS, MACOMB, ILLINOIS
Father Roderick. Well, thank you very much, Senator
Brownback. On behalf of the Coalition, I want to thank you for
providing this opportunity that you have provided for witnesses
to testify in the subsequent sessions because indeed they are
the faces of persecution, and their personal histories, more
than any analysis or overview or statistic that we might be
able to offer here, really pale in comparison to the betrayal
of the suffering that they faced themselves.
The Coalition consists of 60 human rights and ethnic-
national organizations which are Roman Catholic, Orthodox,
Protestant, Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim. Members include
nationalities such as the Assyrians, Armenians, Copts,
Lebanese, Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Indonesians, Iranians, and
Sudanese.
What we are doing is advocating basic human rights in areas
where the cultural and political process of Islamization, not
the religion, but the process which Mr. Horowitz spoke about,
is creating great tension not only between Muslims and non-
Muslims, but also within the Muslim community itself.
The character of this persecution may be personal or it may
be corporate. Some of the persecution is a product of
government policy. Some governments perpetuate discriminatory
practices which create environments that nurture religious-
based hatred against minorities, and in others persecution is
perpetrated by radical ideological movements themselves.
Christians of the Near East are the indigenous inhabitants
of the countries of the region. Their Christianity was not
imported by Western colonial movements or missionaries. In most
parts of the Near East, the Christian culture predates the
expansion of the Islamic empire by 7 centuries, and today that
population, which is a minority in all the countries of the
Near East, is that risk of extinction.
The ministry, Open Doors, reported dramatic changes in the
Christian population which have occurred in this century since
1900. The average Christian percentage of the general
population in the countries of the Near East was over 20
percent. Today it is just about 7 percent. The most dramatic
changes have occurred in Turkey. Here the Christian population
dropped from 22 percent to .15 percent, largely as a result of
this century's first genocide in the early part of the 1900's
when 1.5 million Armenians were murdered and 750,000 Assyrian
Christians lost their lives.
In Lebanon, the only country which did have a majority
population prior to 1980, Christians comprised 67 percent of
the population in 1900. Today it is under 40 percent.
In the Holy Land, the Christian population is estimated to
be only 125,000, or 1.8 percent of the population, as compared
to 2.3 million Muslims, or 34 percent, of the population.
So, in every country of the Near East, the Christian
population has decreased, and there are a number of factors for
this occurring, and one of the factors is the intensification
of religious persecution.
A number of the countries of the Near East such as Iran and
Saudi Arabia are instrumentally involved in a systematic
persecution of religious minorities. Other governments such as
Egypt and Turkey and Pakistan facilitate persecution de facto
by allowing the radical Islamic groups to terrorize Christians
without fear of prosecution.
There are identifiable problems which contribute
systemically to persecution and which detrimentally affect the
minority religious ethnic groups of the Near East, and I would
just like to review those. I will be very disciplined in my
report. You have the written document before you.
Apostasy laws, laws which arise from Islamic law itself,
prohibit the legal/social recognition of a person's conversion
to Islam to another religion. In countries of the Near East,
with the exception of Pakistan, there is a requirement for
religious identity to be put on everyone's identification card.
What this does is encourages discrimination, intimidation,
virtually makes intermarriage between Muslims and non-Muslims
illegal.
Most recently, October 29, 1996, a Christian Lebanese
national was convicted by a Shari'ah court in the UAE for
marrying a Muslim woman. He was sentenced to 39 lashes and 1
year's imprisonment. He had already served a year of
imprisonment before his sentence; and, as reported by Amnesty
International, had suffered several beatings and been flogged
before the formal sentence was pronounced.
Islamic law prescribes death as the punishment for
apostasy, but only in Saudi Arabia and Iran is the full penalty
imposed on offenders. Nevertheless, in other countries such as
Egypt, there is the denial of civil rights directly related to
the charge of apostasy. In fact, in Egypt the Emergency Law is
oftentimes invoked as a pretext for arresting those who have
converted from Islam to other religions.
In Iran a Bahai was sentenced last year in a Revolutionary
Court for being a Bahai. The charge was national apostasy. He
was sentenced to death. Most recently, in fact last year, May
1996, Iran initiated an expansion to its penal code which was
approved by the Islamic Assembly adding espionage as an area
which was covered under the section enmity against God clause,
and it specified a mandatory death penalty. A number of Bahais,
as well as Christians, who have been arrested for apostasy have
also experienced the fact that the charge of espionage has been
levied against them.
Iran has perpetrated a systematic effort to eradicate the
leadership of the Iranian Council of Protestant Ministers,
murdering most of its leadership and virtually silencing its
leadership today. Last September, a Christian pastor was found
hanged in a forest near Tehran and the government stated it was
suicide. However, those who prepared his body for burial noted
that he had 20 stab wounds in his body. An order for death had
been issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court judge Sheikh
Reza Rezaian, and this seems to be a fairly persistent pattern
in Iran.
The second area of problems which arise in persecution
include blasphemy laws. Pakistan retains an insidious law which
prescribes the death penalty for anyone convicted of insulting
the Quran or the Prophet Mohammed. Oftentimes religious
fundamentalists use this to incite mobs to violence against
Christians on the pretext that Christians are described as
blasphemers, because they believe that Jesus Christ is the son
of God, which is contrary to Islamic teaching. So, the
following cases which I have reported in the written form of
the testimony illustrate the terror that this legislation
continues to hold over the 15 million Christian Pakistanis.
Saudi Arabia instrumentally persecutes non-Muslims more
comprehensively than any country of the Near East. No religion
other than Islam is allowed to be practiced within its borders,
and there is even great pressure upon Shi'ites in the north of
Saudi Arabia.
However, it has been estimated that 27 percent of the Saudi
population consist of expatriate guest workers, three-fourths
of whom are non-Muslim. The religious police closely monitor
foreigners for the public expression of their Christian faith;
and those who seek to practice their faith, even within the
private confines of their own home, are subject to harassment,
beatings, arrests, or deportation.
Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia is a closed society in which
accurate statistics for documenting the effects of this kind of
policy is very difficult to obtain, but it is severe. But it is
important to note that there are indigenous Saudis who are
Christian, but their churches must remain hidden. They are at
the most risk, because they are considered apostates and
subject to the full penalty of death if they are discovered.
The third area of persecution involves promotion of
religious-based hatred and violence. The violence has
intensified in many places in the Near East in this past year.
In the Arab Republic of Egypt, which has the largest Christian
population in the Middle East, the Copts number between 8
million and 10 million, or 12 to 15 percent of the population.
Targeted violence perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists has
increased.
In March, 13 Christians were killed in the village of
Dawood.
On February 12th, a most horrendous act and unprecedented
act was carried out by four to five masked gunmen who broke
into the St. George's Orthodox Coptic Church in Abu Qurqas. A
group of 50 students, ranging in age from 13 to 22, had
gathered for a prayer meeting, for fellowship. Some were having
their confessions heard. Others were there preparing for
marriage. After the aftermath of the massacre, over 200 bullet
holes were found in the church. Nine students were immediately
killed. Three others died from their wounds, and three other
people were found dead later probably killed by the fleeing
gunmen.
More Christians have been murdered by Islamic extremists in
the first 6 months of 1997 than in the past 25 years in Egypt,
and I have those statistics.
Even though the Egyptian Government has made claims that
they have, in fact, opposed the surge of violence, there tends
to still be a continuing problem of security for the Coptic
Christians. During the past 5 years, in fact, a number of
government reports and newspaper reports have shown that the
infiltration of police by extremists has increased to as much
as 60 percent and of that 60 percent, 80 percent had been
involved in actions of violence perpetrated against minorities.
In Pakistan, 80 percent of the Christian population still
live in small villages, and there is a systematic destruction
of many of these villages and the confiscation of the poor
farms and agricultural lands which has been underway for the
past 20 years. I outline several of the villages which have
been confiscated or destroyed.
Most recently in January 1997, a Christian village of
Shanti-Nagar was attacked by 10,000 radicals. The villages were
alerted of the impending attack and requested police
assistance. The police withdrew from the village. Nearly 1,500
homes were destroyed. The women suffered most gravely. Over 70
Christian women and girls were kidnapped, and because of the
mistreatment by their captors, their emotional scars will be
much more difficult to heal than the rebuilding of their homes.
The Government of Pakistan has promised to assist in the
rebuilding of their homes, but as of this date only $20 per
family has been received from the government.
This is also happening with the Assyrians. The Assyrians
are an indigenous Christian minority who live amongst the Kurds
in northern Iraq, and they have also reported the systematic
confiscation of traditional Assyrian lands by well-armed
Kurdish groups, and there have been at least 52 Assyrian
villages since 1991 who have had their lands confiscated.
Some of these confiscations lead to violence. In fact, on
February 10th, a father and a son were both murdered by radical
Kurds, and so it continues to be a problem there as well.
In Lebanon, the government has chosen to shut down a number
of church-operated radio stations and television stations,
which is in contradiction to its own constitutional guarantee
of freedom of religion. In south Lebanon, the area which is
occupied by Syria, Christians have been subjected to escalating
threats by Islamists associated with Hizbollah; and the
Christians of south Lebanon presently operate the only
independent television station in Lebanon.
Also in other areas there are other forms of discrimination
and persecution which creates tension in Egypt. Churches
continue to be denied the permission to build or rebuild or
repair, even paint or repair a bathroom, unless they receive a
Presidential decree. This continues to be a problem.
Perhaps the most insidious form of persecution which has
arisen over the past 5 years are the kidnappings and shame
rapes of Christian women, seeking their conversion to Islam.
This has occurred in many parts of the Middle East. In
Pakistan, I outline in the testimony a number of cases; in
Egypt, the Coptic Orthodox Church is presently investigating
200 cases. There are reportedly upwards of 1,000.
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, the persecution of Christians
and other minorities does exist in such countries as Algeria,
Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey,
United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Kuwait. The religious
persecution in the context of the examples which have been
presented stands out as something which is tragically unique.
The discriminatory policies, the arrests, the destruction of
property, violence, torture, or murder are targeted against
certain groups solely on the basis of their belief and their
religious culture.
Even though governments which are normally friendly to us
do not officially condone the violence against minorities, they
do bear responsibility for it by their de facto support of the
Islamists by failing to prosecute sufficiently those who
perpetrate the acts of violence and to promote full integration
of their societies. Their own callous support of the very
attitudes and institutions that perpetuate an environment in
which religious bigotry flourishes and where unruly mobs,
motivated by radical ideologues, hurt and kill those whose
beliefs are different than their own truly must be challenged.
I think of the victims which have arisen in the last year,
and I think how long will it be that the blood has to flow
through the churches, through the small villages of the
countries which we have mentioned before we say it is enough.
How long will the screams of the innocent victims be muffled by
indifference or political expediency before it becomes an
unbearable din in the ears of our moral conscience and we join
their cry and say it is enough?
It is important for this legislative body to incorporate as
part of its foreign policy perspective the fact that the
countries of the Middle East are not homogeneously Arab or
Islamic, that there are sizable and vibrant indigenous
Christian cultures throughout the region, and that the
Christians in the Middle East do not want to abandon their
homelands. They want to feel secure in them. They want to be an
integral part of the cultural, political, and economic life in
their own country, and they do not want to be second class
citizens subjected to a form of religious apartheid by their
government or societies at large.
So, Mr. Chairman, we must not allow the U.S. to make
accommodation with this evil. God help us if we settle for
anything less than justice from our friends. The United States
enjoys important interdependent relationships with a number of
the countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and it is
sometimes difficult to criticize our friends, but it is time
that we begin a serious engagement of these countries because
friendship depends upon similar values and like-mindedness. By
our silence and unwillingness to demand the highest form of
civility from these countries we give tacit permission for them
to impose even graver hardships on those minorities who are
already suffering.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Father Roderick appears in
Appendix F on page 111.]
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Father. Although I have to
say your testimony is not encouraging, it certainly is
enlightening and appreciated, the work you have done and what
you have focused on.
We have another panel that is coming up and I am concerned
a bit about time. What I would like to do, if I could, is ask
you a couple of very narrow questions and then if you could, I
would appreciate it if you could stay around and hear the next
panel and maybe we could bring you back up at that time for a
more direct question or two.
What were the numbers last year? How many Christians were
murdered last year?
Father Roderick. The number is very difficult to determine
because it is a broad area, but I think the number which has
been discussed as 1,000 may be in the general realm considering
Sudan in the mix as well. There are other areas which----
Senator Brownback. What was the number you used? 100,000?
Father Roderick. 1,000.
Mr. Horowitz. Senator, I used to be the general counsel of
the Office of Management and Budget, so numbers just can flow
very easily and I have grown mistrustful of them. I have tried
very, very hard--because I think the numbers are soft for the
reasons Senator Lieberman indicated. These are not open
societies. It is sometimes hard to know whether you are being
murdered as a Christian if a Christian village is targeted or
whether there is a more ambiguous explanation.
I think the critical number is Paul Marshall's number and
that one is a hard number. We are talking 400 million
Christians around the world live subject to intense
discrimination and somewhere around--and I think this is a
conservative number--225 million Christians live subject to
intense persecution, murder, assassination, rape, forced
resettlement, and the like. In those societies, particularly
when nobody is listening to what goes on and there is a sense
that the world out there does not care, it does not take many
murders for the thugs to keep everybody in line.
I am not satisfied at this point with any count other than
the 225 million number, which I think is quite a conservative
number.
Father Roderick. I do have some statistics in here in
regards to a couple of the countries which may be helpful. Mr.
Horowitz is correct. It is very difficult to determine because
there is such great silence.
Senator Brownback. When did the systematic policies to rid
some of these countries, particularly in the nations that we
are interested in in this subcommittee, begin?
Father Roderick. I think it began really with the
renaissance of the Islamization as a political movement in the
Middle East. I think that in a sense set in motion a process
which, even though it is ideological in its nature,
incorporates religious attitudes as well as other cultural
attitudes in a detrimental fashion. So, I would say probably in
the early 1980's.
Senator Brownback. 1979, 1980 and through that?
Father Roderick. Yes.
Senator Brownback. And is this continuing to grow? Is it
subsiding? Is it leveling?
Father Roderick. It is intensifying, yes. The stakes are
higher. It is intensifying.
Senator Brownback. Would you anticipate more murders in the
future with the intensity and the expansion of this?
Father Roderick. Of course.
Mr. Horowitz. I do not, Senator, for this reason, and it is
in your hands in part, but in the end, as I indicated, it is in
the hands of the American Christian community, what signs they
show on November 16th, because it is possible for us to make
the price for that kind of policy impossibly high, particularly
in those countries where they feel the need to appease the
radicals and there are no counter force pressures put on them.
I have seen signs myself from some of the governments in
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, Egypt. The first sign
is that they are hiring lobbyists, lots of them, on this issue.
There was a time, Senator, where I could not walk into a
supermarket without being bumped into by an old high school
classmate who would tell me he had heard about the wonderful
work I was doing and, oh, by the way, he was working for the
Saudis and would I meet with Prince So-and-So. So, that is a
sign that they know change is coming and they have got to try
and manage that change.
If we keep the demands non-utopian, if we are shrewd in
applying the pressure, we have the leverage to cut it back. I
think it intensifies and gets worse as silence meets it, and
the more silence there is in the face of this persecution, the
more murder that goes on.
One thing that David Forte has pointed out that is
particularly true is that these are countries that think of
America as a Christian country and they see our silence, would
that we were, but they see our silence and say, gee, Americans
are hypocritical materialists. They do not believe in anything
because if they did, they would be jumping to the support of
their fellow believers that we are murdering.
So, I think there is a kind of openness and almost
anticipation and, in the case of the moderates, an invitation,
sometimes explicit, for us to come in because they are ready to
take charge of the country if they have got some support and
sensible pressure placed on them to do so.
The President of Egypt, Mr. Chairman, is a man that,
whatever the radical Muslims may think of you, they are out to
murder him. He knows that and they have tried it, and yet he
has got to appease them I think, in significant part, because
we have been silent.
So, I anticipate that the numbers are going to go down but
only if hearings like this and days of prayer continue.
Senator Brownback. If we intensify here.
Mr. Horowitz. Yes.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, gentlemen, very much. If you
could stay around, I would appreciate it, with the possibility
of bringing you back up.
We have our third panel. We stated at the outset the
hearing was titled Faces of the Persecuted and we bring forward
several of those who have faced persecution. We are going to
need a little bit of time because one person has requested
anonymity and we are going to have to accommodate and put up a
screen for that particular individual.
I want to emphasize as well, that we have done a lot of
calling and searching around; and there are a lot of people who
have faced the persecution and many of which have just not been
willing to come forward, because of what it would do to their
family, what it would mean to them and the threats that they
are under. The people that have stepped forward here today are
absolutely bold and convicting and willing to put their lives
and their fortunes on the line to say the truth and to say it
out in public and to say it to the world. I absolutely commend
them and recognize them for their boldness and for their heroic
stand that they are taking. We really appreciate it. We need to
put this forward.
We are going to need a couple of minutes here I understand
to get this all set up, so we might just want to take a very
short break and then when we come back, we will be ready to go
with this. So, we will be in recess for about 3 minutes here.
[Recess.]
Senator Brownback. We will reconvene the hearing. As you
know and as you can see, we have got a third panel up that is
testifying; and we have a witness who, because of fear for his
own family, and rightfully so unfortunately, has requested
anonymity. He is a gentleman from Pakistan. I have asked him to
be here to testify, and he will be up here and testifying. We
will take his testimony first and then excuse him, and we will
go on with the rest of the panel.
Again, I want to say these are not only people who have
been persecuted, they are heroes for being willing to step
forward and to testify in a most difficult circumstance.
So, I would ask the gentleman here in front of me to please
proceed with his testimony and what he has faced in
persecution. Sir, please speak directly into the microphone, if
you would.
STATEMENT OF ANONYMOUS WITNESS FROM PAKISTAN
Anonymous Witness. I am Christian male and I am from
Pakistan.
I attend a Christian school until the Pakistan Government
took control of the schools and colleges. I was denied
admission to government school because I was a Christian.
I was admitted to a private Muslim school with a Muslim
teacher who forced Christian students to study education Islam.
Same problem in college. I request separate Bible study for
the Christian students and was refused by the principal. I was
then beaten by several Muslim students and warned by the
principal that I will expelled I will ever mention Christian
studies again.
The Muslims believe that America is a Christian country
filled by the people who want to kill the Muslim people. Some
Muslim preachers say Pakistan is a Muslim country for Muslim
people not for Christian people.
This happened with me. Four men--they come to church,
evening prayer, and I answer the knock on the door and was
ordered to remove the cross and speaker from outside the church
building. They force their way inside and ripped out the
speaker wires. When I protect their actions, they beat me and
left.
I called Pakistani police who arrest me and put in jail and
beat me continually all night. I was released the next day and
warned never to state anything against the Muslim people. I
will be put back in jail forever.
One week later, as I found my way home from work, a car
stopped me and two men jumped out and grabbed me. They hold me
while another man tied my hands and grabbed me. They pushed me
into their car and used chloroform soaked cloths over my mouth
and nose until I lost consciousness.
When I wake, I was in an unfamiliar part of my country. I
had been stripped down to my undershirt and my wallet was gone.
One of the three men held a gun on me as the other two men
threw me out from the vehicle.
The people in this area speak different language, make it
nearly impossible to communication. I was taken by several
people to a house where I was locked a small room, given very
little food, frequently beat me and forced to work, cutting of
wood from early in the morning until late night.
After 2 weeks, I was able to escape by climbing up through
the chimney in my room to the outside. I was able to get a ride
with a passing truck driver who was giving me food and let me
stay at his farm for the night. And the following day, I made
my city and attempt to report to Pakistani police. I was told,
Christian, we will kill you if you tell us lie.
Shortly after, I get a visa and come in the United States.
There are a lot of problem with Christians in my country
right now. They are wanting to change the ID for Christian
people. They want to change the ID. They mention that they are
Christian. They want to change the--to the uniform if they know
that they are Christian, and all the college and school is
already taken. In the medical college, we have one seat. So, we
do not have really education. We do not have really jobs. So,
our future is going to die. So, we request for give us
attention for these problems.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much for testifying. Let
me ask you a couple of questions if I may.
Do you know of many other Christians who have been treated
as you have, beaten, kidnapped, imprisoned in Pakistan?
Anonymous Witness. Yes, I know there is some on my area
they have it happened, that is the same things, but is a
different way.
Right now, after 3, 4 months, they have burned a village in
Shanti-Nagar. This is very new news and a lot of people, you
know, they have no home. They are sitting in the farm and no
food, no nothing. So, they have a lot of problem going on
there.
Senator Brownback. And the village, was it a Christian
village that was burned?
Anonymous Witness. Yes. It is called Shanti-Nagar.
Senator Brownback. It was called what?
Anonymous Witness. Shanti-Nagar.
Senator Brownback. Shanti-Nagar?
Anonymous Witness. Yes.
Senator Brownback. Was anybody prosecuted in Pakistan for
burning the village?
Anonymous Witness. They say that they are making allow for
Christian people if anybody says something against for Mohammed
and Muslim so they can kill, they can give punishment, whatever
they wanted. So, they have a problem with that, so they action
for the religion and they say that he said for Mohammed against
something. So, they take the action and whole community, whole
country is, you know, against that person.
Senator Brownback. The village that was burned----
Anonymous Witness. Yes, sir.
Senator Brownback [continuing]. Did the police arrest
anybody for burning the village?
Anonymous Witness. No. There is a lot of Muslim groups.
They come there and they burn it. So, actually I am here. I
really, you know, do not know about very much, but I hear that,
you know, they have a lot of problem there. And they have no
food. They have no clothes, and police, they do not take any
action for nothing. They did not take action for that peoples--
what they did.
Senator Brownback. Has the persecution of Christians
increased in recent years in Pakistan or is it about the same
as you have always seen it or decreased?
Anonymous Witness. Until I left that country, every day is
going a problem, every day. So, it is just going increase every
day.
Senator Brownback. Why was it increasing so much here in
recent times?
Anonymous Witness. They are thinking that a Muslim country
is just for Muslim not for Christian. If they have a law, it is
a law for Muslim law, no nothing for Christian law, anything.
No right for anything. If there is anything, it is for rights
for Muslim people. If they give a donation, something, so that
donation just can be go for Muslim, not for Christians.
Senator Brownback. Do you raise these issues with, say, for
instance, some of the elected officials in Pakistan? Has the
Christian community raised this with people who are elected in
Pakistan to represent all of the people?
Anonymous Witness. I do not understand.
Senator Brownback. Has anybody in the Christian community
talked with somebody that was elected in Pakistan about these
problems?
Anonymous Witness. Actually we have some member in our
Congress, but they do not listen for that, for that people. So,
that is nothing happened, you know, whatever they say that.
Senator Brownback. Are more Christians leaving Pakistan now
and being forced out like you left because of the persecution?
Anonymous Witness. Yes. There is have a problem for--
because poor people, they have no good job, they do not have a
good education, and they have no good job, so they do not have
very much money. Another problem, they try to get the visa and
it is very hard to get the visa for coming to--go to the
Christian country right now.
Senator Brownback. What can we do in the U.S. Senate to
stop this persecution from happening?
Anonymous Witness. I think if they can force that, they can
change the rules, regulations for they give the rights for
Christian people. So, I think that is the best so that people
can live freedom and happy like in the United States. So, no
take like a person what his religion about.
Senator Brownback. So, for us to encourage the Government
of Pakistan to ensure religious freedoms for all people?
Anonymous Witness. Yes. And if can be possible, you know,
to give to the chance to Christian people for education, and if
they want to come here, if they do not starve for their
problems, so give opportunity that they can come--go to
Christian country.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much and thank you for
your willingness to come forward in spite of having been beaten
and kidnapped and taken to jail for what you have done. We
deeply appreciate your willingness to speak out for those who
have been persecuted in Pakistan.
Anonymous Witness. Thank you, sir, for your attention.
Senator Brownback. Thank you.
Our next two members of this panel are Colonel Sharbel
Barakat from Lebanon, and I hope I am pronouncing these names
correctly, Colonel. I very much appreciate your willingness to
be here and to testify. And from Iran, Esmaeil Ebrahimi?
Ms. Carrera. Ebrahimi.
Senator Brownback. Ebrahimi is here to testify as well.
I want to thank again both of you in advance for your
courage and your willingness to come forward to testify. It is
very important that we get information from those who have seen
and witnessed this firsthand.
With that, Colonel, we would turn the microphone over to
you first. Please speak, if you would, very slowly and clearly
into the microphone so we can gain the information. Thank you
for coming.
STATEMENT OF COLONEL SHARBEL BARAKAT, LEBANON
Colonel Barakat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I
want to thank you. I want to thank you for giving me this
opportunity to testify about the persecution of the Christian
population in south Lebanon. This historic achievement will
allow me to share with you, the representatives of the American
people, a truth which was hidden for years by both the
oppressors in the Middle East and their protectors in the
Western world.
My name is Sharbel Barakat. I was born and raised in the
Christian village of Ain Ebel in south Lebanon. I became an
officer of the Lebanese army, got married, and had four
children. I currently live in my village which is under siege
by terrorist groups such as Hizbollah. I cannot travel in my
country, nor I can go to the capital Beirut. I cannot leave my
country through the airport nor through seaports.
Hizbollah has issued death sentences against large numbers
of Christians in south Lebanon. We live under the constant
threat of shelling, roadside explosions, kidnapping, and
torture in an area, home to 150,000 Christians and other
minorities. Our fault: We are Christians surrounded by Islamist
fundamentalists.
In order to respond to your invitation, Mr. Chairman, I had
to cross the border into Israel and leave the Middle East
through the only airport that connects us to the free world.
Throughout my life, my relatives, friends, and community
have been subjected to various forms of oppression and
persecution for the mere reason that we are Christians. Today I
would like to testify about my own experience, the experience
of my community, the present state of harassment, and what we
expect in the future. I would like also to make few suggestions
to the United States and world governments.
My experience. Throughout my young years, I was raised in
the fear of massacres, as our village's population was
butchered in 1920 by Muslims. At the end of 1958, and before
the U.S. Marines intervened to put an end to the Islamic
uprising, backed by Abdel Nasser of Egypt, then I lost my
eldest brother, a young Lebanese army officer. When Benoit was
killed, I was 6 years old.
In the 1970's, the PLO systematically brutalized the youth
and elders of Ain Ebel and other villages, installing terror
checkpoints, arresting, kidnapping, and killing some of the
villagers. On many occasions, graffiti were written on the
walls such as ``no place for Christians in this land.''
Since 1977, our village was encircled by the PLO. Our world
shrank to less than 3 square miles. We were in a collective
prison, more like a Christian ghetto surrounded by Jihad
forces.
On New Year's Eve of 1979, the day my wife gave birth to my
older son, her two parents were kidnapped by the elements of
Abu Nidal for 3 months.
On Christmas Day of 1981, my brother-in-law, a middle
school teacher, was kidnapped to the Ain El Helweh Camp and
tortured for a whole month by the armed elements of Abul Abbas.
In 1984, a new organization, Hizbollah, took over from the
PLO. Manipulated by the Iranians, protected by the Syrians,
legitimized after 1990 by the current Lebanese regime, the
terrorists of Hizbollah were bolder in their designs. They
openly called for the establishment of an Islamic republic.
For 6 years, we had to use fishing boats to exit Ain Ebel's
region in order to reach Beirut before it fell to the Syrians
in 1990. Children, women, and elderly were packed like cattle
under Hizbollah's fire. In 1985 a ship carrying 200 Christians
sank off Beirut's shores. I personally was on many of these
horror trips. Life was forbidden to us, so was freedom.
During the time we were oppressed by the fundamentalists,
other Christians suffered as well: the Western and American
hostages held by the same Hizbollah in Lebanon.
In 1990, three civilians were kidnapped from my village,
were kidnapped by Hizbollah. Marun Nassif Atmeh was killed and
his body was left in the valley of Wadi el-Sluki for 15 days.
The United Nations soldiers founds him defaced and maimed. We
were able to recognize him with the help of the x-rays taken of
his leg a few weeks prior. Butros Nassif Atmeh died months
after his release as a result of severe beating to his head
during the kidnapping. The third Christian was reduced to a
living martyr. This environment of extreme violence caused us
to live in constant fear. We even considered emigrating,
emptying the villages. However, we remained on our land.
Since 1979, under Syrian pressures, our wages from the
Lebanese Army were suspended by Beirut's government.
Furthermore, a great number of us are denied passports.
The experience of my community. The Christian community in
that area was submitted to a number of massacres throughout
this century. Since the massacre of 1920, incidents occurred
frequently. Mr. Chairman, the present Speaker of the House in
Lebanon, Mr. Nabih Berri, who is considered as a moderate
Shi'ite, publicly threatened by reminding us of this 1920
massacre three times.
Targeting Christians is not specific to south Lebanon. The
Lebanese Christians have been resisting the tide of Islamism
since the 7th century. Our ancestors have paid the price for
their faith. Lebanon is the only country in the Middle East
where Christians from all denominations have been able to form
a safe haven for over 13 centuries.
In modern times, attempts were made to create a coexistence
between Lebanon's religious communities. Successful for a short
period of time, this peaceful coexistence fell under the
terrorism of the PLO, the Syrian occupation, and the rise of
Islamic fundamentalism.
Professor Walid Phares, an expert of the Middle East, said
the ``Christians of Lebanon were and are still targeted because
of their Christians identity and their determination to remain
Christians.''
Since 1975, about 150,000 Christians were killed during the
war. Thousands of Lebanese Muslims died as well. Entire
Christian villages were erased and their populations were
ethnically cleansed. In Damur, south of Beirut, for example, a
thousand Christian civilians were killed while the armed bands
shouted Allahu Akbar and Jihad. Churches were burned down by
dozens. An account of the horrors is too long to include in
this testimony. Here are a few examples of massacres.
1975: Beit Mellat, Deir Eshash, Tall Abbas in north
Lebanon, Damur, Mount Lebanon.
1976: Chekka, north Lebanon, Qaa, Terbol, Bekaa Valley.
1977: Aishye, south Lebanon, Maaser el-Shuf, Shuf Mountain.
1978: Ras Baalbeck, Shleefa, Bekaa Valley.
1983: major massacres in Aley and the Shuf Mountains, in
addition to the 241 U.S. Marines and 78 French paratroopers
savagely assassinated by Hizbollah.
1984: Iqlim el-Kharrub, Mount Lebanon.
1985: East Sidon, south Lebanon.
1990: Matn district.
The present state of harassment. Here are some of the
flagrant abuses of human rights against Christians around the
country.
Constant and arbitrary arrests of young men and women.
Armed elements break into their homes by night and kidnap them
to security centers. In December 1996, 450 young Christians
were thrown in jail and beaten for days. They spent Christmas
alone in helplessness.
Christians are tried by military courts for forming
Christian associations, opposing Syria, or allegedly for
contacting Israelis or Jews.
Christians are severely tortured in Lebanese or Syrian
jails or in detention centers by Hizbollah. Some of them died
under torture.
In the so-called security zone of south Lebanon, Christians
live under the fear of Hizbollah's terror. In 1996, Hizbollah
issued a public fatwah, religious edict, calling for the murder
of all those who have been in contact with Jews. As we know,
there are thousands of Christians who work inside Israel. All
of these civilians will be put to death if Israel withdraws. As
of today, neither the Lebanese nor the Syrian Governments have
issued a rebuttal to this fatwah. We, therefore, assume that
Beirut and Damascus are endorsing the massacre of the
Christians in south Lebanon by Hizbollah.
What to expect in the future. Mr. Chairman, it is certain
that my community is under present and real danger. Christians
are presently safe because of the presence of Israeli troops
and the local defense force known as South Lebanon Army, SLA.
However, in the case of an Israeli unilateral withdrawal from
the area and disbanding of the SLA, we expect a generalized
massacre and de-christianization of south Lebanon. This
potential holocaust of Christians will have a tremendous impact
on the region's Christians, for Lebanon has always been the
hope for Middle East Christianity.
Suggestions. For the short term, I present the following
suggestions aimed at saving the Christians of south Lebanon as
long as Hizbollah and the Syrian occupation forces are present
in that area.
One, that the U.S. Government formally ask the Israeli
Government not to withdraw from the security zone before a
solution is found for the protection of the Christian community
in south Lebanon.
Two, that the U.S. Government help the Christians of south
Lebanon to form a local authority which will enable them to
face the administrative, economic, social, and security
challenges.
Three, that the U.S. Government extend a direct
humanitarian support to the encircled Christian community in
south Lebanon and help them establish a safe haven until the
regional problem is solved.
Four, that the U.S. Congress extend invitations to the
Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon and other Christian leaders in
south Lebanon and in exile to testify about the fate of their
community. Such message can bring about the truth of
persecution to the American people and allow Christians
worldwide to extend their support to their brethren in faith in
our tormented country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Barakat appears in
Appendix G on page 118.]
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Colonel. I
appreciate that.
I have just been buzzed that we may have a vote in the next
10 minutes. So, what I would like to do is go to our next
witness, and we will see how long we can go before we would
have to take a short recess and come back, but we may have a
vote coming up here. So, let us go ahead and we will get
started with this, and then let us see how long we can go.
Thank you very much for coming, Mr. Ebrahimi.
STATEMENT OF ESMAEIL EBRAHIMI, IRAN, THROUGH HIS INTERPRETER,
FANNOOSH CARRERA
Mr. Ebrahimi. I wanted to thank you for giving me an
opportunity to speak on this subject. It is very encouraging to
me to know that the Government of the United States cares for
the persecution of Christians in other countries. And I thank
the Government of the United States to give me the refugee
status to come to the United States where I can be a free
Christian.
Due to the lack of time, I will summarize my testimony. Of
course, a written statement has been submitted for your review.
When I was born in a strict Islamic family in Iran, when I
was a child, there were a couple of incidents where I was close
to death. However, I was saved and I knew there was a force
protecting me. I even joined the military because of the draft;
and during the intensive Iran-Iraq war, however, I was still
protected, and I did not die.
In 1985 my brother invited me to a church that he attended
in Tehran after I got out of the military because he had
already come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
After I viewed the movie Jesus of Nazareth, I came to
realize that I had found what I was looking for all my life.
A few weeks later I met another Christian who spoke to me
further about God, and I then surrendered my life to Jesus, and
I became a Christian.
In 1988, with 12 other Iranian Muslims, with the leadership
of Reverend Sepehri, in Emmanuel church in Tehran I was
baptized.
Due to the extreme joy that I had found in Jesus Christ, I
wanted to share my faith with others, and this was the
beginning of the persecution that came my way by the Government
of Iran.
I was warned many, many times not to speak about Jesus to
others. Even though I was careful about this, however, two
government officials came to my shop [he was a tailor] and they
arrested me. Even though they were very careful so no one else
would recognize that they were arresting me, they put me an
unmarked car and took me to jail.
Three days later I was interrogated again but this time in
the Revolutionary Court building. They were interrogating me
further. They said because you had left Islam and had
converted, you will be put to death.
My family had no idea where I was, and an unrecognized
person called one of the believers in the church and said that
we had killed Esmaeil.
Three days later again, even though my family had no idea
what was going on with me, again they interrogated me. They
took me to the Revolutionary Court building. After more
interrogation and about 3 months of imprisonment and much
psychological and physical abuse, I was forced to sign a
statement not to preach Christianity and was released on
October 1990.
He was wondering why they let him go. I found out that my
release was due to the intervention of the late Bishop
Hovsepian-Mehr, then Superintendent of the Assemblies of God
Church and the President of the Council of Protestant Churches
in Iran, and to the upcoming visit to Iran of Mr. Galindo Pohl,
the U.N. Special Representative of the Commission on Human
Rights.
Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr, who was killed by the government
agents in January 1994 after he led an international campaign
to free Reverend Mehdi Dibaj, Iranian Muslim, convert,
evangelist who had been imprisoned for nearly 10 years and
sentenced to be executed for apostasy. Reverend Dibaj and
Reverend Tatavous Mikaelian were killed by the government
agents in June 1994. Reverend Mikaelian took over the position
of President of the Council of Protestant Churches in Iran
after Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr's death.
I married my wife, also a convert from Islam to
Christianity, in 1991. When my wife converted to Christianity,
her neighbors learned about it and began to persecute her by
saying unkind things. When she converted, a government
official, who was dressed in civilian clothes, came to the home
and threatened her that I have the power to kill you.
When our son was born in 1992, we had a difficult time to
get his birth certificate identification card.
Later we went to Turkey and worked with the Iranian
Christian organization in that country.
When we returned to Iran, we lived in a basement for 2 and
a half years because we had to be under cover. The persecution
of the Christians, the converts, had increased at this time. We
feared that it would only be a matter of time before I would be
arrested, imprisoned, and charged again with abandoning Islam;
because the government no longer even brought these cases to
the courts, because they would have paper-trail evidence that
they were doing these persecutions.
The Iranian Christians were warning us and encouraging us
to leave the country because our life was in danger. We were
told that all the ground borders had our names on their lists.
They believed that we would probably cross the border to Turkey
because there was no need for a visa.
We found out that the Embassy of India was granting visas,
and that is where we went. Without informing any of our family
and relatives, we quietly left Iran.
Prior to 1986, my older brother Ebrahim had converted from
Islam to Christianity. He received instruction from Transworld
Radio in Monte Carlo that broadcasts Persian Christian programs
into Iran, and he worked for the Iran Bible Society. After the
government authorities closed the Iran Bible Society in 1990,
Ebrahim worked for Campus Crusade for Christ. That is an
American organization. He was imprisoned in Kermanshah in 1992
because of his conversion from Islam to Christianity and
because of his evangelistic activities. Ebrahim and his wife
were forced to flee Iran in 1994 and were accepted as refugees
in Canada.
My younger brother, also a Muslim convert to Christianity,
had to discontinue his graduate studies in Iran. Because of the
persecution he received for his Christian faith he fled Iran in
1994 and was accepted as a refugee in Canada.
My mother also who was Muslim born and converted to
Christianity is living in Canada now.
Seven months after arrival in India with the help of
Iranian Christians International, Incorporated, a Colorado-
based organization who assists Iranian Christian refugees, my
wife, son, and I were recognized by the UNHCR in New Delhi as
refugees. Because the UNHCR monthly stipend is so little, we
were forced to live in a one-room apartment in a poor and
fanatically Muslim part of New Delhi.
A number of Iranian government agents and embassy personnel
lived near us, including embassy officials who lived in the
apartment below us. Because I did not receive any mail that had
been sent to me since these officials moved into our building,
I believe that they had asked the postman to deliver all my
mail and perhaps the mail of other Iranian tenants to them.
Other Iranian and Afghan refugee Muslim converts to
Christianity in New Delhi were severely persecuted by Iranian
and Afghan government agents while I lived in India. There were
several kidnapping attempts, severe beatings requiring
hospitalization, attempts to run over the converts with
motorcycles and automobiles, and death threats--death threats.
The motorcycles and the cars had Iran/Afghanistan embassy
license plates. Although reports of these incidents were
submitted to the U.S. Immigration and the UNHCR, the truth of
these reports had not been accepted by the U.S. INS and the
UNHCR.
After being recognized as a refugee by the UNHCR in July
1995, I immediately applied to the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service, INS, at the American Embassy in New
Delhi. Although most U.S. INS interviews at refugee processing
posts are scheduled within 2 months of filing, I was not
interviewed until 8 months later. I was told that since my
mother lived in Canada, although I had a U.S. sponsor, I must
apply to Canada.
In May 1996, Iranian Christians International, Inc.
contacted U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf's office requesting his
intervention for another Iranian Christian refugee and me.
Congressman Wolf faxed a letter to the Honorable Frank G.
Wisner, U.S. Ambassador to India, requesting detailed
information why the other family and mine were rejected.
A month later Mr. Johnson, U.S. INS officer, gave me a
second interview. However, he was very hostile and abusive. Now
I submit the description and content of my interview with the
U.S. INS in New Delhi for your information.
Senator Brownback. Without objection, we will accept that.
Please proceed.
Mr. Ebrahimi. I went to the U.S. Embassy with my wife and
son at 10 a.m., June 6, 1996. At 10:30 a.m., Mr. Manouch, an
employee of the U.S. INS, took us to the U.S. INS section of
the embassy and the office of Mr. Johnson. My wife and son were
directed to the next room, and only I was allowed into Mr.
Johnson's office.
Mr. Johnson was standing in his office with a very angry
expression on his face. After I sat down, Mr. Johnson said, why
did you not apply to the Canadian Embassy?
I thought he was referring to July 1995 when I first
applied for immigration to the U.S. So, I said, as soon as I
was recognized as a refugee in July 1995, I applied to the U.S.
INS.
Mr. Johnson became angry and screamed, did I not tell you
to apply to the Canadian Embassy?
I responded, it is illegal to concurrently apply to two
countries for resettlement as a refugee.
Mr. Johnson shouted, how do you know it is illegal? Have
you been in contact with an immigration officer?
I replied, no. I asked the receptionist at the information
desk.
Mr. Johnson said, who is the receptionist? You must have
obtained information from an officer.
I responded, that is not the case as refugee applicants are
not allowed inside to obtain such information from an officer.
Mr. Johnson angrily said, who do you think you are that you
are trying to teach me immigration law? When I ordered you to
apply to Canada, you should have done it. Who do you think you
are? You are nobody. You have no status. Who gave you the right
to complain about the U.S. INS, New Delhi?
I said I did not complain to any place. Before my response
was translated, Mr. Johnson said with anger, I am independent
person here. No one in America can write to me and tell me what
to do. I can decide whom to accept and who to reject as
refugee. No one is allowed to tell me what to do. This
statement was evidently in response to Congressman Wolf's
letter to Ambassador Wisner.
He then looked at my file and asked the date of my baptism.
I gave him the date, 1989. Then he said, where were you
baptized? I said in Tehran, Iran. He said, why then the letter
affirming your baptism is from a church in Germany? I
responded, Reverend Sepehri who wrote the affirmation letter
was formerly my pastor in Iran and the Director of the Iran
Bible Society. Due to danger to his life, he fled from Iran to
Germany.
Senator Brownback. Could I just interrupt here a second,
because I am really getting worried about time constraints of
what we are going to hit? If there is a way we can shorten in
on what specifically we could do from the United States that
would be helpful as Mr. Ebrahimi would see, I would appreciate
that so that we could have a few minutes to talk with some
questions, if possible, because I am afraid we are going to be
buzzed for a vote and I think we only have the committee room
until 4:30 as well. So, if you can, I would appreciate that and
that way we can get to a few questions as well.
Ms. Carrera. OK. I believe there is a conclusion here. Am I
allowed to read that?
Senator Brownback. Oh, please, please. I do not want to
stop you. You have been very kind to come here and very bold in
coming here. I want to make sure we get some chance to be able
to have a dialog back and forth to----
Ms. Carrera. OK. I will read the conclusion, if you do not
mind.
The adversarial attitude of the U.S. INS officials and the
inconsistent refugee processing has led to Iranian Christian
refugees finding themselves between a rock and a hard place.
They cannot go back to Iran, yet spend months or years in
limbo, living in hostile and impoverished conditions before
being processed to the U.S. First a refugee must go through a
long and difficult ordeal to obtain UNHCR status and financial
assistance and then go through another lengthy and arduous
process with the U.S. INS to be accepted for resettlement as a
refugee in the U.S. During the time I was going through this
process, an Afghan refugee set herself afire because the UNHCR
refused to provide adequate medical care for her family.
Many of the refugees are financially destitute and cannot
survive unnecessarily drawn-out appeals. The complete refugee
processing procedures at the U.S. INS in New Delhi must be
thoroughly investigated and changes made so that other Iranian
Christian refugees currently stranded in India can be speedily
processed to the U.S. and so that other fleeing refugees in the
future will not need to go through the severe hardship that my
family and I faced.
This subcommittee must continue to pressure the Iranian
Government to discontinue its persecution, arrest,
imprisonment, torture, and killing of Iranian Christians, to
reopen churches and the Iranian Bible Society, and to allow
Muslim converts to attend church and pastors to preach in
Persian, the language of 90 percent of Iranians, and to allow
Iranian Christians to leave Iran. This subcommittee must take
the lead in applying international pressure.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ebrahimi appears in Appendix
H on page 121.]
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, and thank both of
you for testifying here today that you have done at both risk
and expense to both of you gentlemen. I appreciate that a great
deal.
If I could in asking some questions of specifically what
all we can do from here--and both of you have been very good
about being specific on some items that would be helpful to
you. It strikes me that you are both in situations where there
is religious cleansing that is taking place and in a region of
the world where there is a great deal of religious cleansing
that is taking place.
What are the most helpful things we can do from here to
stop that from occurring? Are hearings--is that a key thing
that we should do? In Lebanon, is it trying to get more people
in there? Is it opening up the travel ban in Lebanon? Or is
that a harmful thing to do? You have identified some things,
Colonel, that you think would be good. Are these the most
helpful things that we can do to try to stop this from
occurring?
Colonel Barakat. I think the hearing that you are doing let
the people believe that the United States, which is the power
now worldwide, became interested about what is happening to the
Christians in Lebanon. It will give them more hope.
The other side is that the Syrian and the Hizbollah and the
puppet government now in Lebanon will feel that they are not
free to do whatever they are doing against the freedom of the
people, against the persecution of the Christians.
What you are doing, these hearings, are helpful.
On the other side what we ask for is for south Lebanon
specifically. It is clear I think.
Senator Brownback. Should we have more Americans traveling
to Lebanon? Would that be helpful?
Colonel Barakat. I do not think.
Senator Brownback. You do not know?
Colonel Barakat. At this time I do not think it is safe yet
because Hizbollah is still there. Nobody knows from a day to
tomorrow if they will come and catch 5 or 10 other Americans
and they will kidnap them as they did in the first time.
Senator Brownback. Because we did just, I think, get buzzed
for this vote, Senator Robb, if you would care for either a
statement or a question to ask of these gentlemen, I would be
happy to turn it over to you for that at this point.
Senator Robb. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it and I
apologized to you earlier because of the late notification as
to when this hearing was going to take place; I had others,
including several groups of international visitors from the
region and the jurisdiction of this subcommittee, as it turns
out. I will rely on the record. You shared with me some of the
testimony, and it is certainly important.
I think that the point that you have made and the two
witnesses here have made as to the importance of giving public
exposure to practices that the international community can make
independent judgments as to whether or not they want to take a
position or attempt to influence.
I might ask Mr. Ebrahimi, with the recent election in Iran,
which is approximately 90 percent Shi'ite and about 10 percent
Suni, is there any prospect in your judgment of a change with
respect to the persecution of religious minorities or
Christians based on the election that has just taken place in
Iran?
Ms. Carrera. He doesn't believe so, because this new prime
minister is continuing on with the same hard line that the
previous leaders have had.
Senator Robb. Is there anything that the international
community can do in your judgment to influence the actions that
the government in Iran takes toward religious tolerance or
religious persecution? It is not dissimilar to the chairman
asked.
Ms. Carrera. He says this is definitely a political issue
and he is not a man of much political knowledge. However, the
fact that you are listening to the cries of the people who are
being persecuted and if the people of America and other
governments are willing to listen and know that these things
are happening, he believes that people themselves can make the
difference and put pressure on governments like Iran.
Senator Robb. Let me just ask one other question to both of
our witnesses. This hearing has focused on persecution of
Christians in Islamic countries. Are you aware of specific
instances where Muslims or members of other religious faiths
have experienced persecution that is at all similar to the
kinds of persecution that you have faced?
Mr. Ebrahimi. There are Jewish citizens of Iran who have
been under major persecution to the point that they had to
leave Iran or they were certain to die, so are the Bahais in
Iran, they just like the Christians. The government has given
any Muslim in Iran the right to kill any Bahai or Christian
converts, and as a matter of fact, they will receive much
exultation by doing so.
Senator Robb. Colonel Barakat, could you respond to that
same question with respect to Lebanon?
Colonel Barakat. I did not understand the question.
Senator Robb. Are there instances of persecution of those
who profess a faith other than Christianity that is similar to
the kinds of persecution that you have experienced as a
Christian?
Colonel Barakat. In Lebanon?
Senator Robb. In Lebanon.
Colonel Barakat. Yes, all the Jewish people are in some way
persecuted in Lebanon. They are denied anything in Lebanon now,
these times, not before the war. But also all those who are
against Hizbollah, for example, against those fundamentalists,
suffer sometimes from them.
Senator Robb. But it is based on religion or on political
opposition?
Colonel Barakat. It is based sometimes on beliefs because
they believe differently from them. They think they are
heretics, something like this. They do not believe like they
believe.
Senator Robb. One final question. Are either of you aware
of persecution of the type that you have described against
Christians in either Iran or in Lebanon that has been used
against minority members, i.e., Suni or Shi'ites or whatever
the case might be in the countries, in other words, the non-
majority Muslim faction?
Mr. Ebrahimi. The Muslims who convert to Christianity--it
is very obvious that they will be persecuted. However, among
the Muslims themselves, the majority of the trouble that comes
their way, you cannot call persecution; but you can call it
that they are economically held back, jobs, trouble that has
caused them with schools and their children and their family,
but not so much persecution to the way that they persecute
people of other faiths.
Senator Robb. Thank you.
Colonel Barakat, any persecution of Muslims by a different
sect that you have observed?
Colonel Barakat. No. And the case in Lebanon is different.
It is more political between Muslims. It is not religious.
Senator Robb. I join the chairman in thanking you both for
coming and testifying this afternoon, and Mr. Chairman, I thank
you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Robb, and thank you
both for your heroism in coming forward and standing up for
your faith. I appreciate your doing that.
This is the second of a number of hearings we are going to
be holding and looking at this subject and moving forward. If
any other country in the world, America must stand up to this
religious cleansing that is taking place. We were founded by
people fleeing religious persecution and we must stand up for
that around the world. We are trying to shed a light on this
now to bring this issue on more in front of the American people
and to move forward as a Nation on it.
Thank you very much for joining us. I thank all of you for
being here today.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:28 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
A. Documents Detailing Efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to
Supress ``Illegal'' Religious Activities
A Document of The Donglai Township Committee of The Chinese Communist
Party
Translated and Released on January 1997 by The Cardinal Kung Foundation
[embargoed for release 2000 hrs gmt january 10, 1997]
______
Document (1996) No. 42
For The County Committee of Chongren Xian in the Fuzhou District (of
Jiangxi Province)
referencing the dispatch of
``The Procedures Legally to Implement the Eradication of Illegal
Activities/Operations of the Underground Catholic Church''
to
The Donglai Township Leadership for Legally Eradicating the Illegal
Activities of the Underground Catholic Church
The Objective of the Notice:
(1) The Religious Administration;
(2) ``Struggle'' on Eradication of the Illegal Activities,
(Underground Catholic Church) and
(3) Implementadon Procedures
Copy To:
The County Committee of the Communist Party
The County Political & Judicial Committee of the Communist Party
November 20, 1996
80 Copies Made (in China)
______
Translator's Note
Words in between parenthesis are the translator's note.
These words are not included in the original text.
When the text was illegible and/or the phrase was not
understood, the words were replaced by a string of x's
(xxxxxxxxxxxx).
A few sentences or phrases were printed in bold characters
or placed within quotation marks when the translator felt the
message conveyed was critical.
A few paragraphs were divided into sub-paragraphs for easier
reading.
Copies of the Chinese text are available upon request.
______
To: All units of the village branch of the Party, and All units
directly under the Township Authority:
In accordance with the approved study, attached herewith for your
use is Donglai's--
``Procedure to Legally Implement the Eradication of Illegal Activities
of the Underground Catholic Church''
Please be practical, thorough, and serious in your implementation.
In recent years, the population of religious believers in our
villages has increased due to the intensified infiltration of overseas
religious enemy and opposition forces, and due to the influence of the
illegal activities of the underground religious force in our country.
Some have used religion to commit criminal activities, seriously
disturbing the social order and affecting political stability.
Therefore, every unit in this entire township must be highly vigilant
in and politically attuned to the gravity and danger of the overall
situation. You must strengthen the leadership, and, with resolute,
decisive and organized measures, to legally develop this special
``struggle'' in order to eradicate the illegal activities of the
underground Catholic Church.
Eradicating the illegal activities of the underground Catholic
Church is a decisive and critical political work. In developing this
special ``struggle'', we will proceed according to the facts, abide by
the law, recognize two different types of contradictions (Note: The two
different contradictions are (1) contradiction among people and (2)
contradiction between enemy and defender--Mao's Thought), be vigilant
of the enemy's power and of public instigation by religious believers,
assure smooth development of ``Eradicating Illegal Activities'' work,
and achieve the projected objectives. Any important and sensitive
issues as well as the progress of all units' assignment must be
reported promptly for directives.
November 20, 1996
Procedures to Legally Implement the Eradication of Illegal Activities
of the Underground Catholic Church
In order to truly unify the thorough enforcement of the Party's
religious policy, to strengthen the administration of religious affairs
in the township, to standardize the conduct of religious activities,
and to reflect closely the circumstances of this town, effective
immediately, we have decided to employ a united action to destroy the
organization of the underground Catholic Church in Shanbei, Leifang,
and Donglai, and to stop its illegal assembly activities. The following
operation procedures are proposed:
A. Guidelines
In the spirit of the 6th meeting of the 14th Party Conference, and
in order to mobilize the vast number of people including religious
believers, we learn from the document: ``Decision of the Central
Communist Party on Certain Important Resolutions Relating to the
Strengthening of the Spirit of Socialism to Establish Civilization''
For promotion of social stability and for successful eradication of
the illegal religious activities by law, we must:
(1) Raise the banners: ``Protect the Dignity of the Law'', and
``Self Administer an Independent and Autonomous Church'',
(2) Achieve the objectives: ``Protect the Legal (Official Patriotic
Association), Stop the Illegal (Unofficial underground Roman Catholic
Church), Strike the Illegal, and Resist the Infiltration'',
(3) Use the strategy of ``Conversion Through Re-Education,
Disintegration, Unification of the Majority and Attacking the
Individuals'', and
(4) Proceed steadily and proactively with meticulous planning, and
decisive attitude to avoid major problems.
B. Objectives
Destroy the organization of the Catholic underground forces
in the township.
Cut off foreign contacts with local illegal elements
Destroy the Church's illegal assembly place
Thoroughly clear all religious propaganda posters
Strengthen the establishment of spiritual civilization and
grassroots organization
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Coordinate all security implementations.
Three stages are necessary to achieve the above objectives.
(I) Planning Stage: (November 20 to 25)
(1) Establish a strong organization for each rank. All personnel
should report to duty and start working.
(2) Carefully plan a highly secured procedure for overall
implementation in this township.
(3) Combine the township's workforce to organize six teams of
``spiritual civilization propaganda force'' to be stationed and put to
work in those villages where the underground Catholic Church has the
most influence.
(4) Define propaganda policy and customize the propaganda campaign
to target different groups of underground believers: religious, core
elements, and general public believers. Utilizing the authority of the
government, print announcements of prohibition. Adopt a unified
propaganda approach and prepare its materials.
(5) Be mentally and materially prepared to handle any unexpected
incidents. Promptly report any such incidents to your supervisor.
(II) Implementation Stage (November 25, 1996-March 31, 1997):
1. Before November 25, 1996
All village ``Spiritual Civilization Promotion Teams'' must be
stationed in the villages where the underground Catholic church
believers live. The primary objective of the team is to develop an
education propaganda offensive by utilizing radio broadcast to
propagate the ``Decision of the Central Communist Party on Certain
Important Resolutions Relating to the Strengthening of the Spirit of
Socialism to Establish Civilization''
We must propagate the Party's religious policy and the code of law
in addition to patriotism.
(a) Laying the Foundation:
In order to accomplish conversion through education, the team
members should
(1) Eat, live and labor together with the people,
(2) Perform good public relations act by visiting every family, and
(3) Sincerely offer them solutions to their practical production
problems.
The above steps will re-educate the attitude (of the Catholics) to
work for us (our favor).
(b) Investigation
In order to insure that this campaign of eradicating illegal
religious activities is fully implemented,
(1) Thoroughly understand all basic characteristics of the vast
group of religious believers. In cooperation with the local police
department, develop a complete headcount of both local and transient
populations. Register and set up a file for each one of them.
(2) Investigate and clearly understand the background of those out-
of-town Catholics visiting the villages.
(3) Fully and legally utilize the grassroots organization of the
Party as the center of operations for this campaign by:
(a) Strengthening the establishment of the leadership class for
those villages most populated by religious believers, and
(b) Performing a thorough evaluation of the Party's village branch.
Make any adjustment or reinforcement to insure that the branch can
serve as the fortress of this campaign.
2. Before November 30, 1996
(a) Thoroughly investigate and understand the underground Catholic
religious, the core members of the underground force, the number of
Catholics and the basic circumstances of the illegal activities.
(b) Investigate each one of the following groups, understand its
activity schedules, overseas connections, the degree of its
stubbornness, the traits that could be taken advantage of, and its
psychological characteristics:
(i) Underground Catholic religious
(ii) Catholic believers in the Communist Party, Communist youth
league, government cadre, militia, staff and their families, and
(iii) The people responsible for illegal activities,
3. Develop different class levels
Each team must strengthen the target of education. Tailor the
classes to the varying needs of the public audience.
(a) The first objective is for the Party. Its objective is to use
the constitution of the Party to unify the thoughts of the member of
the Party so that they could develop the influence as a model to stop
the underground Catholic illegal activities.
(b) The second objective is to create a reserve force of zealous
young people for the Party's undertaking. This class is to help them:
(i) to cultivate the life and world outlook of the proletarian
thoughts,
(ii) to be aware of the capacity of different ideas which could
have infiltrated them from the non-proletarian people, and
(iii) to be capable of resisting these ideas.
(c) The third objective is to induce underground Catholic religious
and its core members to carry on their religious activities normally
and legally by making them aware of those activities which are in line
with ``theology'', those which are unreasonable and illegal. This class
is to indoctrinate them about the policies and objectives of the Party,
and the law of the nation.
4. Make a big effort to disintegrate the underground religious
influence
Underground religious activities are illegal and dangerous. This
should be explained clearly in the class.
The policy of the government is to protect and support the
autonomous church. Only through the autonomous church will there be
hope.
Break up the underground religious influence by:
(a) Uniting the majority through education,
(b) Isolating and attacking the extremist,
(c) Developing overall education,
(d) Organizing specialists, and
(e) Using any other conceivable means.
With the exception of the few stubborn and core members (of the
underground Catholic Church) who must be prosecuted according to law,
the remainder will be indoctrinated by education. Persistent effort
should be applied to convince the believers to obey the government and
no longer to join illegal religious activities. Settle those who join
legal religious activities and provide them with a suitable assembly
place.
Using the principle of uniting the majority and isolating the
extremist, prompt the workers to take care of each person (underground
Catholic), forcing him (the underground Catholic) to write a statement
of repentance (apostasy letter), to recognize the policy of
independence and autonomy (of the church), and to join the legal
religious activities (the Patriotic Association).
5. Thoroughly and legally eliminate the assembly locations for illegal
activities by the following means.
(a) Public relations,
(b) Reliance on Party's grassroots organization,
(c) Harvesting the power of the public (opinion), and
(d) Adopting the procedure of settling the religious issue as non-
religious.
Seal those places used for comparatively less serious illegal
activities, and, through the workers, register them so that they could
practice legal religious activities, and be brought into normal
administration. In the mean time, if any underground seminary is
discovered, it must be categorically eliminated.
6. Firmly eliminate large scale illegal assemble activities such as on
(the Christmas day) ``December 25''.
(a) Control underground religious and core members' illegal
activities.
(b) All religious believers in the village must be well prepared
for the task of interception. Firmly warn religious believers not to
leave the village.
(c) The procedure must be prepared early, and the propaganda must
be completed early. Licenses or permits for vehicles and equipment used
for religious activity are not only to be confiscated, but also their
users be fined. In the meantime, be prepared to handle any sudden
unexpected incidents.
7. Infiltrate Schools
Must have a very strict policy. Adjust and strengthen the power of
teachers in the religious believers' village.
(a) Those teachers performing illegal religious activities must be
punished, or even dismissed.
(b) Do not allow any missionary activities in the school
(c) Do not allow the study, observation, or visits of any form of
religious activities.
(d) Do not allow students to carry any religious goods and
propaganda materials.
Disobedience must be punished most severely. Stop firmly the use of
religion to interfere with this directive and with other policies such
as birth control, Take care of these issues on a case by case basis.
Through implementation of the above procedures, the objective of
destroying the organization of underground Catholics and their assembly
places must be achieved. Breaking up the underground Catholic
influence, preventing the underground Catholics from participating in
large scale assemblies on Shitangshan, cutting off the relationship
between the criminal elements and overseas enemy force are steps to
normalizing legalized religious activity.
II. Consolidation Stage (April 1, 1997-June 30, 1997)
In order to consolidate the hard-won results and to prevent the
repetition of the illegal activities, we must make the struggle of
stopping the illegal Catholic activities a long term political
objective. After this unified and concentrated action, we must take
advantage of these three months to consolidate the result, to insist on
additional work on this project, and to insure that the illegal
underground Catholic influence and the illegal assemblies in our
township are eradicated. Each village must also strengthen its systems
and regulations.
C. Leadership Organization
Establish ``Donglai Leadership Team to Stop the Underground
Catholic Church Illegal Activities According to the Law''
Officer-in Charge: Yang Shusen
Vice Officer in Charge: Chen Zemin
Team workers: Li Xianchang, Xong Yiaoqiu, Huang Lusun, Xiao
Jingxing, Chen Guimin, Lu Yaomin, Huang Rongshun, Sun Guangrong, Zhou
Kaiwu, Huang Xinmin.
Office Manager: Huang Xinming
D. Matters Demanding Special Attention
1. Having a good grasp of policies, being particular about tactics,
and strictly managing affairs according to the laws, the leaders of
various levels must carry out the assignment of ``stopping illegal
activities'' as an important ``Engineering Task'' by strengthening the
spiritual build-up in order to manage and to put society in order. They
must be firm and proactive in the strategy; active and steady in
tactics. Political matters should be treated as non-political ones
while the problems of religious character should be so solved as non-
religious ones. Do not agitate the already conflicting situation;
thereby irritating the restless factors and causing very serious social
disturbances as the result of erroneous problem management.
2. Discipline must be observed, and commands must be obeyed.
Decisions made by the leadership group of the county and township
government must be carried out firmly. Mistakes caused by negligence
must be investigated and dealt with seriously. Reporting and feedback
systems must be strictly enforced. Each week, the working unit is to
report to the township leadership group about its work in progress. In
the meantime, confidentiality is to be strictly observed. Do not
disclose the undisclosable. Those who negatively impact the overall
strategy as the result of compromised secrets will have to be
dismissed, or, if the situation is serious, criminally prosecuted
according to the law.
3. In order to accomplish this difficult and glorified assignment
from the county committee of the communist party and the county
government, responsibility oriented systems must be put in place and
enforced. Each village committee and unit should clearly understand its
assignment in conformity with local practice. One must clearly
understand and be responsible for one's own obligation. Serious
unfavorable consequences arising from disobedience, irresponsibility,
and resulting in the undermining of the strategically planned objective
must be conclusively investigated. All village committees and township
units must work and support each other by coordinating all initiatives.
The Propaganda Slogans of the Special Struggle of ``Eradicating Illegal
Activities'' in Donglai Township
(1) All religious activities must only be conducted within the
scope of the national constitution, laws, regulations and policies!
(2) Actively expand the special struggle of eradicating illegal
religious activities in accordance with the laws!
(3) Firmly attack and eradicate the unlawful and criminal
activities committed through religion!
(4) Firmly attack and eradicate illegal missionary activities and
unlawful assemblies!
(5) Do not offer sites, supplies for illegal religious activities!
Offenders will be punished severely!
(6) Out of town religious visitors are not to be allowed! Offenders
will be punished severely!
(7) Protect the lawful, stop the unlawful, and attack the illegal
offenders!
(8) Gatherings are not permitted on Yujiashan, Shitangshan and
Zen's House. Offenders will be punished severely!
(9) Conducting religious activities are not allowed at the sites
forbidden by the government. Offenders will be punished severely!
(10) Firmly eradicate all illegal religious activity sites!
Donglai Township Spiritual Enhancement Propaganda Team Membership List
Shanbei Village Committee
Group Leader: Li Yian Chang
Group Assistant Leader: Yiao Jing Ying
Members: Chen Zhengsun, Zhou Xiaogiu, Li Yonggen
Leifang Village Committee
Group Leader: Xong Xiaoqiu
Group Assistant Leader: Chen Guimin
Members: Le Guixiu, Zheng Xiaoping, Sun Guangrong
Donglai Village Committee
Group Leader: Huang Lusun
Group Assistant Leader: Chen Zeming
Members: Luo Chunfa, Deng Dongyu, Zeng Yonggao
Tangren Village Committee
Group Leader: Huang Rongshun
Members: (xxx) Shuiming
Chenjia Village Committee
Group Leader: Lu Yaoming
Members: Yuan Youxing
Caochang Village Committee
Group Leader: Zhou Kaiwu
Members: Dai Xinsheng
The Planning of ``Eradicating the Illegal Activities'' in Donglai
Township
I. Propaganda & Initiative Stage (11/20/96-11/25/96)
(1) The committee of the communist party and the government of the
township summons a council meeting to strategize the ``Eradicating the
Illegal Activities'' initiative and to set up definitive procedures.
(2) The government of the township convenes a meeting of all the
township Party cadres.
(3) The village committee convene meetings of the Party Branch
Committee, Party members and all the villagers.
(4) The village committees set up special subgroups.
(5) The units and committees of all villages produce banner - sized
slogans (2 to 3 slogans per village unit).
II. Investigation Stage (11/26/96-11/30/96)
(1) Research and count the exact population of religion believers.
(2) Locate the key village committees (30 or more Catholic families
in the village) and the key families (2 or more Catholics in the
family).
(3) Clearly ascertain the locales of religious activities, i.e. the
religious gathering sites.
(4) Fully investigate the background and illegal activities of the
underground Catholic clergy population as well as key and active
Catholics.
III. Education and Transformation Stage (12/1/96-12/15/96)
(1) Prepare the propaganda literature and ``the three courses'',
i.e. the policy on religion, laws and regulations, and build-up of
spiritual civilization.
(2) Establish the learning classes for Catholics.
(3) Convene mass meetings. Educate them in accordance with their
(required) standards.
(4) Establish township regulations and civil disciplines.
(5) Account for the responsibility between the village subgroups
and the village committee.
(6) Complete and sign an accountability system for mutual support
between village committee and village subgroups.
(7) Strengthen the establishment of grassroots Party branch
committee and the government.
IV. Legal Control Stage (12/16/96-12/31/96)
(1) Blockade the exits. Guarantee that no one leaves the village
and township on December 25.
(2) Forbid out-of-town Catholics from entering the township.
(3) Tighten the surveillance and control of the area.
(4) Clamp down and seal the sites of illegal religious activities.
(5) Strictly forbid unlawful gatherings and activities in schools.
V. Conclusion and Consolidation Stage (1/1/97-6/30/97)
(1) Consolidate the achievement of ``Stopping Illegal Activities'',
undertake and implement the special struggle of lawfully eradicating
illegal religious activities as a long-term political project.
(2) Strengthen the regime's infrastructure. Establish a permanent
religious surveillance group.
(3) Meticulously execute the phases of consolidations and re-
examinations.
Glossary
__________
Document of the Tong Xiang City Municipal Public Security Bureau/
Chinese Communist Party, Tong Xiang City Committee, United Front Works
Department
Secret Document
Opinions concerning the implementation of the Special-Class Struggle
(zhuan xiang dou zang) involving the Suppression of Catholic and
Protestant Illegal Activities According to Law
Municipal CCP Committee, Municipal Government:
In the last few years, under the correct leadership of the
municipal Chinese Communist Party committee and the municipal
government, the religious policy of the Party has been implemented to a
further degree. The regulation of religious affairs in our city have
moved toward a more legal and institutionalized process. In general,
the situation concerning religion is stable. But there also exists some
problems which cannot be ignored. In terms of the overall situation,
there has been a steady increase, and no decrease, on the part of
hostile forces outside our country, which uses religion to undergo
subversive and destructive activities such as ``westernization'' and
``division'' (fen hua), to aggressively cultivate anti-government
forces, to realize the ``evangelization'' (fu yin hua) of China, and to
vainly seek to bring about the changes which occurred in the former
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Inside our country the underground forces of Catholicism and
Protestantism have responded to these, and worked together with these,
to resist against the government and the government's patriotic
religious organizations. The illegal and criminal activities of
Protestants in our city are more prominent. Some of the illegal, self-
ordained preachers have stirred up the believers and masses to attack
the ``Three Self'' patriotic organizations, to oppose the leadership of
the government; they prevent the government from implementing its
regulations, and control and influence almost 1,000 Protestant
believers. They go everywhere and say ``Don't go with the Three Self,''
and write all kinds of essays concerning the spiritual and the worldly.
They spread the ideas that ``To believe in Three Self is worldly, not
spiritual,'' ``Once you believe in Three Self you will not be saved,
and will definitely go to hell.'' Mainly this concerns the ``three-
struggle, three-churches, and sixteen points'' problem.
The Three Struggles are: struggle against materialism . . ., using
illegal means, to go to homes and hospitals etc. to draw (la long)
believers; struggle against ``Three Self'' patriotic organizations,
establishing illegal meeting points near open churches. The struggle
between factions (jiao pai). Protestant Christians and . . . Church of
Christ in China (zhong hua ji du jiao) and True Jesus Church; they
fight against one another to grab power.
The Three Churches are: . . . to be against ``Three Self''
patriotic organizations; to be against the Tong Xiang and Shi Men
Christian Churches led by the government; to ask for . . . Three Self,
but not submitting to the Wu Tong Christian Church which it (Three
Self) regulates.
The Sixteen Points are: Lu Tou, . . . , Qian Lin, Qie Tang, Shi
Qiao, Min Xing, . . . etc. sixteen places, where there are Christian
meeting points illegally established. These illegal activities have
affected the orderliness of the proper religious activities of our
city, and the socialist spirit, and the construction of civilization
and social stability in some of the regions.
The Catholic Churches in our city are dispersed at Wu Tong Cheng
Nan, Niao Zhen, . . . , Shi Men, Tu Dian, Hu Xiao, Yong Xiao, Yong Xiu,
Lu Tou etc., these eight fishing villages. There are 448 believers.
Since there is a Catholic activity point only at Pu Yuan, most are
dispersed in their homes . . . Chang An, . . . . . . Catholic Churches.
Those under age and Party members . . . individual Catholic believers .
. . oppose religious . . . organizations . . . . . .
(2 lines illegible)
According to the requirements of the Provincial Party Committee
Office, Provincial Government Office's ``Memorandum of the Opinions on
Implementation of the Launching of the Special-Class Struggle against
the Catholic and Protestant illegal Activities According to Law'', (we
are to) integrate with the realities of our city, in the first half of
this year, to begin the special-class struggle involving the
suppression of Catholic and Protestant illegal activities according to
law. We now report the opinions on the concrete implementation:
1. Basic Mission
Insist on eliminating the illegal meeting points (i.e. churches)
which have background of foreign subversions, conduct illegal
activities, and are controlled by underground clergy. Divide and
dissolve the Protestant underground forces; strike (da ji) against the
illegal and criminal activities which are conducted in the name of
religion, according to law. According to law, suppress the illegal
activities of the three churches in Tong Xiang, Shi Men and Wu Tong.
Divide and isolate the minority of self-ordained (zi feng) preachers
who oppose ``Three Self.'' Absorb these three churches into the ``Three
Self'' structure. Strengthen the regulation of religious activities.
Promote the work of registration of religious activity meeting points.
Launch out an in-depth propaganda campaign concerning the Party's
religious policy and the Government's regulations (concerning
religion). Correct and turn around the opinion orientation of some of
the believer masses who have been misled by the minority anti-Three
Self forces. Unite believers and the masses around the Party and the
Government. Use healthy, civilized, progress thought and moral mores to
educate the great masses, to promote the stability of society.
2. Implementation Procedures
In order to strengthen the leadership of the special-class struggle
involving the suppression of Catholic and Protestant illegal and
criminal activities, (we) suggest the establishment of a Leadership
Team (ling dao xiao zhu) including a chairman and leaders from Public
Security, United Front, Religion, Propaganda, Inspectorate, Courts,
Executive (shi fa), People's Rule (min zheng), educational committee
member (jiao wei), municipal construction (cheng jian), . . . , women's
league (fu lian) etc. This will be responsible to lead, coordinate,
supervise, inspect the concrete situation of all the measures. Also
establish a zheng-zhi-ban to eliminate illegal meeting points, and
zheng-zhi-ban to deal with (?) the work of the three churches: Wu Tong,
Shi Men, Niao Zhen, Lu Tou, Shi Qiao, Min Xing, Qie Tang, Pu Yuan, etc.
In these locations, establish ``Suppress the illegals Work Committee''
(zhi fei gong zuo zhu), and concretely implement the various measures
of ``suppressing the illegals'' work.
According to the overall plan for our province, this ``suppress the
illegals'' special class struggle will be carried out in three stages.
Stage 1: Preparation Stage. From now to the end of February, do a
good job in fully preparing for this special class struggle. The public
security organizations and religion departments in all localities
should consolidate all your energies and concentration to do an in-
depth investigation of the Catholic and Protestant illegal religious
activities in your locality. Clarify the present conditions of
Catholicism and Protestantism; the situation concerning foreign
subversion; illegal and criminal activities; and the illegal activity
locations controlled by underground bishops, priests and Protestant
self-ordained clergy, an those meeting points which did not register,
or refuse to register in the year 1996. Collect and sort out evidences
and data which has legal efficacy. Upon this foundation, and according
to local concrete situations, design workable work plans, and convene
``suppress the illegals'' leadership team meetings, to make clear the
functions, responsibilities, measures and requirements for each
department.
Stage 2. Zheng zhi (taking measures) stage. From March to May, have
a centralized arrangement, and concentrate all energy to proceed with
this special-class measure. The work should be grasped well in terms of
three focal points:
(1) Through patriotic religious organizations, start working on
winning people over. Religion should be ``united front-ed,'' (tong
zhan), propaganda . . . (illegible) Convene and mobilize the Three Self
Patriotic Movement committee and the China Christian Council, publicize
the Party's religious policy and the related Government laws and
regulations, through the pulpits of open churches and meeting points.
Educate the believing masses concerning the regulations on the use of
religious activity points. Lead those believers in illegal religious
activity points to come to . . . churches and meeting points. . . .
Clarify the boundary between proper, legal religion and illegal
religious activities. Divide and destroy illegal meeting points.
(2) Eliminate, according to law, the illegal religious meeting
points. With great determination, suppress illegal religious
activities. Strike (da ji) illegal and criminal conduct (April).
Determinedly suppress and eliminate the large scale illegal meetings,
both Catholic and Protestant illegal training classes; illegally
published and printed propaganda (evangelistic?) materials; and
activities and meeting points with foreign subversion . . . according
to the ``Assembly, Demonstration and Parade Law'', ``Regulations
concerning the Management of Religious Activity Points.'' . . . Conduct
``education classes'' for the self-ordained clergy and moderators of
illegal religious activity points; such classes shall be conducted by
the People's Municipal Government. Concentrate on transformation
through education (jiao yu zhuan hua). Rebuke them to stop illegal
activities. Deal with illegal and self-erected religious meeting points
according to law. Implement long-term control measures through the
local police offices . . . Collect evidence of all kinds of illegal and
criminal activities under the banner of religion. Punish according to
law.
(3) Penetrate and fan out in a multi-faceted measure. Deal with the
Protestant churches in Tong Xiang, Shi Men and Wu Tong who, after many
efforts of education, still refused to register, and refused to obey
regulations. First, the Religious Affairs Bureau will take the lead to
organize ``Three Self'' patriotic organization members to temporary
take over the approval of restoring the churches in Wu Tong and Shi
Men. Announce that Wu Tong Ba-zi-qiao church would not be given
registration, it will not be protected by law. Rebuke it to stop
activities. Concerning the church buildings which were built illegally
on their own initiative, close up and deal with them according to
regulations. Proceed to educate and control those minority clergy and
moderators of churches which do not obey, who are obstacles to the
implementation of regulations, and who oppose ``Three Self.'' Strictly
prevent them to stir up trouble. When legally suppressing the illegal
religious activities, educate, unite and win over the believing masses
who worship at Tong Xiang, Shi Men and Wu Tong -make this the focus of
your work. Religion, propaganda and other departments should do their
work with different formats. With great effort, proceed to educate and
spread propaganda among this segment of the believing masses. Help them
be clear on the distinction between proper religious activities and
illegal religious activities. Strengthen the self-initiative (zi jue
xing) of believing masses to boycott illegal religious activities, that
they may be good citizens and good believers who love their country,
love their religion and abide by the law. Dispatch work teams, and
fully depend on the basic party and government structures, and upgrade
the scope of work. Approach this with leading and helping masses to
develop economic . . . small business. Unite this with the construction
of spiritual civilization. Broadly, and deeply spread the propaganda
concerning the Party's religious policy and related laws and
regulations. Shake out sharply reduce the influence of illegal
religious activities.
Stage 3. In June, summarize . . . , and receive the takeover by the
city and local authorities. The standards for inspection: (1) That the
Catholic and Protestant underground forces have been divided, and the
absolute majority of believing masses have been won over by education
and unification to of the way of ``love of country and love of church''
(ai guo ai jiao). (2) Illegal activities basically are suppressed, and
illegal criminal elements have been punished according to law. (3)
Illegal structures in religion are destroyed. The illegal meeting
points which have subversive foreign background, and conduct illegal
and criminal activities will be suppressed and supplanted. (4) List the
underground Catholic bishops, priests, and Protestant self-ordained
ministers who have not sufficiently been dealt with legally, into
``primary-point management'' (zhong dian guan li), and implement
measures of investigation and indictment (zeng kong cao si). (5) At the
most local/basic level of the Party, strengthen regulating of religious
activities according to law; concretely have personnel to be
responsible for it. Those responsible for religion work understand the
basic religious situation at the local level, have some basic knowledge
of religion, have a basic grasp of the Party's religious policy and
related legal knowledge. They should dare to really regulate religious
activities; know how to regulate; and regulate well (gan guan, hui
guan, shan guan).
3. The Requirements of Work
In all localities, the special-class struggle of legal suppression
of Catholic and Protestant illegal activities should be a concrete
measure to thoroughly implement the spirit of the 14th six-way combined
Congress, and the 9th provincial party congress. Combine with the basic
strategy of peasant education which our party in our province is
launching out . . . We must fully understand the significance, the
complexity of this special-class struggle; and strictly take hold of
the Party's religious policy and the related laws and regulations.
Correctly distinguish and handle the two categorically different kinds
of contradictions. Guarantee the successful operation of the special-
class struggle. As this struggle is implemented in various localities,
the following points must be heeded and grasped:
(1) Work hard to do a good job in investigation (diao cha) and
issuance of certificates (qu zheng). Fully make use of laws and
regulations. The work of striking an suppressing should proceed
legally, so that it may be accurate and powerful.
(2) The legal suppression of illegal religious activities should
not affect the proper points of religious activities and meeting
points. Those who are within the realm of this regulation, but are slow
in registering, should not be considered within the target of
elimination. Concerning the three churches (Tong Xiang, Shi Men, and Wu
Tong) where the underground self-ordained pastors are in control, when
legal measures are taken, . . . conditions should be created, and
patriotic clergy should be selected and sent to organize committees of
church affairs to take charge of religious life, and to take over
religious strongholds.
(3) Strengthen the work of intelligence and information. In fact,
those who control Ton Xiang, Shi Men to conduct illegal religious
activities are the same bunch of self-ordained clergy as those who
struggle for power with ``Three Self'' and who establish . . . meeting
points. Have a firm grasp of the activities and movement of this bunch
of core elements who conduct illegal activities. Strictly prevent them
to stir up trouble. Once there are traces of stirring up trouble (gao
shi), deal with it decisively under the united leadership of the party
committee and the government. Suppress it while it is still in the
budding stage.
(4) Encourage the patriotic religious organizations to become more
effective. Educate and encourage patriotic clergy to positively work
with this special class struggle, and take initiative to help the
government do a good job in educating, uniting the believers and masses
through religious sentiment and religious consciousness.
(5) As the special class struggle proceeds, all villages, cities
and departments should coordinate with each other closely, strengthen
communication, exchange information, and help each other in war.
(6) The situation of the work of this special class struggle will
not be reported by the news media.
If there are no improper measures in the above opinions, please
issue this to the various localities and departments for
implementation.
Tong Xiang City Public Security Bureau
Chinese Communist Party Tong Xiang City United Front Works
Department
February 27, 1997
__________
B. Prepared Statement of Steven J. Coffey
Mr. Chairman, I welcome the opportunity to appear before you today
to testify on the question of religious freedom in the Middle East.
The Foreign Policy Context
Religious freedom is an issue to which the Department of State has
been devoting increasing attention. It is a complex problem. Issues of
religious freedom are often laden with emotion, misunderstanding,
political overtones, ethnic implications, and deep historical wounds.
From Northern Ireland to Bosnia to Tibet, the world is replete with
examples of continuing religious intolerance and conflict, often
spilling graphically on to the evening news and the front pages of our
newspapers. Unfortunately, problems of religious persecution seldom
lend themselves to simple remedies or easy solutions. This is
especially true in the Middle East, where three of the world's major
religions trace their origins, and where it is often difficult to
separate religion and politics.
The promotion of religious freedom in the Middle East and elsewhere
is a growing priority in our foreign policy. Religious liberty is,
after all, a core American value. Our nation was founded in large part
by refugees from persecution. The Framers of our Constitution enshrined
religious freedom among the most sacred of the rights guaranteed to our
citizens. And America today is a country where people freely worship
and where hundreds of religions flourish. In fact, the United States
today is a multi-religion society where more than twenty separate
religions or denominations have over a million adherents each.
Americans provide a living example of our conviction that people of
diverse religions can coexist happily and that religious minorities can
live together in harmony.
Our religious liberties don't thrive in a vacuum, however. They
thrive in the context of a free society, a society that guarantees full
personal liberties to all its citizens--freedom of conscience, freedom
of speech, freedom of assembly. These are among the basic elements of
any democratic society. As we look around the world, we see that where
political freedom, individual rights, and democracy are on the rise, so
is religious freedom. We need to look no further than the revival of
the religious activities in Russia and central Europe following the
fall of Communism to see how increased political freedom leads to
increased religious activity.
This, then, is the context in which we must formulate and implement
our policy in the Middle East and around the world: where political
freedoms thrive, so do religious freedoms; where political freedoms are
constrained or repressed, the same is often true for religious freedom.
Religious freedom can only truly flourish in free societies.
One of our operating principles, therefore, is that as we work to
expand the family of democracies around the world, to build free
societies, to encourage tolerance, and to defend all fundamental human
rights, we are also working to promote religious freedom. Our global
policy seeks to build a framework of peace, freedom and respect for law
in which all human rights can thrive, including religious liberty.
The Context in the Middle East
The region we're focusing on today is huge. It stretches from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. It comprises some twenty countries.
Its systems of government range from democracy to theocracy to monarchy
to dictatorship. It is a region of prosperity and of poverty, of vast
resources and of barren deserts. It is a region that features economic
growth in some areas and stagnation in others. Some of its governments
have been stable for decades, while others have been much less so. In
sum, the Middle East is not easily defined. It is a region of
contrasts. We should be wary of drawing generalizations.
It is not my intention today to attempt a country-by-country
analysis of the Middle East. I would, however, like to offer a very
brief overview of U.S. interests and the policy that guides our
activities in the region. U.S. goals in the Middle East are far-
ranging.
First, securing a just, lasting, comprehensive, Arab-Israeli
peace is a cornerstone of U.S. policy. This is no longer a
dream; it is attainable. The agreements reached over the last
three years between Israel and Jordan, and between Israel and
the Palestinians, the expansion of political and economic
contacts between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the long-
standing peace between Israel and Egypt form the foundation of
a comprehensive settlement of the conflict. While much work
remains ahead, building a basis for lasting peace will remain
at the center of our Middle East policy.
Beyond the Arab-Israeli peace process, the U.S. is committed
to maintaining full and secure access to the energy resources
of the Persian Gulf. It is in this context that we work to
contain the threat to regional stability posed by Iran, Iraq,
and Libya.
We are working to contain regional conflicts and prevent
hostilities.
We are working to counter the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction.
We are actively combating the threats of terrorism,
narcotics, and international crime.
We are expanding trade and investment opportunities for the
U.S. private sector.
We are providing humanitarian assistance to aid millions of
refugees and displaced persons throughout the region.
And finally, but certainly not least, we are working
throughout the region to encourage movement toward democratic
political processes, strengthened rule of law, greater respect
for human rights, improved opportunities for women, and
expansion of civil society institutions. Democratization, human
rights and political reform are important elements of our
dialogue with governments of the region. They are a major focus
of USIS activities and a central element in many of our AID
programs. We have launched democracy-building assistance
programs in seven Middle Eastern countries. In addition, the
U.S. encourages and supports through IMET programs the
development of professional, apolitical military forces trained
to respect human rights. And, the Middle East Democracy Fund,
inaugurated this year, will seek opportunities for developing
democratic institutions in countries receiving little or no
peace process-related economic assistance or AID-administered
development assistance.
This, then, is the broad context in which we pursue our Middle East
policy. Let me now focus more specifically on the question of religious
freedom in the Middle East.
The Religious Context
Very serious issues of religious restrictions, discrimination,
persecution, and conflict exist in the Middle East. The region is
diverse, however, and, as I have pointed out, we should be careful not
to make sweeping generalizations. In most of the Middle East there is
little or no separation of religion and state as we practice it in the
United States. Although this is manifested differently in each nation,
the close association of religion and the state--and the lack of
tolerance and pluralism--poses a special challenge to protect adherents
of religions other than the state religion. In most countries of the
Middle East, Islam is the official, state religion. In some countries,
such as Jordan and Morocco, the King derives his legitimacy, in part,
because his heritage is traced back to the Prophet Mohammed and the
beginnings of Islam. In many countries, religious law is imposed by the
state; in others, civil law and religious law exist side by side. In
some, such as Israel, religious political parties are active in
government; in others, such as Algeria, religious parties are banned.
In Lebanon, the most senior government positions are allocated
according to religious affiliation.
With these variations in mind, it is worth highlighting the
following issues:
Most Middle Eastern states impose significant legal
obstacles to religious freedom, contrary to the provisions of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Some governments,
such as Saudi Arabia, prohibit entirely the practice of
religions other than Islam. This prohibition on non-Muslim
religions forces Christian and other expatriates who seek to
worship to do so only at great personal risk and under
extremely discrete circumstances. In others, from Israel to
Kuwait, religious affiliation is a prerequisite of granting
citizenship to new immigrants.
One of the most serious issues concerning religious freedom
in most Middle Eastern countries is a strict prohibition on
proselytizing. Conversion of Muslims to other religions is
often illegal. Apostasy can carry heavy penalties including, in
some countries, death. Iran, for example, has issued a decree
seeking the death of the writer Salman Rushdie, who is called
an apostate for authoring The Satanic Verses. In addition, the
government of Iran has decreed all Bahai's to be apostates,
regardless of whether they were born Baha'i or are converts.
Two Baha'is have been sentenced to death for apostasy, and
Christian evangelists have died in Iran under extremely
suspicious circumstances. Most countries in the region prohibit
or restrict proselytizing, and there is serious societal
discrimination and intolerance against converts. This, of
course, is contrary to the Universal Declaration's provision
that protects the right of all people to change their religion
or belief.
In some states, specific religious groups are persecuted or
their practices restricted. For example, in Iraq the government
has severely restricted its majority Shi'a Muslim population,
banning the broadcast of Shi'a programming on government
television and radio, the publication of Shi'a books and even
the commemoration of Shi'a holy days. The Assyrian Christian
community has suffered various forms of persecution and abuses
by Iraqi forces, including harassment and killings.
Even where legal obstacles do not exist, societal
discrimination on a religious basis does. Jews throughout the
Middle East, especially since the creation of the State of
Israel, have experienced societal discrimination or repression,
resulting in the large scale emigration of traditional
communities. Anti-Semitism remains a widespread problem in many
Middle Eastern countries today. The Coptic Christian community
in Egypt is subject to discriminatory practices, in addition to
a number of legal restrictions. And, discrimination against
women remains a pervasive problem throughout much of the Middle
East; in some instances discriminatory actions against women
resulting from societal traditions are incorrectly explained as
resulting from traditional Islamic practice.
Some Middle Eastern states legislate in ways that
discriminate against religious groups. In some cases, legal
restrictions on a particular community exist but are not
enforced in practice. In Israel, Orthodox religious authorities
have exclusive control over marriage, divorce, and burial of
all Jews, regardless of the individual's orthodoxy. In Iran,
Baha'is are legally restricted in their educational and
employment opportunities, as well as in other ways.
Violence which chooses religion as its standard bearer is
all too common in the region. The sixteen-year Lebanese civil
war included elements of sectarian violence. In Algeria and
Egypt, armed groups have carried out acts of terror on both
Muslims and Christians in the name of religion. In Algeria
alone, thousands have been murdered--hundreds in just the past
two weeks--purportedly to advance a certain Islamic agenda.
And, of course, the Arab-Israeli conflict, while not a
religious conflict per se, is laden with religious overtones
and has provided grist to extremist groups, some of which--such
as Hamas--use religion to rally supporters.
Given the absence of separation of religion and state, it bears
highlighting that Middle Eastern governments are often active in
regulating and restricting the practice of Islam, as well as of other
religions. This is an important element of the religious context in the
region that is sometimes overlooked. For example, it is common in many
Middle Eastern states for governments to be involved in appointing
Islamic clergy, funding mosques and religious workers' salaries,
providing guidance for sermons, and monitoring Islamic religious
services for unacceptable content. Such restrictions on Islam sometimes
exist even in states that accept the free and open practice of other
faiths. I raise the issue of restrictions on the practice of Islam in
the Middle East to underscore that it is not just religious minorities
in the region which face constraints on religious liberty. In some
instances the restrictions placed on minorities are mirrored by similar
restrictions or regulations of the Islamic majority. Some of these
restrictions, moreover, overlap with constraints on other freedoms--
such as freedom of speech or freedom of assembly--reinforcing the key
point that religious freedom is only likely to thrive in free
societies, and where political freedoms are restricted or repressed,
the same is often true for religious freedoms.
What Are We Doing About It?
In my remarks so far, I have tried to lay out for you the general
basis of our policy on religious freedom, the context and priorities of
our Middle East policy, and the nature of the problem of religious
intolerance in the Middle East. The remaining question I wish to deal
with today is really the critical one: what are we doing about it? In
fact, we are trying to deal with the question of religious freedom on
several fronts.
First, we're speaking out for religious freedom. President
Clinton has issued several proclamations on religious freedom
and Secretary of State Albright, soon after taking office,
stated that freedom of religion is a priority human rights
concern for her and made it clear that it should be treated as
an important issue in our human rights policy. Religious
freedom is one of the core human rights basic to American
values. And it's more than just an American value--
international human rights instruments and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights enshrine religious freedom as one
of the basic, internationally recognized rights of all men and
women. One of the reasons I'm pleased to be here today is the
opportunity it affords to reiterate our message on religious
freedom and to do so in a way that it will be heard around the
Middle East and elsewhere.
Second, we're making it clear when there's a problem in a
country. Our annual human rights reports to Congress each
contain a section on freedom of religion; these spell out in
detail the situation in every country in the world,
highlighting the problems we see. This is a public document
that gets wide distribution. And we bring the reports and our
concerns directly to the attention of the governments
concerned. This year we will also be presenting a report to
Congress on persecution of Christians around the world, which
will include portions on Middle Eastern countries. And beyond
these reports, the State Department comments regularly and
publicly on instances of religious intolerance and persecution
that come to our attention in all countries, including in the
Middle East.
Third, we have begun to take a much more activist approach
in the field to questions of religious freedom. In December,
the Department of State instructed all U.S. embassies around
the world, including in the Middle East, to be alert to the
high priority we attach to religious freedom. We asked our
posts to report more actively on these issues, to identify
religions, denominations, or sects being discriminated against
or persecuted, and to provide suggestions about how the U.S.
might most effectively address questions of religious freedom
and religious persecution in their countries. This initiative
has already begun to show results, with more information coming
our way, and some useful suggestions on how to approach certain
governments on this issue.
Fourth, in February we convened the first session of the
Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom
abroad. This new committee brings together twenty of America's
most prominent religious leaders, activists, and thinkers to
help us forge new policy directions on religious freedom. The
creation of the Advisory Committee reflects our recognition
that more can and should be done to promote religious freedom
abroad. Already the Committee's members are hard at work, and
have formed sub-groups on religious persecution and on conflict
resolution. By this summer we hope to have the Committee's
first recommendations for action.
Fifth, we have taken an increasingly active approach in
raising with Middle Eastern and other governments specific
cases of individuals and groups who are suffering
discrimination or persecution on religious grounds. Generally,
we have done this quietly and through diplomatic channels. We
have also encouraged governments to state publicly their
opposition to acts of violence and discrimination aimed at
individuals or groups because of their religion or belief. In a
number of cases we have seen positive results.
Sixth, we have been active in multilateral fora in raising
questions of religious freedom. In the UN Human Rights
Commission earlier this month, for example, we cosponsored a
resolution on religious intolerance and delivered a strong
statement on religious freedom. The United States was
instrumental in the creation of a Human Rights Commission
Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, and we have been
strongly supportive of the Special Rapporteur's activities. We
have also drawn attention to specific cases of gross abuse,
including Iran's treatment of its Baha'i community and Iraqi
persecution of several religious groups.
Seventh, we have sponsored and funded programs to promote
religious liberty and tolerance. Some of these programs are
specifically targeted at the issue, while others are broader in
scope but still impact positively on the problem. For example,
USIS posts in Arab countries have sent clerics, journalists,
politicians and academics to the United States to participate
in an annual International Visitor program on ``Religion in
America,'' in which they meet with American Christian, Muslim,
Jewish and ecumenical groups to discuss ways of promoting
religious tolerance. Participants have returned impressed with
the extent of religious freedom in the U.S. and the
possibilities for cooperative relationships among people of
different faiths. Through the National Endowment for Democracy
we are funding several programs to support tolerance and
secularism; for example, a project to enable an independent
literary journal to organize debates on religion and democracy
among theologians, historians, and lawyers, and another project
to translate into Arabic and publish important works on
democracy, tolerance and pluralism. Beyond programs focused
specifically on religious issues, we are also actively pursuing
democracy-building programs around the region, on the basis
that building open democratic societies will lead to improved
respect for all human rights, including religious freedom. We
have such democracy-building programs in Algeria, Egypt,
Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Morocco, and the West Bank and Gaza;
some additional programs also focus on related issues such as
conflict resolution and the human rights of women.
Eighth, we have reached out to religious groups and leaders
throughout the Middle East. Our embassies maintain close
contacts with a broad spectrum of Middle Eastern religious
leaders, especially those representing groups suffering
discrimination, to reassure them of American interest and see
how we can be helpful.
Finally, our overall policy toward the Middle East--while not
determined by questions of religious freedom--in fact is aimed at
creating the kind of conditions under which religious freedom has a
chance to emerge, and to prosper.
I've spoken, for example, about how the Arab-Israeli
conflict has given rise to extremist groups such as Hamas, and
has exacerbated religious tensions and intolerance in the
region. I have pointed out that our chief policy emphasis is on
the Middle East peace process. By establishing peace in the
region and building bridges between communities previously at
war, we are also establishing a framework for greater
tolerance.
Likewise, our effort to build open societies and encourage
the growth of democratic institutions in the Middle East will
contribute over time to a climate for greater religious
freedom.
Our efforts to fight terrorism also help strike at the roots
of intolerance and religious persecution.
And, our work to isolate rogue regimes will help weaken many
of the leaders most responsible for severe repression in the
region.
In these ways, our general approach to Middle East policy is
helping to build a framework in which religious tolerance will be more
likely to emerge, and to grow.
Mr. Chairman, there is a long way to go to resolve the many aspects
of religious intolerance, restriction, and persecution in the Middle
East. I cannot tell you today that we have all the answers. Nor can I
assert that the United States has the power to bring about changes in
religious practices abroad even if we did have the answers. What I can
tell you, however, is that we are committed to making the effort. We
have structured a broad policy toward the Middle East that is helping
to lay the framework for peace and democratic societies, which are
essential components of an atmosphere conducive to religious freedom.
We are speaking out for religious freedom. We are raising the issue
with governments. And we are undertaking a range of policy initiatives
to advance our goal of a world where every individual will be at
liberty to follow their beliefs and to practice their religion freely.
We appreciate your interest in this issue, and would welcome your
comments and suggestions. As I said at the outset, freedom of religion
is a basic American value; I believe it is an issue on which the
Administration and the Congress can see eye to eye, and one on which we
can cooperate together effectively.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
__________
C. Prepared Statement of Bat Ye'or
past is prologue: the challenge of islamism today
Mr. Chairman, Members of Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen:
``Past is Prologue.'' These words are engraved on the pediment of
the Archives building in Washington. The English source is probably
Shakespeare's The Tempest, and the original perhaps Ecclesiastes (1:9).
I have chosen this motto for my statement today and shall first give an
historical overview of the persecution of Christians under Islam.
To fully understand the present tragic situation of Christians in
Muslim lands, one must comprehend the ideological and historical
pattern that is conducive to violations of human rights, even though
this pattern does not seem to be a deliberate, monolithical, anti-
Christian policy. However, as this structure is integrated into the
corpus of Islamic law (the shari'a), it functions in those countries
that either apply the shari'a in full, or whose laws are inspired by
it.
The historical pattern of Muslim-Christian encounters developed
soon after the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. Muslim-Christian
relations were then regulated by two legal-theological systems: one
based on jihad, the other on the shari'a. A Jihad should not be
compared to a Crusade--or to any other war. The strategy and tactics of
jihad are minutely fixed by theological rules, which the calif or
ruler--wielding both spiritual and political power--must obey. The
jihad practised now in Sudan is conducted according to its traditional
rules. One could affirm that all ``jihad'' groups today conform to
these decrees.
It is an historical fact that all the Muslim countries around the
southern and eastern Mediterranean were Christian lands before being
conquered, during a millenium of jihad under the banner of Islam. Those
vanquished populations--here I am referring only to Christians and
Jews--were then ``protected,'' providing they submitted to the Muslim
ruler's conditions. Therefore, ``protection'' in the context of a
conquest is the consequence of a war, and this is a very important
notion.
In April 1992, for instance, religious leaders in Sudan's Southern
Kordofan region--who were ``publicly supported at the highest
government level''--issued a fatwa, which stated: ``An insurgent who
was previously a Muslim is now an apostate; and a non-Muslim is a non-
believer standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam, and Islam
has granted the freedom of killing both of them.'' This fatwa appears
in a 1995 Report to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights by
the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Sudan, Dr. Gaspar Biro. [ECOSOC, E/
CN.4/1996/62, para.97a]
This religious text gives the traditional definition of a harbi
(someone living in the Dar al-harb, the ``region of war''], an infidel
who has not been subjected by jihad, and therefore whose life and
property--according to classical texts of Islamic jurists--is thus
forfeited to any Muslim. (It also gives a definition of an apostate who
can be killed--the cases of Salman Rushdie in 1989, Farag Foda in 1992
and Taslima Nasreen 1994 are other examples where the death sentence
was decreed.)
Non-Muslims are protected only if they submit to Islamic
domination by a ``Pact''--or Dhimma--which imposes degrading and
discriminatory regulations. In my books, I have provided documents from
Islamic sources and from the vanquished peoples, establishing a sort of
classification so that the origins, development and aims of these
regulations can be recognized when they are revived nowadays. I am only
referring to Christians and Jews, because they share the same Islamic
theological and legal category, referred to in the Koran as ``People of
the Book''--the word ``people'' is in the singular. If they accept to
submit to a Muslim ruler, they then become ``protected dhimmi
peoples''--tributaries, since their protection is linked to an
obligatory payment of a koranic polltax (the jizya) to the Islamic
community (the umma).
This protection is abolished:--if the dhimmis should rebel against
Islamic law; give allegiance to non-Muslim power; refuse to pay the
koranic jizya; entice a Muslim from his faith; harm a Muslim or his
property; commit blasphemy. Blasphemy includes denigration of the
Prophet Muhammad, the Koran, the Muslim faith, the shari'a by
suggesting that it has a defect, and by refusing the decision of the
ijma--which is the consensus of the Islamic community or umma (Koran
III: 106). The moment the ``pact of protection'' is abolished, the
jihad resumes, which means that the lives of the dhimmis and their
property are forfeited. Those Islamists in Egypt who kill and pillage
Copts consider that these Christians--or dhimmis--have forfeited their
``protection'' because they do not pay the jizya.
In other words, this ``protector-protected'' relationship is
typical of a war-treaty between the conqueror and the vanquished, and
this situation remains valid for Islamists because it is fixed in
theological texts. But it should be emphasized that other texts in the
Koran stress religious tolerance and peaceful relations, which
frequently existed. [Nonetheless, early jurists and theologians--
invoking the koranic principle of the ``abrogation'' of an earlier text
by a later one--have established an extremist doctrine of jihad, which
is a collective duty.]
The protection system presents both positive and negative aspects:
it provides security and a measure of religious autonomy. On the other
hand, dhimmis suffered many legal disabilities intended to reduce them
to a condition of humiliation and segregation. Those rules were
established as early as the 8th and 9th centuries by the founders of
the four schools of Islamic law: Hanafi, Malaki, Shafi'i and Hanbali.
The shari'a is a complete compendium of laws based on theological
sources, principally the Koran and hadiths--that is, the sayings and
acts of the Prophet. The shari'a comprises the legal status of the
dhimmis: what is permitted and what is forbidden to them. It sets the
pattern of the Muslims' social and political behavior toward dhimmis
and explains its theological, legal and political motivations.
It is this comprehensive system, which lasted for up to thirteen
centuries, that I have analysed in my last book [The Decline of Eastern
Christianity under Islam] as the ``civilization of dhimmitude.'' Its
archetype--the dehumanized dhimmi--has permeated Islamic civilization,
culture and thought and is being revived through the Islamist
resurgence and the return of the shari'a.
The main principles of ``dhimmitude'' are:
(1) the inequality of rights in all domains between Muslims and
dhimmis;
(2) the social and economic discrimination of the dhimmis;
(3) the humiliation and vulnerability of the dhimmis.
Numerous laws were enacted over the centuries in order to implement
these principles, which remained in practice throughout the 19th
century and in some regions into the 20th century.
Arab-Islamic civilization developed in conquered Christian lands,
among Christian majorities which were eventually reduced to minorities.
The process of the Islamization of Christian societies appears at all
levels. It is part and parcel of the Christian suffering embodied in
laws, customs, behavior patterns and prejudices that were perpetuated
during many centuries. Christianity could survive in some countries
like Egypt and the Balkans where their situation was tolerable, but in
other places they were wiped out physically, expelled or forced to
emigrate.
[During the whole of the 19th century, European governments tried
to convince Muslim rulers--from Constantinople to North Africa--to
abolish the discriminations against dhimmis. This policy led to reforms
in the Ottoman Empire from 1839--known as the Tanzimat--but it was only
in Egypt, under the strong rule of Mohammed Ali, that real progress was
made. Improvements in the Ottoman Empire and Persia, imposed by Europe,
were bitterly resented by the populace and religious leaders.]
European laws were introduced in the process of Turkish
modernization, and in some Arab countries, but it was only under
colonial rule that Christian and Jewish minorities were truly liberated
from centuries of opprobrium. Traditionalists however resented the
Westernization of their countries, the emancipation of the dhimmis and
the laws imported from infidel lands. The fight for decolonization was
also a struggle by the Islamists to re-establish strict Islamic law.
Why is this persecution ignored by the Churches, governments and media?
The 19th century--and even after World War I--was a traumatizing
period of genocidal slaughter of Christians, spreading from the Balkans
(Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria) to Armenia and to the Middle East. In this
context of death, the doctrine of an Islamic-Christian symbiosis was
conceived toward the end of the 19th century by Eastern Christians as a
desperate shield against terror and slavery. This doctrine--which also
included anti-Zionism--had many facets, both political and religious.
In the long term, its results were mostly negative.
It is this doctrine--still professed today--that is responsible
for the general silence about the ongoing tragedy of Eastern
Christians. Any mention of jihad and of the persecutions of Christians
by Muslims was a taboo subject, because one could not denounce
persecution and simultaneously proclaim that an Islamic-Christian
symbiosis has always existed in the past and the present. It is in this
cocoon of lies and of a deliberately imposed silence, solidly supported
by the Churches, governments and the media--each for its own reasons--
that persecution of Christians could develop freely, during this
century, even until now, with little hindrance. Moreover, this doctrine
also blocked the memory of dhimmitude, leaving a vacuum of thirteen
centuries whose emptiness was filled with a myth that was useless as a
means to prevent the return of old prejudices and persecutions.
For this reason, dhimmitude--which covers several centuries of
Christian and Jewish history, and which is a comprehensive civilization
englobing legislation, customs, social behavior and prejudices--has
never been analysed, nor publicly discussed. It is this silence--for
which academia in Europe and America bear much responsibility--that
allows the perpetuation of religious discrimination and persecution
today. There are many factors that explain this silence of governments,
Churches, academia and the media on such a tragic issue concerning
persecuted Christians in the Muslim world; they are interrelated and
although their motivations are different they have solidly cemented a
wall of silence that has buried the historical reality.
Proposals for redressing these violations of fundamental human rights:
I. To define the ways and means to end this tragedy:
(1) Not to foster an anti-Islamic current which would be wrong, as
the vast majority of Muslims are themselves victims of Islamists in
Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, etc.
(2) Christians must continue to live in their historical lands
because it is their right, and only they can transform traditional
Muslim mentalities. These dwindling communities should be encouraged to
stay, as their presence will signify that Muslims have accepted that
Jews and Christians also possess the right to life and dignity in their
ancient homelands--and not under a dhimmi protection, but with human
rights equal to those of Muslims. If they fail, it will be our loss in
the West too. Islamic countries that once had a Judeo-Christian culture
should not become monolithically Islamic--that is, Christianrein, as
they have become virtually Judenrein--through a policy of ethnic
cleansing that followed a long historical period of discrimination.
(3) If the human rights--and the minority rights--of Christians are
not respected in those countries that formerly had Christian
majorities, then the rights of all non-Muslims will be challenged by
the Islamists' resurgence. It is for Christians worldwide--particularly
in America and Europe, and for the international community also--to
assure that the human rights for all religious minorities are respected
worldwide.
II. We should realize that those populations are in grave danger
and that even Muslim governments cannot protect them from mob
violence--sometimes they pretend to be unable to do so, in order to
stop foreign pressure or public campaigns. We should also remember
that, from the late 1940's, the Jewish communities in the Arab-Muslim
world--then more than a million, now 1 percent of that number, under
10,000 and fast dwindling--were the victims of persecution, terrorism,
pillage and religious hatred that forced them to flee or emigrate.
Christians were left as the only non-Muslims on whom religious
fanaticism and hatred could be focused. Each Christian community tried
to resist the return of the old order, following the path of secularism
or communism.
The Islamists reproach Christians in their countries for:
(1) being against the implementation of the shari'a;
(2) demanding equal rights, basing themselves on International
Covenants;
(3) seeking foreign help to achieve equality with fellow Muslim
citizens.
For the Islamists, these three accusations alone are tantamount to
rebellion. It was these same motives that had justified the first great
massacres of the Armenians a century ago in 1894-96, punished for
having rebelled and for claiming the reforms that were promised.
This is why dhimmis communities were always careful to proclaim
their enmity to Europe. An outward opposition to Christian countries
being their life-saving shield against threats from their environment,
they have interiorized this animosity to the point that they often
strive for the triumph of Islam, some of them even becoming the best
and most perfect tools of Islamic propaganda and interests in Europe
and America. (The late Father Yoakim Moubarac and Georges Corm in
France, and Edward Said in America, are but three examples out of
many.)
III. In order to avoid mistakes and be more effective, one has to
realize the difference of contexts between the campaign for Soviet
Jewry in the 1970's and 1980's, and the promotion of human rights for
Christians in Islamic lands today. The main difficulty arises because
the discrimination or persecution in some countries cannot be ascribed
to a deliberate government policy. It is rather a fact of civilization:
the traditional contempt for dhimmis--not so different from that of
African Americans in the past--and irritation because they are
outstepping their rights and must be obliged to return to their former
status. Sometimes, however, it is imposed by the Islamists, and a weak
government doesn't dare to protect the Christians, fearing to become
even more unpopular, because anti-Western and anti-Christian prejudices
have imbued Muslim culture and society for centuries.
(1) There are many ways to persecute Christians; some are by legal
means, like the laws concerning the building or the repair of churches;
others, by terror. A Christian can be killed, not because he committed
a crime, but simply because he belongs to a group of infidels, who,
allegedly, are in rebellion. Or for reasons of ``spectacle-terrorism,''
that can serve as a deterrent policy to fulfill the terrorists' aims.
(2) Another point concerns the use of a fatwa. If a fatwa is
decreed against an individual, any Muslim is authorized to kill him,
and by so doing he is the executor of what is considered the sentence
of Allah.
IV. The problem is multifarious; it is not only religious but also
cultural. This aspect is more acute with Christian, than with Jewish,
communities because Muslims conquered Christian lands and civilizations
that were then subjected to a deliberate policy of Arabization and
Islamization. Take, as an example, Christian pre-Islamic Coptic
history: language and culture are a neglected, if not a forbidden,
domain because it would imply that Muslim history had been
imperialistic. But culture and history are important elements of a
group's identity and there are many Muslim intellectuals who are proud
of Egypt's Pharaonic and Coptic past. It is the Islamists who reject
this past, as an infidel culture--a part of the jahaliyah, what existed
before Islam, considered taboo.
Therefore, I would also suggest further goals, such as:
(1) Recovering ``Memory,'' the long history of the dhimmi peoples,
of dhimmitude--the collective cultural patrimony of Jews and
Christians--for without their memory, and their history, peoples fade
away and die.
(2) Preventing the destruction of Christians' historical monuments,
either by local governments, or by Unesco, as was done with Abu Simbel,
and other sites that now belong to the World's cultural legacy.
V. Discussing ``dhimmitude'' in academia and elsewhere. This is a
Judeo-Christian historical patrimony and those whose heritage it is are
entitled to know about it. The discussion of dhimmitude with Muslims,
however, is fraught with difficulties. In the eyes of Islamists, any
criticism of Islamic law and history is assimilated to a blasphemy. For
a dhimmi, it is forbidden to imply that Islamic law has a default, or
to contradict the ijma, the consensus. Moreover, the court testimony of
a dhimmi against a Muslim is not accepted. Therefore, as dhimmitude is
the testimony of dhimmi history--of Christians and Jews--under Islamic
oppression, it would not be considered valid in traditionalist circles.
Besides, the unification of religious and political power transfers the
political domain into the religious one, and therefore any criticism of
Islamic civilization may become, for Islamists and others, a blasphemy.
[The case of Farag Foda, an Egyptian Muslim intellectual, who
defended the Copts and strongly criticized some Muslim religious
authorities was exemplary: he was assassinated in 1992, after a fatwa.
In giving his testimony, the late Sheikh Muhammad El-Ghazali implicitly
justified his assassination on the grounds of apostasy; he stated that
anyone opposing the shari'a was an apostate and thus deserved death.]
VI. Encourage Muslim intellectuals to strive in their own
countries, and in the West, for the defense of equal human rights for
Christians and others. The 1981 UNESCO Declaration on Islamic Human
Rights and that of Cairo in 1990, both conditional on the shari'a, are
insufficient.
VII. Creation of a team of experts and lawyers--and not
apologists--in order to discuss the problem, always stressing that the
aim is not to foster anti-Muslim or anti-Islamic feelings, but to
create peace and reconciliation between religions and peoples, without
which the next century will become a bloodbath and a clash of
civilizations.
______
Dhimmitude: Jews and Christians Under Islam
[by Bat Ye'or]
Midstream/February-March 1997.--Except for Asia, all the countries
that were conquered by jihad (Muslim holy war) in the course of
history--from Arabia to Spain and the Balkans, including Hungary and
Poland--were peopled by innumerable Christians and by Jewish
communities. This geographical context is therefore the true terrain of
interaction between the three religions. Actually, it was in Islamic
lands that they opposed, or collaborated with, one another for up to 13
centuries. I have called this vast political, religious, and cultural
span the realm of ``dhimmitude,'' from dhimma, a treaty of submission
for each people conquered by jihad.
The historical field is generally studied in the context of
``Islamic tolerance,'' but ``tolerance''--or ``toleration''--is an
ambiguous word since it implies a moral and subjective connotation.
Moreover, this word ``toleration'' cannot encompass the historical
density and the complexities of the numerous peoples vanquished by
Islam over the centuries, as it is a vague and general notion used
irrespective of space and time.
Instead of ``toleration,'' I have proposed the concept of
``dhimmitude,'' derived from the word dhimma. The vanquished, subject
to Islamic law, become a dhimmi people, protected by the dhimma pact
from destruction.
Islamic legislation governing dhimmi peoples was the same for Jews
and Christians, although the latter suffered more from it--declining
from majorities, at the dawn of the Islamic conquest, to tiny
minorities in their own countries. The domain of dhimmitude comprises
all aspects of the condition of the dhimmis: that is, the Jews and
Christians tolerated under Islamic law. Dhimmitude as an historical
category is common to, but not identical for, Jews and Christians under
Islam.
Islamic law governing Christian dhimmis developed from Byzantine
Christian legislation enacted from the fourth to the sixth century. It
aimed at imposing legal inferiority on native Jews of Christianized
countries--lands that were subsequently Islamized. These early
Christian influences on Islamic law are not limited to the juridical
domain but also appear at the theological level.
The study of the Jewish dhimmi condition necessarily encompasses
the theological and political interaction between the three religions.
During Vatican II (1963-1965), for instance, the Arab Churches--
yielding to pressure from their governments--strongly objected to the
proposed suppression of the ``deicide'' accusation against the Jews.
Yet the crucifixion of Jesus is not recognized in the Koran; therefore,
the accusation of deicide is meaningless for Islam. Such interferences
by Arab governments in a strictly Judeo-Christian theological matter
were intended to maintain the delegitimization of the State of Israel
in a Christian context. Indeed, it was the deicide accusation that had
structured Byzantine policy of Jerusalem's dejudaization and the
promulgation of a specific, degrading Jewish status. It was that same
status that Muslim jurisconsults adapted to the jihad context with
harsher modifications, imposing it equally on Jews and Christians.
Clearly, Jewish-Muslim relations also comprise those Jewish-Christian
relations that were transposed within an Islamic context--particularly
the Jewish status in Christian legislation. Similarly, the Islamic-
Christian relationship cannot obscure its Jewish dimension because
Islam associates Christians and Jews in the same dhimmi category--a
specific category that was first enacted by Christians for Jews in a
quite different theological context.
The study of dhimmitude comprises these multifarious aspects and
requires an approach devoid of apriorisms. One can try to define the
ideology that imposes dhimmitude on non-Muslim peoples: their
obligatory submission by war or surrender to Islamic domination. One
could examine its origin, the legal and political means used to
dominate other peoples, the causes of its expansion or of its
regression. Actually, it is a study of the ideology of jihad, whose
jurisdiction--based on the modalities of battles and conquest--must be
imposed on the vanquished peoples. How this or that land or city was
conquered will determine for all time the laws to be applied there.
Centuries after the Islamic conquest, Muslim jurists still consulted
ancient chroniclers to determine whether churches and synagogues were
legal or forbidden in towns or regions that had formerly been
conquered, whether by surrender or by battles and treaties. Such
regulations concerning religious buildings are still enforced in many
Muslim countries today. So one discovers, throughout the ebb and flow
of history, that dhimmitude is composed of a fixed ideological and
legal structure. It constitutes an ideological, sociological, and
political reality, since it is integrated into every aspect of those
human societies which it characterizes. This is proved by its
geographical development, its historical perennialism, and its present
resurgence.
The body of law prescribing dhimmitude originated from a single
source: Islamic power. Apart from a few minor differences regarding the
shari'a's (Islamic law's) interpretation, the dhimmi status constituted
a homogeneous unit applied in the dar al-Islam. But the peoples of
dhimmitude comprised all the ethnic, religious, and cultural variations
of the Islamized regions of Africa, Asia, and Europe--thereby implying
regional differences. One must therefore study the local history of
each dhimmi group in order to detect if the causes of differentiation
were of a geographical or a demographical nature, or the result of pre-
Islamic local factors. Thus, dhimmitude should encompass the
comparative study of all dhimmi groups, for territories were not just
conquered; their Islamization could take three or even four centuries,
while some regions had already been Islamized by migrations prior to
their military and political conquest. The study of dhimmitude, then,
is the study of the progressive Islamization of Christian
civilizations. In this evolution, one detects permanent structures but
also different local factors that facilitated or temporarily checked
this process.
The confusion of the political and economic domain is an important
element in the development of the mechanism of dhimmitude. In exchange
for economic advantages, non-Muslim rulers conceded to the Islamic
power an essential political asset: territory. This policy appears at
the start of the Islamic-Christian encounter. In modern times, the
financial interests of Lebanese Christian politicians with the Muslim
world were decisive in the intercommunal struggle that led to the final
destruction of Lebanese Christianity. In this context of political
concessions in exchange for financial gains, one should emphasize that
the economic domain belongs always to the short term and the
conjunctural, while the political sphere is long-term and implies
power, notably military power. Hence, this feature of corruption--
paramount in the whole system of dhimmitude--which is, in fact, the
surrender of political power (territorial independence) for the
economic control by the dhimmi Church leaders over their communities.
It is evident that the civilizations of dhimmitude are extremely
complex. The process of Islamization of such societies rested on
several factors, the most important being the demographical one that
transformed Christian majorities into minorities. This result was
achieved through several means that combined legal disabilities and
economic oppression in times of peace; and destruction, deportation,
and slavery in wartime and during riots or recurrent political
instability. Such a transformation of civilization and of peoples also
implied as extensive mechanism of osmosis, including collaboration and
collusion by the elites of those Christian nations that were engaged in
the painful process of their self-destruction. Without this perennial
collusion, the Islamic state could never have survived. Christians had
collaborated in its development on all social levels and in every
field, either by free choice or otherwise.
It was through Christian patriarchs and Jewish community leaders
that the Islamic government imposed its authority, making of them its
instruments in the control and oppression of their respective
populations. Thus, entire dhimmi groups collaborated in the growth of
the Islamic civilization. One could also investigate the way in which
different Christian and Jewish groups reacted to dhimmitude. We know
that there was a strong alliance between Arab-Muslim invading troops
and the local Arab-Christian tribes, as well as with the Oriental
Churches. Some members of the Christian clergy not only welcomed the
Muslim armies, but also surrendered their cities. The Eastern Churches
were always associated with Islamic rule and benefited from it,
becoming thereby the sole administrators of millions of Christians. One
can examine the role of the clergy, the military class, the
politicians, and the intellectuals in assisting the Islamic advance
that placed their own peoples under the yoke of dhimmitude. Documents
of this kind abound concerning the later Ottoman conquest of the
Balkans.
The conflict of interests within the dhimmi populations indicates
that different forces were at work in each community: forces of
collaboration and forces of resistance. Thus, dhimmitude encompasses
various types of relationships at all levels between the Muslim
community and the dominated, tolerated, dhimmis--relationships that
were regulated by laws ensuring Islamic protection and that embrace
politics, history, and conjunctural situations. Modern studies on the
Turkish advance in the Balkan peninsula have mentioned the mental
climate that prepared a society for its surrender. One finds an
evolution at all social levels, combining compromise, collusion, and
the corruption that facilitated the final submission.
A similar process could have been detected in the modern history of
Lebanon from the beginning of the 20th century to the recent
disintegration of Christian resistance. Here, the internecine conflict
between the forces of collusion and resistance brought about the
collapse of the targeted Christian groups. The situation in southern
Sudan and in the Philippines provides contemporary examples of such
internecine conflicts that could lead to similar situations.
Dhimmitude also encompasses the relationship between each dhimmi
group, the religious rivalry between Churches seeking to use the Muslim
power in order to diminish or destroy rivals. This domain also overlaps
with the dynastic, political, and national conflicts between Christian
rulers who obtained power through Islamic help. Since the status of
dhimmitude lasted from three to 13 centuries, depending upon regions,
it allows one to study numerous cases of different peoples--all
theoretically subject to the same Islamic jurisdiction, with
differences here and there.
What were the results of Muslim interference on the inter-community
relationships between the dhimmi peoples themselves? Did it keep their
conflicts alive? How did the Muslim power manifest its protection? (The
dhimmis were, of course protected by Islamic law.) There is also the
conflict between jurists, inclined toward a more severe interpretation
of the law, and the caliphs or rulers whose policies were sometimes
more lenient--a problem still topical today. Therefore, the domain of
dhimmitude consists of the interaction of the dhimmi peoples among
themselves, with the Muslim power, and with the outside world. What
were the consequences of the protection afforded to each dhimmi group
by the European Christian countries? How did their political and
commercial rivalries affect the interrelationship of the dhimmi peoples
and their situation within their Muslim environment? And to this should
be added the consequences of proselytism among the various contending
Churches.
One might think that the history of dhimmitude had long since
disappeared into a forgotten past, but this is not so. Specialists have
called political Islamic radicalism a ``return,'' thus implying the
existence in the past of a political ideology that had disappeared and
is now resurfacing. Optimistic analysts focus only on the economic and
political factors that have contributed to the emergence of Islamic
radicalism, although its ideologico-religious causes and traditional
roots are so obvious that they alone would justify the use of the term
``return.''
Jihad militancy and the reintroduction of some of the shari'a's
provisions in countries where they had been abolished are now
threatening indigenous Christians and other non-Muslim populations. The
most tragic cases are found in Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and Upper Egypt
(by Islamists). Aspects of the dhimmi condition--abolished under
European pressure from the mid-19th century on--is returning in these
countries, and elsewhere.
Even antisemitic statements made by Abbe Pierre in April 1996,
firmly condemned by the French episcopate and public opinion, are a
reminder of a pervasive Christian dhimmitude. Abbe Pierre--one of
France's most popular public figures--reiterated that, because of their
iniquities since the time of Joshua, the Jews had forfeited God's
Promise. Apart from being a classic example of the Church's
judeophobia, such a declaration was clearly aimed at pleasing the
Muslims. Since the Judeo-Christian reconciliation initiated by Vatican
II, the Arab Churches requested from the Vatican a strictly symmetrical
attitude toward Jews and Muslims. This requirement establishes, in
fact, a false symmetry between totally different theological,
historical, and political contexts: the Judeo-Christian relationship
and the Islamic-Christian relationship. The Jews were oppressed in
Christian lands but never had any ambition to conquer them and impose
their own laws there, whereas Islamic armies seized innumerable
Christian lands in which only small, vulnerable, and scattered
Christian communities survive today.
Abbe Pierre's earlier meditations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem were
thus symmetrically balanced by a visit to Yasir Arafat in Gaza, where
he begged forgiveness for the West's creation of the State of Israel.
But the good Abbe could have spared himself such scruples, for Israel's
rebirth occurred despite the genocide of European Jewry, and from the
start the Vatican only supported the Palestinian cause. But a
``Palestinian genocide'' has become a symbolic necessity to balance the
genocide of the Jews. Overlooking a span of more than three millennia,
Abbe Pierre chose to link--anachronistically and in a delirious
amalgamation--today's Arab Palestinians with Biblical Philistines and
Amalekites in the time of Joshua.
It is this desire for a specious symmetry that reduced to oblivion
the tragic and painful domain of Christian dhimmitude, which could not
be paralleled with a similar Jewish domination over Christian
populations. Indeed, much effort has been deployed in Europe to
establish similarities between Palestinians in Israel and dhimmis,
especially by blaming Israeli security measures to counter Palestinian
terrorism, which was conveniently glossed over as ``freedom fighting.''
This attitude not only expresses a traditional Christian judeophobia--
now totally rejected by the Vatican and other churches--but also the
complexity of Europe's relations with Israel and with Arab countries,
where Christian rights are challenged by Islamists. As Europe's policy
is determined mainly by its own strategic and economic interests, it
shows no more sympathy to Eastern Christians than it does to Israelis.
Islamic radicalism is feared, as it could provoke in Europe anti-Muslim
reactions leading to economic retaliation and terrorism from Muslim
states.
Since the beginning of this century, starting with the Armenian
genocide (1896-1917), then the massacres of Christians in Iraq (1933)
and Syria (1937), the condition of the Eastern Christians (in spite of
their involvement in Arab politics) has constantly deteriorated. Thus,
one can see how dhimmitude still influences the interaction of
different religious groups. To be sure, many scholars have studied
their histories separately, but the concept of dhimmitude provides a
wider and unified framework for all those varied communities that have
undergone the same experience throughout history.
It is interesting to examine the different paths that each dhimmi
group felt compelled to adopt, either by historical circumstances or
geography, to regain its liberty and dignity. The national liberation
of dhimmi peoples meant that the jurisdiction of dhimmitude, imposed by
jihad, was abolished; they could then recover their proscribed
language, their history, and their culture. The Christian peoples of
the Balkans fought for their national sovereignty, as did the Armenians
later, and the Jews in their own homeland; but Christians of the Middle
East chose assimilation in a secularized Islamic society and became
arabized.
As a result of European colonialism in Arab lands, as well as the
rebellions and struggle for the national liberation of Christian
peoples in the Ottoman Empire, hundreds of thousands of Christians were
killed during the 19th and early 20th centuries in Muslim-dominated
regions. Christians lived in constant fear of further atrocities. The
Greeks were saved from a genocide in the early 19th century by the
intervention of the Anglo-French and Russian armies. Their uprisings
throughout that century were punished by massacres and the slavery and
conversion of women and children. Similar reprisals struck both Serbs
and Bulgarians in their own lands.
The genocide of the Armenians and atrocities in Iraq and Syria
compelled the Lebanese Christians to create a refuge country for their
persecuted brethren from neighboring lands. Some Lebanese were
favorable to the restoration of a Jewish state in its historical
homeland and were sympathetic to the Zionist cause, for they knew that
the position of Jews and Christians under Islam was similar. But this
current, led by the Maronite Patriarch Antun Arida and Beirut's
Archbishop Ignace Mubarak, represented a small minority among the
Eastern Christians, who remained, like the Vatican, adamantly hostile
to a Jewish state in Palestine, and especially to any Jewish
sovereignty in Jerusalem. Within the context of the Jewish national
liberation movement, one should remember that Muslims and the Oriental
Churches were hostile to a massive return of Jews to their homeland.
Jews had been condemned to suffering and exile by both Christianity and
Islam, and therefore Jewish sovereignty in Palestine-Israel was totally
unacceptable. How much European opposition to a Jewish state had helped
the execution of the Final Solution is a question that concerns
historians of the Shoah. Clearly, antisemitism is intrinsically linked
to the concept of Jewish evilness, which justifies a judenrein
Palestine, especially Jerusalem.
Thus, one finds, in both the political and religious spheres, a
hostile Islamic-Christian front against Zionism and later against the
State of Israel. Many of these Oriental Christian leaders thought that
this Islamic-Christian front against Zionism would help secure their
position in the Arab world, first under the banner of pan-Arabism, and
then under the slogan: ``the just Palestinian cause.'' Palestinian
anti-Zionist Christians, especially their clergy, were in the vanguard
of the battle for the destruction of Israel. Some proudly participated
in the worst acts of terrorism. Much of the anti-Israeli propaganda was
formulated by Christian Palestinians in order to exacerbate traditional
judeophobia in the West. Among them were clergymen from the Levant,
such as Greek-Catholic Archbishop Hilarion Capucci. In fact, many in
the West justified the jihad aims and tactics against Israel--and even
against Jews everywhere.
The responsiveness of post-Shoah Europe to anti-Zionism has many
geostrategic and economic reasons, but it also derives from the easy
channeling of traditional judeophobia into anti-Zionism. Thus, it is
not surprising that the PLO's official Christian representatives were
much appreciated by politicians, intellectuals, and the European media.
In antisemitic circles, they were endowed with a holy mission, embodied
in the historic role of the Palestinian clergy. In Byzantine Palestine,
the clergy had forbidden Jews to reside and pray in Jerusalem. One of
the worst massacres of Jews occurred at the instigation of the
Jerusalem Patriarch Sophronius, who suggested it in 628 to the Emperor
Heraclius (610-641). Some years later, when the Arabs conquered
Jerusalem from the Greeks, Sophronius tried to persuade Caliph Umar Ibn
al-Khattab to forbid any Jewish presence in Jerusalem. So we see that
even at this moment of the terrible defeat, slaughter, and anguish for
Christians, the Palestinian Patriarch was obsessed by judeophobia.
Sophronius, later canonized, died a few years after surrendering
Jerusalem to the Muslim conquerors. When welcoming Yasir Arafat in 1995
to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem for the traditional
Christmas Mass, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah was happy to recall how
Sophronius had delivered Jerusalem to Umar in 636; 40 years later--and
until the 1860s--no cross could adorn a church in Jerusalem.
Throughout the centuries, Christian judeophobia in Jerusalem and
Palestine was virulent. In my books, I have reproduced 19th-century
reports from French and British consuls who were shocked by this
hatred, which did lead to criminal acts. In this century, anti-Zionism
cemented the Palestinian Islamic-Christian alliance with Hitler's
ideology; this collaboration with Nazi Germany is well known.
Whereas the Shoah developed in a European context, anti-Zionism
belongs to the domain of dhimmitude. Here the powerless Palestinian
Christians--like Sophronius--had to rely on the Arab-Muslim force to
prevent the restoration of a Jewish state. Among the multitude of
events from the 20th century, historians in the next millennium may
well be intrigued by two particularities: the first concerns the
relentlessness shown by many European politicians in exterminating and
pillaging European Jewry; the second concerns post-Shoah Europe, which
is linked to the first by a similar desire of many to demonize Israel.
Yet this 20th century has witnessed important Western strategic defeats
in the Middle East. Armenian independence, promised at the end of World
War I (Treaty of Sevres) was never implemented; the same applies to the
Kurds. Lebanon, considered as a paragon for the realization of an
Islamic-Christian symbiosis, finally collapsed in a bloody tragedy.
Massacres and slavery continue to ravage the Christian and Animist
populations of southern Sudan; the war in the Philippines fueled by a
secessionist Muslim minority group has claimed 120,000 lives over the
past 20 years. Genocidal massacres have been perpetrated in numerous
countries, but for 30 years the main target--constantly highlighted in
the media--remained Israel. This extraordinary blindness was in part
caused by the Palestinian clergy which, with its numerous religious and
secular channels in Europe and elsewhere, helped to uphold the
Palestinian issue as the world's first priority.
However, the militancy against Israel of the Islamic-Christian
front paradoxically led to increased instability and anguish for Arab-
Christians. The reasons are not difficult to find. In order to maintain
this anti-Zionist front, Oriental Christians were obliged to make
continual compromises. They were afraid to mention their own history of
suffering and dhimmitude under Islam for fear of irritating the Muslim
world; it became a taboo subject even in Europe. Eastern Christians,
especially the Palestinians, thought that their support for the anti-
Israeli jihad would secure their safety in a hostile environment. But
this policy brought negative results: (1) The encouragement of an anti-
Israeli jihad had fueled and developed a rhetoric of war-hatred against
Christians because the dogma of jihad associates them with Jews. The
more the Christians fought to delegitimize Israel, the more they
weakened their own rights; (2) this factor had dramatic consequences
for the Lebanese Christians. Like the Jews, their war for freedom in
their own country was a struggle to impose on the Islamic world the
respect for their rights to dignity--not to be considered as an
inferior group, ready for a modernized dhimmitude. And as a result of
their common destiny with Jews in Islamic dogma, the jihad aggressivity
rebounded against the Lebanese Christians inadequately prepared for
such a confrontation. And since the history of dhimmitude and jihad was
obfuscated in Europe--thanks to the Christian pro-Islamic, anti-Zionist
lobby--and as the Palestinian cause became the sacred cause of the
international community, when the PLO fought the Christians in Lebanon,
the latter were soon abandoned.
Hence, the concealment of dhimmi history, and of the ideology of
jihad--a deliberate policy maintained for decades in the West--has
facilitated a return of the past, as the same political system is now
inscribed in the program of today's Islamists.
There is another, no less important, aspect of dhimmitude: the
psychological and spiritual one. The dhimmi mentality appears with no
great differences in its Christian or Jewish version. One could examine
it either in relation to the concept of rights or to that of
toleration. One should bear in mind that the study of dhimmitude
necessitates an examination of the common condition of both Jews and
Christians who form one entity: the ``People of the Book.'' They are
thus complementary, and the rules applied to one group concern likewise
the other. Another aspect of this complex historical domain relates to
their mutual relationship in the world of dhimmitude, and to the manner
in which each group viewed the other. Solidarity and mutual aid in time
of persecution existed, as did denunciation and revenge motivated by
fear and greed. But, in general, a similar condition contributed to
created mutual bonds of understanding.
Thus, one realizes that the concept of dhimmitude--rather than the
term ``tolerated minorities''--covers a wide domain of research. One
can study its dynamic, its evolution, its modalities, and the
interactions of diverse elements within this context that shed light on
the areas of fusion, interdependence and confrontation between Islam,
Christianity, and Judaism. Dhimmitude is a neutral concept and
therefore a tool for historical investigation.
For me, as a Jew, this insight into Christian dhimmitude
represented an intellectual experience that was not easy to undertake.
This was not the domineering face of European Christendom, persecuting
and triumphant, but the discovery of its persecuted, humiliated, and
suffering other side. In short, Eastern Christianity's history of
dhimmitude under Islam is a sort of ``Jewish experience''--endured this
time by Christians. This is why this history was so resolutely and
intensely denied by most Eastern Christians, especially Palestinians.
For a Jew, this quest constitutes a moral ascesis because it is no easy
task to find expressions of the same suffering in one's persecutor. But
this companionship gives a new approach to human trials and opens
common perspectives of reconciliation with Muslims. It makes it easier
for Jews and Christians to strive with liberal Muslims, thus freeing
them from prejudices of the past and from the concepts of jihad and
``tolerance,'' replacing them with new bonds of friendship and esteem
between equals.
For the Jewish people--liberated from Christian antisemitism in its
own homeland, as well as from dhimmitude imposed on them by Islam--this
long task of reconciliation with Christianity and Islam could
strengthen respect between the three religions and their respective
peoples.
__________
D. Prepared Statement of Nina Shea
Mr. Chairman, I wish to express Freedom House's gratitude to you
and the Subcommittee for holding these important hearings today and for
inviting me to testify on the long-neglected atrocity of religious
persecution against Christians in the Middle East.
Christians in may parts of the world suffer brutal torture, arrest,
imprisonment, and even death--their homes and communities laid waste--
for no other reason than that they are Christians. Christians are the
most persecuted religious group in the world today.
Eleven countries where Christians are currently enduring great
religious persecution are profiled in my new book In the Lion's Den. A
number of Middle Eastern countries are included: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan. Although these countries contain but a small
sample of the Christians victimized throughout the world for their
faith, they represent some of the worst--if not the worst--oppressors
of Christianity in the world. Militant Islam is one of two political
ideologies (the other being communism) that have consistently oppressed
Christians, as well as other independent groups and individuals. While
there are cases of persecution of Christian minorities by Hindus,
Buddhists, and even by other dominant Christian groups, it is anti-
Christian persecution by militant Islam and communism that, because of
their global sweep and virulence, poses the greatest threat.
It is important to understand the distinction between persecution
and discrimination or bigotry. The most egregious human rights
atrocities are being committed against Christians living in militant
Islamic societies solely because of their religious beliefs and
activities. The atrocities include torture, enslavement, rape,
imprisonment, forcible separation of children from parents, killings,
and massacres--abuses that threaten the very survival of entire
Christian communities, many of which have existed for hundreds or even
two thousand years.
Persecution in the Middle East has led to a vastly diminished
Christian presence. In Iraq the number of Christians has decreased from
35 percent to 5 percent of the overall population during this century;
in Iran, from 15 percent to 2 percent; in Syria, from 40 percent to 10
percent; and in Turkey, from 32 percent to 0.2 percent since the early
part of the twentieth century.
In some cases--such as in Iran and Saudi Arabia--it is the regime
that is the oppressor. In others, including Pakistan and Egypt,
societal forces are at work, while the government--out of weakness--
acquiesces, failing to stop the persecution despite well-organized
assaults or known instigators. In the countries of the Middle East that
are under scrutiny at today's hearings, Christians are vulnerable
minorities within the society.
The rights of Christians and other groups to practice their
religion freely--irrespective of the culture and customs of an area, or
a Christian community's minority status--is universally recognized in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and numerous other
international treaties and instruments. In other words, the United
Nations' world body has agreed that Christians have fundamental rights
to express their Christianity; even in non-Christian parts of the
world. The most specific of these documents is the United Nations'
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. This declaration guarantees
the right of Christians and others to worship freely, as well as the
right to teach religion, write and disseminate religious publications,
designate religious leaders, communicate with coreligionists at home
and abroad, solicit and receive charitable contributions, and educate
children in religion and morality according to parents' wishes. In the
country discussions that follow, these rights are honored primarily in
the breach.
SAUDI ARABIA completely bans Christianity. No churches, bibles,
Christian artifacts, symbols or literature are permitted. Religious
police seek out secret worship services by raids on private homes. A
quarter of the population are foreign workers and many are Christian.
Hundreds are in prison for Christian worship, some are sentenced to be
beheaded. Amnesty testified that the oppression against Christians has
worsened since the Gulf War.
EGYPT'S Coptic community, believed to have been evangelized by Mark
in the first century, is vanishing under a violent onslaught by Muslim
extremists. Thousands of Coptic Christians have been forced to flee
their homes or convert to Islam after large mobs of fanatical Muslim
youths laid waste their villages in the Upper Egypt region in early
1996. In February and March this year, two more pogroms by Islamic
terrorists were directed against the Copts in Upper Egypt, leaving over
30 dead, including select young people being groomed for leadership
roles in the Church. According to statistics reported by the Center of
Egyptian Human Rights for National Unity there have been 543 incidences
of violence against Christians during the past five years. As many
Christians have already been killed in the first quarter of this year
as had been in the twenty year period beginning in 1973. The Coptic
community believes that the government is not doing enough to stop
these persecutions. The Rev. Keith Roderick, Secretary General of the
Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights Under Islamization, reports
that the Egyptian government has failed to stop the surge of terrorism
against the vulnerable Christian minority and has helped create an
atmosphere of bigotry and hatred toward them. Various Egyptian human
rights groups report there have been no prosecutions and convictions
for the recent murders of Coptic Christians. Over 70 people were
detained by the police following the March massacre, but reportedly all
were soon released. One and a half years ago Egyptian authorities
withdrew police protection from the mainly Christian towns where the
massacres took place. Egypt's Hamayonian law bans repairs or
construction of churches unless a decree is signed and issued in each
case by the President of the Republic. During the 1980s only ten
building and 25 repair permits were granted to the Coptic Orthodox
Church, comprising 90 percent of Egypt's Christian community. On Dec.
15, 1996, an army unit bulldozed the Christian ``Cheerful Heart
Center'' for disabled children, located 15 miles outside of Cairo, even
though the Center possessed the necessary permits because of a rumor to
the contrary. Converts from Islam to Christianity are considered
``apostates'' and treated very harshly, including forcible re-
conversion through kidnapping and forced marriages for women.
PAKISTAN has blasphemy laws that mandate the death penalty against
``whoever by words, either spoken or written . . . or by any
imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles
[the Prophet Mohammed].'' Hundreds of blasphemy cases are pending
against Christians and others in Pakistan's courts. Amnesty reports
that in all known cases, ``the charges appear to have been arbitrarily
brought, founded solely on the individual's minority religious beliefs
or on malicious accusations against individuals who advocate novel
ideas.'' These blasphemy laws have created a hostile atmosphere and
fanned hatred against the religious minorities. In February, inflamed
about a rumor of blasphemy, a Muslim mob 30,000 strong went on a
rampage in Pakistan's Punjab province, setting fires in the Christian
village of Shantinagar. The town of 15,000 was nearly raised and
thousands of Christians were left homeless. When Pakistani Christians
marched in the capital a few days later to protest the destruction and
demand greater protection, they were brutalized and arrested by police.
IRAN's militant Islamic president delivered a fiery sermon in 1994,
declaring that ``there is no longer validity to other religions,'' and
that ``Iran and the entire Muslim world must adopt the Prophet and
Jihad (holy war) as a model.'' Soon after, Iran's tiny Protestant
community was devastated by the brutal murders of three key pastors.
The first to be killed was prominent evangelical pastor Haik Hovespian-
Mehr, who launched an international campaign in 1993 on behalf of
fellow pastor Mehdi Dibaj. Dibaj was imprisoned on death row on
apostasy charges for converting from Islam to Christianity decades
earlier. Dibaj was unexpectedly released from death row in January
1994, but Hovespian-Mehr disappeared a few days later. Authorities
informed Hovespian-Mehr's family that he had been murdered by unknown
assailants. On June 24, 1994, Dibaj himself disappeared. While Dibaj's
fate remained unknown, Presbyterian minister Tateos Michaelian, who had
replaced Hovespian-Mehr as head of the Protestant Council, was also
mysteriously murdered. Three days later, on July 5, Iranian police
announced that they had discovered Dibaj's murdered corpse ``while
searching for the killer of Michaelian.'' Terror struck the Christian
community again in October 1996. The body of a fourth prominent leader,
34-year-old Assemblies of God pastor Mohammad Bagher Yusefi, was found
hanging from a tree in a wooded area near his home in northwest Iran. A
convert from Islam, he was close to the other murdered pastors and
cared for Debaj's children. It is no wonder, therefore, that Vatican
officials are currently taking seriously the threats made by Islamic
militants in April against the Pope after a Berlin court ruled that
Iranian leaders had ordered the killing of an Iranian Kurdish
opposition leader and three aides.
The persecution of Christians is on the rise as advances are made
by a militantly politicized strain of Islam where extremists,
distorting Islam's tolerant values, seek to use religion to grab state
power. It is no accident that the places where Christians are most
severely persecuted are also among the countries rated as being among
the least free in Freedom House's annual survey, Freedom in the World.
It is difficult for Westerners to imagine the savageries
encountered by these Christians--or the spiritual commitment necessary
to endure persecution and death for the sake of faith.
Few in the West feel comfortable speaking about these human rights
atrocities. But intolerant and authoritarian regimes everywhere are
well aware of the punishment meted out to Christians for the simple act
of being Christian.
Christians are targeted by ruthless dictators who demand total
power and control, intolerant of those who believe in the inherent
dignity of all persons created in God's image. They serve as scapegoats
for societies that aim to vent, foment, and popularize hatred of the
West and, most specifically, the United States. They are demonized by
militant and xenophobic Islamist movements seeking to capture the soul
of a historically tolerant Islamic faith. By their faith, Christians
pose inherent threats to those regimes that rely on bribes and threats
to maintain power.
In a series of columns this spring about the persecution of
Christians, former executive editor of the New York Times A.M.
Rosenthal makes the insightful observation: ``Dictatorships, for all
their brutish swagger, are terrified by free thoughts and minds. They
threaten the control without which dictators fear to govern. By
definition, free worship is an enemy.''
If Christians are being persecuted and even martyred on such a
massive scale throughout the world today, why don't we know about it?
Richard Land, president of the Christian Life Commission of the
Southern Baptist Convention, recently attested before Congress to some
of the reasons why we Americans have ignored the increasingly grim
fates of brave Christians abroad:
The persecution of Christians in various parts of the world has not
been a high profile item on America's agenda . . . First, too often
people in the West, peering through the selective prism of Christian
history in the West, reflexively think of Christians as persecutors
rather than the persecuted. [Further], an increasingly secularized West
and its leadership elite tend to be indifferent and often
uncomprehending of a spiritual worldview which endures persecution and
death for the sake of belief.
With rare exception, our political leaders have been unaware of or
else they turned a blind eye to this unfolding tragedy. Since the end
of the cold war, American political leaders have generally shown
indifference--even hostility--to Christians abroad, rarely taking
religious oppression against them into account when devising foreign
policy. Our presidents in recent years have repeatedly spoken about
human rights abuses against vulnerable minorities throughout the world,
but they have failed to address the persecution of Christians, even
though it is among the most pervasive international human rights
problems.
In the fundamental matter of religious freedom, the United States
is forfeiting its leadership. The President has not publicly decried
the recent pogroms against the Coptic community in Egypt, the blasphemy
laws in Pakistan or the bans against Christianity in Saudi Arabia. The
U.S. government has repeatedly failed to speak up for the religious
rights of American citizens abroad. Take, for example, those Americans
working for the U.S. government in Saudi Arabia who are restricted from
holding Christian services on American embassy grounds or the American
soldiers in the Gulf War who were told they could not have bibles and
crucifixes and who also were restricted in their worshiping while
defending Saudi sovereignty.
There is also the matter of asylum for religious refugees. In
violation of its own laws, the U.S. has largely closed its doors to
Christians fleeing for their lives from religious persecution. In the
case of Christian refugees from Iran, the U.S. simply turns over the
asylum determination to the Muslim police in Turkey, who summarily
deport them back to their persecutors in Iran. Not one of some twenty
clerics and religious leaders who fled Iran in the last three years
received asylum in the United States. Late last year, an Iranian
evangelical who had converted from Islam and who fled to Turkey was
turned down for political asylum on the basis of religious persecution
in the U.S. Her case was so strong that she was granted refugee status
by the UN and eventually received asylum from Canada.
Our country was founded as a haven from religious persecution. Our
government is ignoring our origin as a nation. The Pilgrims, Quakers,
Huguenots, Catholics, Jews, and legions of other religious minorities
helped found and form this country as a safe haven from religious
tyranny.
As Professor David Forte of Cleveland State University Law School
wrote in In the Lion's Den:
``The U.S. has been an ineffective friend (if a friend at all) to
persecuted Christians and other religious minorities under the thumb of
Islamic radicals. By not using our substantial influence to inform our
allies that the radicals' laws and actions are against international
law and that they offend the basic sense of decency of the American
people, we send the following messages:
``We don't believe in protecting those religious adherents of the
West, and we must be the materialist bankrupt culture the Islamic
radicals claim we are.
``Radical Islam is a legitimate force in the world, and it is all
right with us if--for reasons of state--Islamic governments give in to
the radicals' tyrannical agenda.
``We treat our Islamic friends with patronizing indifference. After
all, we, in effect, say that this is not a human rights problem but a
Muslim problem.''
America's policy toward other nations should seek not only to meet
the requirements of the oil trade and investors in new markets, but
also to embody American values. Religious freedom is the bedrock value
on which this country was founded. Religious liberty is not a privilege
to be endowed by men, no matter how politically powerful they might be.
It is a God-given human right--one that is recognized in the first
clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution and in every major
international agreement on civil and political rights.
America is a great power and wields tremendous influence. If the
American president were to speak out on behalf of persecuted Christians
and other religious minorities and exert pressure on their oppressors,
it would bring dramatic results. Soviet refusniks Anatoly Sharansky and
Joseph Begun are alive today because the U.S. took up the campaign for
Soviet Jewry.
In January 1996, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)
issued an unprecedented and forceful Statement of Conscience and Call
to Action in which it pledged to end ``our own silence in the face of
the suffering of all those persecuted for their religious faith . . .
[and] to do what is within our power to the end that the government of
the United States will take appropriate action to combat the
intolerable religious persecution now victimizing fellow believers and
those of other faiths.'' The NAE Statement of Conscience lists simple
policy recommendations for the U.S. government to ensure that
persecuted Christians and other religious minorities are not betrayed
by American foreign policy.
The NAE Statement of Conscience has since been endorsed or
commended by the Southern Baptist Convention, the Episcopal Church, the
Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., and the United Methodist Church.
The NAE Statement of Conscience is extraordinary because it
addresses the need for systematic reform in U.S. foreign policy. Too
many times, dealing with Christian persecution on a case-by-case basis
becomes an exercise in futility. As the oppressive regime releases one
well-known prisoner under international pressure, it imprisons twenty
more whose names and cases are not known. Countries around the world
must be given the message that it is the firm and consistent policy of
the U.S. to grant zero tolerance to the persecutors of Christians and
other religious minorities.
Pope John Paul II has always been a stalwart defender of religious
freedom. During the Second Vatican Council, he was the chief drafter of
the Catholic Church's ``Declaration on Religious Liberty'' and has
since made it a central theme of his papacy. In his January 1996
address to the Diplomatic Corps, Pope John Paul II sounded an opening
call against the persecution of Christians by Islamist and communist
regimes in the name of ``the most fundamental freedom--that of
practicing one's faith openly, which for human beings is their reason
for living.''
The widely--endorsed NAE Statement of Conscience states: ``We know
that the United States government has within its power and discretion
the capacity to adopt policies that would be dramatically effective in
curbing such reigns of terror and protecting the rights of all
religious dissidents.''
Specific, achievable reforms that American citizens can press for
are outlined in the NAE Statement of Conscience. Those with priority
are:
Publicly condemning Christian persecution and showing
greater concern for persecuted Christians by the president and
all appropriate branches of his administration;
Improving reporting by the State Department Human Rights
Bureau to ensure that its annual reports and other publications
accurately reflect the situation facing Christians, eliminating
from the annual reporting any ``option of silence'' regarding
persecution;
Appointing a special presidential advisor for religious
liberty;
Reforming the ways in which the Immigration and
Naturalization Service treats the petitions of escapees from
anti-Christian persecution; and,
Terminating non-humanitarian foreign assistance to
governments of countries that fail to take vigorous action to
end anti-Christian or other religious persecution.
Campaigning to end anti-Christian persecution will help protect
other persecuted religious groups and minorities as well. Baha'is in
Iran, Ahmadis in Pakistan, and animists in Sudan suffer persecution and
death under the same practices and policies that oppress Christians in
those countries. Moderate Muslims throughout northern Africa and the
Middle East are now struggling against radical Islamists who seek to
convert a historically tolerant Islam into an intolerant, anti-
intellectual, anti-democratic faith. For all of these groups, Christian
concern for religious freedom throughout the world offers the greatest
prospect for freedom.
__________
E. Prepared Statement of Michael J. Horowitz
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
Today's hearing reflects a growing American awareness--and
determination to deal with--one of the great and most unaddressed human
rights problems of our time. In helping to shatter the silence that has
for so long accompanied the persecution of Christian communities in the
Middle East (and elsewhere), I believe that the Committee honors the
highest American traditions precisely as it also protects America's
vital interests.
The series of hearings being conducted by your Subcommittee, Mr.
Chairman, are a powerful sign that our political system has finally
cast off its prior reluctance to focus on--and put an end to--the
mounting persecutions of Christian gulags of faith. It's hard to
believe that only last year Christian leaders and concerned Members of
Congress felt uneasy about addressing the issue. They then worried:
``Won't we appear selfish and unduly self-interested?''
``Won't we be charged with pandering to the `Christian right?' ''
``Won't we risk making matters worse?''
``Won't it reveal an indifference on the part of American
Christians to the sufferings of fellow believers around the world?''
And, long experienced in and partly intimidated by caricatures of
Christian faith and Christian believers by the dominant culture, they
worried:
``Who will believe us?''
That we are here today reflects the work done by key leaders in the
Christian community, key Members of Congress, key media voices. It is a
tribute to the small band of leaders like Father Keith Roderick who
persisted in telling the truth about persecuted Christians when no one
else seemed to care. Most importantly, however, today's hearing
reflects a prairie fire of interest, knowledge and concern now sweeping
through America's churches and searing the consciences of worshipers of
all faiths. In sum, today's hearing reflects the following key items of
a growing American consensus:
That religious persecution must be seen as a far more
serious and central human rights concern than the State
Department and the human rights establishment have long thought
it to be;
That Christian communities have become major scapegoats of
choice of thug regimes and would-be tyrants of the third world;
That protecting the rights of Christian lambs protects the
rights of all victims of human rights abuse in the third world
and is a vital, strategic step to ensure that our children's
Twenty-First Century will be far more hopeful, far less bloody
than our Twentieth has been.
In short, democracy is working its customary magic on our country's
policies as millions of Americans make increasingly clear that
staggeringly prohibitive costs must be imposed on regimes that
perpetrate or appease the torture, rape, forced resettlement, mass
arrest, starvation, murder and even crucifixion of Christians and other
vulnerable believing communities.
We've come a long way from the day when establishment human rights
organizations such as Human Rights Watch issued glossy reports
advertising high priority and well-staffed special initiatives on
behalf of children, women, drug users, academics, journalists,
prisoners, gays and lesbians, and alleged victims of multi-national
corporations while mounting no comparable initiatives for victims of
religious persecution and dismissing campaigns on behalf of Christian
victims as ``special pleading.''
Here are but a few indices of how far we've come:
This subcommittee is chaired by a vigorous young Senator,
and a certain Senate leader for years to come, whose
determination to end reigns of terror against Christian
communities in the Near East, South Asia and elsewhere appears
strong and implacable.
The first panel at today's hearing consisted of two powerful
voices, both friends whom I deeply admire, Bill Bennett and Joe
Lieberman, whose lifelong passion against injustice has now
caused them to become leaders in the battle against the
persecution of Christians.
The eloquent Statement of Conscience issued last year by the
National Association of Evangelicals has received widespread
support throughout the American Christian community, and has
been endorsed to date by denominations as varied as the
Southern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church, and the
Episcopal Church.
A literal explosion of books, articles, radio and television
programming (in both the ``Christian'' and ``mainstream''
media) has begun to educate millions of Americans about the
extent of today's anti-Christian persecutions occurring in the
areas of this subcommittee's jurisdiction and throughout the
world.
Congressman Wolf, Senator Specter and a large number of co-
sponsors have introduced the Freedom From Religious Persecution
Act of 1997, which will reverse policies of indifference
towards victims of anti-Christian persecution while
simultaneously imposing sanctions against governments engaging
in or appeasing ongoing and widespread persecution of
Christians, B'hais, Tibetan Buddhists and other designated
religious minorities, (The Wolf-Specter bill is built on Senate
Resolution 71 and House Resolution 515 of the 104th Congress
that explicitly condemned anti-Christian persecution, and is
modeled on the NAE Statement of Conscience.) Serious debate on
Wolf-Specter will begin in the Fall, after the China-MFN debate
has concluded, under circumstances where America's Christian,
Jewish and human rights communities will be as committed to its
enactment as they were to the enactment of the Jackson-Vanik
bill on behalf of the persecuted Soviet Jews.
As we sit in this hearing room, the most important work of
all is being done by an extraordinary young man in Wheaton,
Illinois, the Rev. Steven Haas, who serves as Coordinator of a
November 16 Day of Prayer, at which tens of thousands of
American churches will participate in a solemn, coordinated,
interdenominational process of education, action and prayer on
behalf of persecuted Christians. The Day of Prayer will be a
culminating and historic step in making the determination to
end today's anti-Christian persecutions a signature issue for
America's Christian voters and for others committed to strong
American human rights advocacy.
In addition to all else, today's hearing offers an opportunity to
lay a big lie allegation to rest once and for all: the claim that
efforts to protect vulnerable Christians in radical Muslim communities
is a form of ``Muslim bashing,'' an expression of bias towards Islamic
believers.
In fact, efforts on behalf of persecuted Christian communities in
Islamist areas of the world are vital means of helping moderate Muslims
who are also targeted by radicals seeking to capture the soul of their
great, historically tolerant faith.
Islamist radicals and other terrorists purporting to speak in the
name of Islam need to persecute vulnerable Christian communities, and
for two reasons. First, communities of faith that live beyond the reach
of the bribes and threats on which radicals rely in order to stay in
power always pose grave threats to the survival of terrorist regimes.
Next, if allowed to get away with persecuting Christian communities
tyrants are able send ``you're next'' messages of intimidation to
everyone else they seek to oppress: ``See what I'm doing to today's
Christian targets? Nobody cares about them, and they surely won't care
about moderate Muslims and secular democrats if I turn on you.''
If we are to understand the lessons of history--if we are to avoid
the deadly trap of empowering radical, anti-Western Muslims--we need to
remember this vital lesson of the successful campaign against Soviet
anti-Semitism. Whatever tyrants gain when the world allows them to
tyrannize the powerless, they lose when the world draws a line and
stops them from doing so. How those seemingly all-powerful Communists
of the Soviet Union became less formidable, were cut down to size in
the eyes of all, when they couldn't even beat up a bunch of Jews!
America's aroused, determined, implacable opposition to the persecution
of Soviet Jews also caused walls built around Soviet churches and
political dissidents to begin tumbling down. Similarly, stopping
present-day Middle East tyrants from burning churches and persecuting
Christians will allow beleaguered and presently isolated moderate
Muslims to know that there is hope for them, that they are not alone.
Proof that protecting lambs saves all others can be seen from the
poignant expressions of gratitude offered by moderate Muslims for
today's efforts on behalf of Christian victims. The scholar David Forte
has written of Islam's first hundred years during which a murderous,
intolerant faction, the Kharajites, sought to dominate that faith. It
took almost a century to defeat the Kharajites, after which Islam
became a faith as generally hospitable to strangers as was Christianity
and Judaism. What we have today, says Forte, are modern-day Kharajites
renewing their fight for the soul of Islam. Forte notes that we offer
moral legitimacy to murder and ensure the reign of the radicals when we
silently accept the persecution of vulnerable Christians in the Islamic
world--that we patronize Islam by wrongly assuming it to be rooted in
the torture of nonbelievers. Vulnerable Christian communities are the
battlegrounds on which the struggle for modern-day Islam's soul is
waged. Today's hearing thus represents a debt of obligation to Muslims
who often struggle with little support to leave the Dark Age prisons
built for them by the modern-day Kharajites.
Here's a story about how Washington works and the cynicism that
often animates it. The story is about Saudi Arabia, whose government
pays bounties for identifying Bible study groups that are then arrested
and tortured. (Observers have noted that Saudi anti-Christian
persecutions have increased by orders of magnitude since the country
was rescued by Desert Storm.) In a meeting requested by a senior Saudi
official, I was told that Americans had little cause for concern over
his government's policies--that overt Christian activism on the part of
Americans was at most dealt with by deportation. The official went on
to acknowledge that the Saudis do have ``problems'' with Christian
``guest workers'' from the Philippines and other third world countries,
but asked: ``That doesn't matter to Americans, does it? How is that
your issue?''
The Saudi diplomat and others like him are now becoming
increasingly aware that millions of Americans--and millions of American
Christians in particular--do care about differently colored fellow
believers living in distant lands. In his towering account of Christian
persecution, Their Blood Cries Out, the scholar Paul Marshall points
out that more than three-fourths of all Christians live in the third
world, that its disproportionately female character makes its believers
especially vulnerable and that ``Christianity is growing rapidly in the
world, perhaps undergoing its largest expansion in history,'' Americans
have always stood up against wanton terrorism, and they will surely do
so against a terrorism practiced against those who share their faith.
They will also do so because they know--as the Pope has eloquently made
clear during the past year--that political freedoms ultimately rest on
the right of men and women to worship without threat of being
persecuted for doing so.
Clearly, the United States must address worldwide anti-Christian
persecutions if and as we wish to play a major world role, and the
Committee is thus to be commended for conducting a hearing so deeply
rooted in American self-interest and American values. Today's hearing
goes directly to the question of whether Islam of the 21st Century will
be allowed to become an intolerant Kharajite caricature of its historic
self. It will help determine whether leaders like Ayatollah Khomeni or
terrorist organizations like Hamas will be permitted to define the
nature of Islam, or whether vulnerable, tolerant Muslims can keep and
regain their historic positions as leaders of a great faith. Burnt
churches and martyred worshipers in the Middle East are symbols of an
intra-Islamic struggle, battlegrounds on which Islam's future will be
determined. By standing up for their fellow worshippers, American
Christians oppose appeasement of radical forces always easier to stop
sooner rather than later.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for standing with the lambs, in the
process pointing the way for a more secure 21st Century for our
children--for a world where Christians and Muslims and Jews find common
bonds, a world where our children are spared the specter of a
tyrannous, anti-Western Islamist leadership bent at every turn on
confronting, terrorizing and challenging all who disagree with them.
__________
F. Prepared Statement of Father Keith Roderick
As Secretary General of the Coalition for the Defense of Human
Rights Under Islamization I will be presenting an overview of religious
persecution in the Near East. Senator Brownback and the other members
of the Near East Subcommittee are to be commended for creating this
opportunity for those who have been persecuted to tell their stories.
The witnesses who will testify in subsequent sessions are the faces of
persecution. Their personal histories more than any overview, statistic
or analysis portray the true nature of this terrible reality.
The Coalition is a cooperative effort of 60 human rights and
ethnic-national organizations to advocate respect for human rights of
religious minorities adversely effected by the process of Islamization.
Its membership includes organizations who are Roman Catholic, Orthodox,
Protestant, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim. The members include Assyrians,
Armenians, Copts, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Indonesians,
Iranians, and Sudanese. Our principles of advocacy are based upon those
delineated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Islamization is a political and cultural process to establish
Islamic law, Shari'ah, as the ruling principle of government and of the
cultural institutions of society. Militant Islamists advocate a strict
adherence to an inflexible interpretation of Shari'ah, pressing for a
revival of the ``ideal'' Islamic society to which everyone must
conform. This produces great tension between Muslims and non-Muslims,
and in fact, within the Muslim community itself. In countries that
recognize to some degree or another the primacy of Islam as the state
religion, there is a greater tendency for segments of society to follow
a more radical course leading to persecution of minority religious
groups. The character of this persecution may be personal or corporate.
Some persecution is the product of government policy. Some governments
perpetuate discriminatory practices creating environments which nurture
religious-based hatred against minorities. Still other persecution is
perpetrated by radical ideological movements. According to the Zwemer
Institute, no nation with an Islamic constitution, of which there are
22, meets the definition of ``tolerance.''
Christians of the Near East are the indigenous inhabitants of the
countries of the region. Their Christianity was not imported by Western
colonial movements or missionaries. In most parts of the Near East the
Christian culture predates the expansion of the Islamic empire by seven
centuries. Today that population, now a minority in all countries of
the Near East, is at risk of extinction. The ministry, Open Doors, has
reported dramatic changes in the Christian population of the Middle
East since 1900. In 1900, the average Christian percentage of the
general population in the countries of the Near East was over 20%.
Today it is only 7%. The most dramatic changes have occurred in Turkey.
Here the Christian population has dropped from 22% to .15% due to this
century's first genocide in which 1.5 million Armenians and 750,000
Assyrians lost their lives in 1918. Today Turkey has a secular
constitution, but it has recently begun to feel the pressure of
Islamists to return to an Islamic law based society. In Lebanon, the
only country with a Christian majority population prior to 1980, the
Christians comprised 67% of the population at the beginning of the
century. Today it is 40%. In the Holy Land, the Christian population is
estimated to be 125,000 or 1.8% of the population of Israel as compared
to 2.3 million Muslims or 34.3% of the population. In every country of
the Near East the Christian population has decreased.
Three factors have contributed to this change: (1) increased
emigration of non-Muslims because of the pressures of living in an
Islamic society; (2) intensified persecution; and, (3) a higher
birthrate among Muslims. It is clear that in the Near East Christians
are a shrinking, marginalized minority.
A number of countries of the Near East such as Iran and Saudi
Arabia are instrumentally involved in systematic persecution of
religious minorities. Other governments such as Egypt facilitate
religious persecution by defacto, allowing radical Islamic groups to
terrorize Christians without fear of prosecution. There are
identifiable problem areas which detrimentally affect minority
religious-ethnic groups in the Near East:
(1) Apostasy Laws--Apostasy Laws are based on the Shari'ah (Islamic
Law) which prohibit the legal/social recognition of a person's
conversion from Islam to another religion. In the countries of the Near
East, with the exception of Pakistan because of the tremendous protest
of the Christian minority who opposed it, identification cards which
include religious identification, are required for all public
transactions, including marriage, employment, and educational services.
A person who desires to change his/her religious affiliation from Islam
is not allowed to change the designation on his/her legal
identification card. This encourages discrimination, intimidation and
virtually makes intermarriage between Muslims and non-Muslims illegal.
On October 29, 1996, a 30 year old Christian Lebanese national,
Elis Dib Ghaleb, was convicted by a Shari'ah court in the United Arab
Emirates in al-Ain for marrying a Muslim woman. He was sentenced to 39
lashes and one year's imprisonment. He had already been jailed for a
year at the time of the sentence. Amnesty International received
reports noting that he had been beaten and flogged several times prior
to his formal sentence.
Islamic law prescribes death as the punishment for apostasy.
Officially, only Iran and Saudi Arabia impose the full penalty of death
to offenders. However, in such countries as Egypt, social pressures
leave the ``apostate'' without the protection of the civil authorities.
In certain situations marginalization of the convert results directly
from government policy. For example, a memo issued by the Director of
the Egyptian Military Intelligence Service refuses a Christian
convert's request to travel abroad. The memo stated, ``In as much as he
is an apostate from the sublime Islamic law, he has no civil rights
what so ever before the government with all its regulatory agencies.''
Court testimony offered in 1992 in Cairo by the Islamic Cleric Sheik
Muhamad El-Ghazali advocated civil protections to all those who
perpetrate violent retribution against apostates. He said, ``Any person
or group of people who kill an apostate should not be liable for
punishment.'' For Islamists who advocate the primacy of Islamic law
this was tantamount to the issuance of a death sentence to anyone who
will not conform.
In Egypt, apostates are arrested routinely under the Emergency Law.
The law suspends many legal rights of Egyptian citizens on the pretext
of preserving social stability. The office of the Interior Ministry
maintains a specific Religious Affairs Section in its local offices and
national headquarters at the Lazoughli State Security Investigative
Center in downtown Cairo. Reports of torture including electric shock,
beatings, hanging from wire cords for hours, and threats of death are
included as part of the process of interrogation. The arresting of
converts from Islam to Christianity under the Emergency Law by the
Egyptian security forces indicates that the Egyptian government is
violating the universal right to freedom of conscience as agreed to
under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In Iran, Dhabihullah Mahrami, 50, was sentenced to death by the
Revolutionary Court in Yazd last year for ``denouncing the blessed
religion of Islam and accepting the beliefs of the wayward Baha'i sect
(national apostasy).'' The State Supreme Court returned the case back
to the court in Yadz for reconsideration because the original court of
investigation ``was outside its competence.''
The Iranian government continues to deny that the Baha'i religion
is an authentic religion and according to Amnesty International the
Baha'is are often accused of espionage. In May 1996 an amendment to the
Penal Code was approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly to include
``espionage'' as an area covered under the enmity against God clause,
specifying a mandatory death penalty. This expands the scope of the
death penalty in a dangerous way. Many persons arrested for apostasy or
other religious activities have reported that ``espionage'' was
included in the charges levied against them.
Iran has perpetrated a systematic effort to eradicate the
leadership of the Iranian Council of Protestant Ministers and undermine
the evangelical churches which contain the highest number of converts
from Islam. On September 25, 1996, Pastor Mohammed Ravanbakhsh, a 35
year old Iranian Christian minister was murdered. His body was found
hanging on a tree in a forest near Ghaem-Shahr. He had been detained by
Iranian police prior to his death. He was a convert to Christianity
from Islam. The Iranian government has publicly proclaimed that it will
not tolerate apostates being ordained as Christian ministers. His death
occurred four days prior to the commemoration of the annual
International Day of Prayer for Persecuted Christians. The government
stated that his death was a suicide, even though Christians who
prepared his body for burial observed that he had been stabbed with a
knife at least 20 times. An order for death had been issued by the
Islamic Revolutionary Court judge, Sheikh Reza Rezaian. Since 1994 the
Iranian government has avoided bringing church leaders and apostates to
court. A pattern now exists of persons being detained then mysteriously
being found dead.
(2) Blasphemy Laws--Pakistan retains an insidious law which
prescribes the death penalty for anyone convicted of insulting the
Quran or the Prophet Mohammed. Articles 295.B and 295.C of the Pakistan
Penal Code. Religious fundamentalists often incite the misuse of these
laws by preaching to the generally illiterate audiences that Christians
are blasphemers because they believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God, a teaching contrary to that of Islam. The following cases
occurring over the past two years illustrate the terror that this
legislation continues to hold over the 15 million Christian Pakistanis:
(1) The acclaimed writer and teacher, Niamat Ahmar, was murdered in
Faisalabad, Punjab in front of 200 witnesses. His killer stated that he
was conducting a noble cause by killing a blasphemer. Ahmar's body was
hacked to pieces by the murder's butcher knife by the rejoicing crowd.
More recently his daughter was burnt to death in the same city by a
similar crowd.
(2) Ighal Tahir, a converted Christian who had been arrested under
the Blasphemy Law, was murdered by inmates as the warden and prison
guards watched in Lahore.
(3) Mubarik Masih (Mukha), an elderly evangelist was tortured to
death by police in Lahore. He had been arrested and charged with
blasphemy.
(4) Bantoo Masih, an elderly Christian was stabbed to death by a
Islamic fanatic while at the police station of Lahore Cantt being
charged under the Blasphemy Law.
(5) Manzoor Masih, charged under the Blasphemy Law in Gujranwala,
Pakistan was murdered by militants as he was leaving the High Court
building in Lahore. He and two other Christian men, Rehmat Masih and
Salat Masih, had been sentenced by a lower court to death. The High
Court later reversed that judgment noting that the charges made were
false.
(6) Anwar Masih, awaiting trial in a Faisalabad jail for four years
under the charge of Blasphemy has had numerous attempts on his life.
(7) Roni Daniel, was murdered in March 1996.
(8) Rehmat Masih, died under police torture in April 1996 in
Lahore.
(9) Rashid Masih, a young Christian man was murdered by police in
Kot Lakhpat, Lahore Jail in April 1996.
(10) Munir Masih and his son, Emmanuel, were murdered by fanatics
in Narowal, Punjab. The police did not even register a case report on
the incident.
(11) Two Christian men were murdered in May 1996 in a Christian
neighborhood, Basti Kasso-ke, District Hafizabad in Pujab, apparently
related to blasphemy accusations.
(12) Javed Masih and Sohail Masih, were murdered by police in
Lahore in cooperation with radical Muslims.
(13) Nawab Masih, was tortured to death by police in Lahore during
interrogation.
Saudi Arabia instrumentally persecutes non-Muslims more
comprehensively than any other country of the Near East. No religion
other than Islam is allowed to be practiced within its borders.
However, it has been estimated that 27% of the Saudi population
consists of expatriate guest workers, three-fourths of whom are non-
Muslim. The Metowah (religious police) closely monitor foreigners for
public expression of their Christian faith. Those who seek to practice
their faith even within the private confines of their own homes, are
subject to harassment, beating, arrest, or deportation.
In December 1994, expatriates from England and the United States
held a school Christmas pageant in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. To the horror
of the families, the local Metowah invaded the play, chasing children
and beating several parents. A parent videotaping the play caught the
action on tape which was later broadcast on Britain's Independent
Television Network. In November 1994, Mikhail Mikhail Cornelius, a Copt
worker in Saudi Arabia, was arrested after being accused of blasphemy.
He reportedly told a fellow worker that he believed in Jesus Christ. He
was sentenced to flogging (1,000 lashes) and seven years imprisonment.
International intervention prevented the sentence from being executed.
A metowah raid on a meeting of Philipino Christians in Riyadh
resulted in the arrest of 75 persons in 1995. Several were severely
beaten and one disappeared. In October of that same year another raid
on a Korean fellowship in Riyadh was disrupted. The congregation of 130
adults and 50 children were held for 4 hours. Over a dozen were held
for several days.
Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia is such a closed society that accurate
statistics documenting the effect of the government's policy on
religious minorities is difficult to obtain. There are Saudis who are
Christian, but their churches remain hidden. They are at the most risk
because they are considered apostates and subject to the sentence of
death if discovered.
(3) Promotion of Religious Based Hatred and Violence--The Arab
Republic of Egypt has the largest Christian population in the Middle
East. The Copts, the indigenous Christian people of Egypt, number
between 8-10 million or between 12-15% of the population. Targeted
violence against Christians has increased dramatically during the past
five years. On Thursday, March 13, 1997, Islamists launched attacks on
Christians in the village of Ezbet Dawood (Village of David), killing
13. One month earlier, February 12, 1997, Islamists carried out an
unprecedented atrocity against students meeting inside St. George's
Church in Abu Qurqas and at a nearby village. Nine students, all
between the ages of 13 and 22, were killed immediately by 4-5 masked
gunmen. Three others later died from their wounds. A fisherman, his
son, and a policeman, who were believed to be standing near the church
as the attack began, were also murdered by the fleeing gunmen. The
bodies of the three men were found in a sugar cane field in the nearby
village of Kom al-Zuheir. Gama'a al-Islamiya (Islamic Group) is
suspected of perpetrating these murders.
More Christians have been murdered by Islamic extremists in the
first six months of 1997 than in the past 25 years. According to
statistics reported by the Center of Egyptian Human Rights for National
Unity, there have been 543 incidences of violence against Christians
during the past five years. At least 117 attacks were against Christian
churches, 325 against Christian property and businesses, and 56 against
Christian homes. In this onslaught at least 615 Copts have been injured
and 106 killed.
copts murdered by extremists
1973-1991 . . . . . . . 18
(1992 marks the beginning of the Egyptian government's ``war''
against Islamic Fundamentalists)
1992 . . . . . . . 13 (Massacre of 13 Copts in Daryut)
1993 . . . . . . . 15
1994 . . . . . . . 13
1995 . . . . . . . 24
1996 . . . . . . . 10
(Feb. 21-24, 1996 a mob of over 1,000 Muslims are incited by Muslim
clerics to attack Christian churches and property in several villages
including, Kafr Demian Gergi, lbrahimeya, Negm, al-Bashawi, al-
Mahmoudi, al-Zawaher, Om Said, and Mobashor.) According to the Al-Ahram
Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, 30 Christians were killed
in 1996.
1997 . . . . . . . 31
These are conservative estimates due to the fact that many
incidences of violence against Christians are not reported for fear of
retaliation against the community or family. Much of the violence has
been focused in Upper Egypt in the cities of al-Minya and Assuit, which
have Christian majority populations.
The Egyptian government has boasted of progress in its war against
the Islamic militants. In fact, the government has failed to repulse
the surge of violence. It argues that there is not a Coptic problem and
that many more Muslim police and soldiers have been murdered by
extremists than Christians. The latter statement is true. However, the
police and soldiers are being murdered because they represent the
Egyptian government. The Copts are being targeted and murdered because
they are Christian. The Egyptian government has failed to recognize
that their policies of isolation of the Copts in socioeconomic terms
has created an atmosphere of bigotry and hatred toward the Coptic
minority. Just this past week, during a campaign to pressure Islamists
in the Cairo area, a large number of Christians were arrested also as
an apparent effort to appear even handed. This is not an uncommon
occurrence. The Egyptian government has allowed the Copts to be used as
human safety valves in an attempt to deflect the Islamists anger
against the Mubarak regime.
Egyptian based human rights organizations report the persistent
failure of the Egyptian government to prosecute and convict anyone for
the murders of Coptic Christians. Over 70 persons were detained by the
police following the St. George's massacre of students, but families of
the victims report that all of the suspects were released. The persons
responsible for the murders are known to the community. The photographs
of three of the gunmen were even published in al-Ahram, Egypt's most
widely read daily newspaper. A young Coptic Christian, video taping the
bloody aftermath of the massacre and the funerals of the victims, was
arrested by security forces and detained for over a week, during which
time he was severely beaten. The video tape was confiscated and not
returned.
The Egyptian authorities had withdrawn permanent police protection
from St. George's Church in Abu Qurqas one and a half years ago because
it had proclaimed progress in controlling the terrorists. Many
Christians believe the real reason for removing the police protection
was because government losses by assassination of security personnel
were too great. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights has accused
the Egyptian government of culpability in the increasing violence
against Christians.
During the past five years Islamists have made significant gains in
their numbers both in the ranks of military units and of the police.
Copts have reported that on numerous occasions when attacks were being
carried out on Christians, policemen seen in the vicinity refused to
intercede. Some police are suspected of being informants to the
extremists. A study conducted four years ago by the Police Institute
for Research in cooperation with the National Institute of Planning
found that a sizable segment of the police had engaged in terrorist
activities against Copts. According to a report appearing in the al-
Dostour newspaper on May 7, 1997, a recent study described the efforts
of a prominent police officer to recruit for the terrorist
organization, Takfir-w-El-Higrah. It was estimated that 60% of the
extremist police officers had committed crimes of terror and that as
much as 80% of the police force in upper Egypt had association with
terrorist organizations. As further evidence of the Egyptian
government's failure to deal effectively with the security issue for
the Copts, the Egyptian magazine Rose-Elyoussef reported on March 24,
1997 that the Egyptian government had announced that it would be
creating a Muslim Civilian Militia to protect the Coptic population.
The Christians see this as an alarming prospect. They question how the
government will be able to keep this militia in check when it has been
unable to control its own military and police units.
On December 15, 1996, a Christian farm and center for disabled
children, the Cheerful Heart Center, was attacked by 300 soldiers from
a nearby unit of the Egyptian Army located about 15 miles outside of
Cairo. The desert reclamation project, owned by Coptic Christians, was
in the process of being created as a home and developmental center for
over 1,000 children. At the time of the attack, it was assisting 45
children, none of whom were injured. The Center had previously received
all necessary permits from the government for construction.
In Pakistan, 80% of the Christian population still live in
villages. A systematic destruction of many of these villages and the
confiscation of these poor farmers agricultural lands has been underway
for the past twenty years. It is estimated that hundreds of Christian
villages have been destroyed. Among them are the villages of Mattah,
Bath, Jindre, Dogaich, China Basti, Dhobi Serai, Ahata Thanedar, and
Raiwind, all in the Lahore district; Martinpur, youngsonabad, 113
Sasngula Hill, Singhara, Sacha Sauda, and Khan Jaja in the Sheikhupura
District and, Fauji Quarters in Peshawar.
In January 1997, a Christian village of Shanti-Nagar in the
District of Khanewal in the Punjab was attacked and destroyed by a mob
of 10,000 incited by Islamists. The villagers were alerted to the
impending attack and requested police protection. However, the police
withdrew as the mob drew near. Nearly 1,500 homes were destroyed.
Almost 70 Christian women and girls were kidnaped during the attack.
Because of the mistreatment their captors the women's emotional scars
will be more difficult to rebuild than their homes. The Pakistani
government had promised to compensate the villagers 500,000 Rupees
($12,500) for each home lost. Later this amount was amended to 50,000
Rupees ($1,250). Only a few houses have been partially rebuilt. Victims
have so far received only 800 Rupees ($20).
The Assyrians, an indigenous Christian minority who live among the
Kurds in Northern Iraq, have reported the systematic confiscation of
traditional Assyrian lands by well armed Kurdish groups. Local
Assyrians report that they are terrorized by the perpetual land grabs.
Since 1991, 52 Assyrian villages have had their lands confiscated.
These include the villages of Dohuk, Pakhloua, Zakho, Sariya, Towsana,
Mshara, Bajidbraf, Bravook, Mansoura, Fesh Khabour, Howrisk, Khalakh,
Azakh, Dowra and others. Often times these land confiscations by Muslim
Kurds end in violence. On April 16, 1996 an Assyrian deacon from Sanat
village, Adel Odish Marcus, was murdered in Zakho by a member of the
KDP. A number of killings of Assyrians by the PUK during May 1996 was
reported. On February 10, 1997, in the city of Shaqlowa, Northern Iraq,
two Assyrians, father and son, Lazar and Hawel Matti, were murdered by
a group of Islamist Kurds. In the past six years, since the Kurds took
control of Northern Iraq, with considerable U.S. assistance, not one
Kurd has been arrested for the murders or land confiscations of
Assyrians.
In most all countries of the Near East the media is controlled by
the government. Not only is the media used as a filter to block or
twist unwanted criticism, it can also be used as a vehicle to undermine
the security of minorities. In Egypt there are over 1500 radio and
television programs which are accessed by religious groups. Copts
report that they are denied access to any of those programs. The
government does allow Islamist clerics, some who routinely deride Copts
as infidels and openly encourage violence against them. The government
in Egypt does nothing to curb the production of inflammatory tapes
directed against the Christian minority. Recently the government has
proposed that all Christian books be prohibited from being published
until being reviewed and approved by an Islamic review authority.
The Lebanese government has threatened to close down a Catholic TV
network and two church operated radio stations. The move was proposed
as part of a resolution adopted last year that suppressed 50 TV and 150
radio stations, contradicting constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of
religion and expression. In south Lebanon, the only area not occupied
by Syria, Christians have been subjected to escalating threats by
Islamists associated with Hizbollah. The Christians of south Lebanon
operate the only independent television tower in Lebanon.
In Egypt, vitriolic clerics are allowed to inflame uneducated
Muslims with bigoted portrayals of Christians on a daily basis. In a
village in Assuit, during Friday prayers at the mosque on March 14,
1997, a fundamentalist cleric called for the burning of the adjacent
church and killing of infidels, claiming that the church had placed the
cross too high on its roof. The newspaper Watny reported that the
Governor of Assuit sent letters to the local Christians asking them, in
a gesture of good will and in order to restore peace, to contribute all
of the costs of renovating the two mosques on each side of the church
so that they would be higher than the church cross. The Christians were
left with no recourse but to agree. Article 20 of the Egyptian
Constitution states that, ``Any advocacy of national or religious
hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or
violence shall be prohibited by law.'' Justice has not been implemented
blindly in Egypt.
The Egyptian government continues to subject Christian churches to
the Hamayonian law, first issued under the Ottoman rule in 1856. The
law does not allow any repair of churches or construction of new
churches without first obtaining a decree signed by the President of
the Republic. During 1981-1990 only 10 permits were granted to the
Coptic Orthodox Church (90% of the Christian population) for new
churches to be built and 25 for repair permits. Permission is needed
for even the most minute changes, such as painting or repairing a
bathroom.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran the Ministry of Islamic Guidance
prohibits the printing of all Christian literature including church
bulletins and newsletters. In February 1990, the Ministry of Islamic
Guidance closed the Iran Bible Society and refused permission for the
importation of bibles. According to Iranian Christians International
all Christian books and bookstores were confiscated, this after 200
years of operation with government registration. The Christian
population of Iran consists of 150,000-300,000 Armenians, 70,000
Assyrians, and 20-25,000 Evangelical Christians, the majority of whom
are converts from Islam. It is estimated that an underground church of
approximately 100,000 apostates operates completely in secret for fear
of discovery, conviction, and the death sentence.
The Iranian government has waged a campaign of eradication against
the Evangelical Christians of Iran. Rev. Ravanbahsh, who was murdered
in September of 1996, had been ordained in 1990 by the late Bishop Haik
Hovsepian-Mehr, Director of the Assemblies of God Church. Bishop
Hovsepian-Mehr was murdered in January 1994 after waging a successful
campaign to gain the release from prison of another minister, Rev.
Mehdi Dibaj. Rev. Dibaj and Rev. Tateos Mikaelian were murdered in June
1994. The Iranian government blamed those murders on the Iranian
opposition. In July 1994, an American legal resident and Iranian
Christian, Hassan Shahjamali, was arrested by Iranian security
personnel, who he believed were from the intelligence group attached to
the President's office. They interrogated him about bringing films and
religious books to family members who were Christian. They also wanted
information on the activities of all the Christian churches in Tehran.
After international intervention, Shahjamali was released two weeks
later and allowed to return to the U.S.
Perhaps the most insidious forms of persecution to arise over the
past five years are kidnappings and ``shame rapes'' for the conversion
of women; these have increased in many parts of the Near East. The
Pakistan daily newspaper, Jang, reported on May 21, 1996 that a
Christian girl of Village 46, Sangla Hill was taken out of her house at
gun point in the middle of the night, gang raped and kept by her
kidnapers. Surryia Bibi, 17, of Rawalpindi was also kidnaped and forced
to convert by her rapist. The police refuse to file a complaint
reasoning that the girl is no longer a Christian and she can not be
allowed to return home because it is a Christian home. Last year, two
minor Christian girls were abducted, raped and forced to convert to
Islam. When their father approached the police to obtain the release of
his daughters, the police offered him a deal. If he were to convert to
Islam, the girls would be permitted to visit him as Muslim father.
These are only a small number of the cases of reportedly thousands
of such cases of rape being used by Islamists as a way of devastating
Christian families. Unfortunately, the crime goes unpunished by local
authorities. In Egypt, the Coptic Church is investigating 200 such
cases.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, the persecution of Christians and other minorities
does exist in such countries as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. Religious persecution in
the context of the examples which have been presented stands out as
something tragically unique. The discriminatory policies, arrests,
destruction of property, violence, torture and murder are targeted
against certain groups solely on the basis of their beliefs and
religious culture. Even though governments such as Egypt and Pakistan
do not officially condone violence against the minorities they bear
responsibility for it by their de facto support of the Islamists by
refusing to prosecute their acts of violence. Their own callous support
of the very attitudes and institutions which perpetrate an environment
in which religious bigotry flourishes and where unruly mobs motivated
by radical ideologues hurt and kill those whose beliefs are different
than their own must be challenged.
It is important for this legislative body to incorporate as part of
its foreign policy perspective the fact that the countries of the
Middle East are not homogeneously Arab and Islamic. There are sizable
and vibrant indigenous Christian cultures throughout the region. The
Christians of the Middle East do not want to abandon their homelands.
They want to feel secure in them. They want to be an integral part of
the political, economic and cultural life in their own country. They do
not want to be second class citizens, subjected to religious apartheid
by their government and society at large.
The United States enjoys interdependent relationships with many of
the countries guilty of persecuting its religious minorities, such as
Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It is sometimes difficult to criticize our
friends, but it is time that we begin a serious engagement of these
countries. Friendship depends upon similar values and like-mindedness.
By our silence and unwillingness to demand the highest form of civility
from these countries, we give tacit permission for them to impose ever
greater hardships on those minorities who are already suffering.
__________
G. Prepared Statement of Colonel Sharbel Barakat
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I wish to thank you Mr. Chairman for giving me this opportunity to
talk about the persecution of the Lebanese Christians in general and
the Christian population in south Lebanon in particular. This historic
achievement will allow me to share with you, the representatives of the
American people, a truth which was hidden for years by both the
oppressors in the Middle East and by their protectors in the Western
world.
My name is Sharbel Barakat. I was born and raised in the Christian
village of Ain Ebel in south Lebanon. I studied in my village and later
in Beirut. I became an officer of the Lebanese army, got married and
had four children. I currently live in my village which is under siege
by terrorist groups such as Hizbollah, and radical factions. I cannot
travel in my country, nor I can go to the capital Beirut, I cannot
leave my country through the airport, nor through seaports, Hizbollah
has issued death sentences--sentences which were made public by the
leadership of the organization--against large numbers of Christians in
south Lebanon. I live with my family and my Christian community under
the constant threat of shelling, road side explosions, kidnapping, and
torture, in an area, home to 150,000 Christians and other minorities.
Our fault? We are Christians surrounded by Islamist fundamentalists. In
order to respond to your invitation Mr. Chairman, I had to cross the
border into Israel, and leave the Middle East through the only airport
that connects us to the free world.
We, the Christians of south Lebanon do not live in a free world.
Throughout my life, my relatives, friends and community have been
submitted to various forms of oppression and persecution for the mere
reason that we are Christians. Today, I would like to testify about my
own experience, the experience of my community, the present state of
harassment, and what we expect in the future. I would like also to make
a few suggestions to the United States and world governments.
I. My experience
Throughout my young years, I was raised in the fear of massacres,
as our village's population was butchered in 1920 by Muslims. At the
end of 1958, and before the U.S. Marines' intervention to put an end to
the Islamic uprising, backed by Abdel Nasser of Egypt, I lost my eldest
brother, a young Lebanese officer. When Benoit was killed, I was six
years old. In the seventies, the PLO systematically brutalized the
youth and elders of Ain Ebel, and other villages, installing terror
check points, arresting, kidnapping, and killing some of the villagers.
On many occasions graffiti were written on the walls such as ``there is
no place for Christians in this land.'' Since 1977, our village was
encircled by PLO and other radical groups. Our world shrunk to less
than three square miles. We were in a collective prison, more like a
Christian ghetto surrounded by Jihad forces. On new year's eve of 1979,
the day my wife gave birth to my older son, her two parents were
kidnapped by the elements of Abu Nidal for three months. On Christmas
day of 1991, my brother-in-law, a middle school teacher, was kidnapped
to the Ain El Helweh Camp and tortured for a whole month by the armed
elements of Abul Abbas.
In 1984, a new organization, Hizbollah, took over from the PLO.
Manipulated by the Iranians, protected by the Syrians, legitimized
after 1990 by the current Lebanese regime, the terrorists of Hizbollah
were bolder in their designs. They openly called for the establishment
of an Islamic republic. For six years, we had to use fishing boats to
exit Ain Ebel's region in order to reach Beirut, before it fell to the
Syrians in 1990. Children, women, and elderly were packed like cattle,
under Hizbollah's fire, In 1985 a ship carrying 200 Christians sank off
Beirut's shores. I personally was on many of these horror trips. Life
was forbidden to us, so was freedom. During the time we were oppressed
by the fundamentalists, other Christians suffered as well: the Western
and American hostages, held by the same Hizbollah in Lebanon,
In the wake of the Syrian invasion of the Christian areas of Beirut
and Mount Lebanon in October 1990, three civilians from my village were
kidnapped by Hizbollah. Marun Nassif Atmeh was killed and his body was
left in the valley of Wadi el-Sluki for fifteen days. The United
Nations soldiers found him defaced and maimed. We were able to
recognize him with the help of X rays taken of his leg few weeks prior.
Butros Nassif Atmeh died months after his release as a result of severe
beating to his bead during his kidnapping. The third Christian, who is
the nephew of a bishop and still alive, was reduced to a living martyr.
I cannot bring his name for safety reasons. This environment of extreme
violence against my village and the Christians of this area caused us
to live in constant fear. We even considered emigrating, emptying the
villages; however, we remained on our land.
Since 1979, under Syrian pressures, our wages from the Lebanese
Army were suspended by Beirut's government. Furthermore, a great number
of us are denied passports.
More recently I worked hard to establish a Christian radio station
to broadcast to the local community. As I made the first broadcast,
Hizbollah threatened to shell the station. Later, Hizbollah's rockets
were fired into the area, and we were forced to close it down to spare
lives.
II. The experience of my community
The pattern of suppression is an old one. The Christian community
in that area was subjected to a number of massacres throughout this
century. Since the massacre of 1920, incidents occurred frequently.
Mr. Chairman, the present Speaker of the House in Lebanon, Mr.
Nabih Berri, who is considered as a moderate Shiite, publicly
threatened by reminding us of this 1920 massacre three times. Targeting
Christians is not specific to south Lebanon. The Lebanese Christians
have been resisting the tide of Islamism since the seventh century. Our
ancestors have paid the price for their faith. Lebanon is the only
country in the Middle East where Christians from all denominations have
been able to form a safe haven for over thirteen centuries.
In modern times, attempts were made to create a co-existence
between Lebanon's religious communities. The Christians extended their
hands to the Muslim leadership. Successful for a short period of time,
this peaceful coexistence fell under the terrorism of the PLO, the
Syrian occupation, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.
For an insight on this history I recommend the comprehensive book
of Professor Walid Phares, ``Lebanese Christian Nationalism: The Rise
and Fall of an Ethnic Resistance.'' (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
1995).
In Phares' terms, the ``Christians of Lebanon were and are still
targeted because of their Christian identity and their determination to
remain Christian.''
Since 1975, about 150,000 Christians were killed during the war,
Thousands of Lebanese Muslims died as well. Entire Christian villages
were erased and their populations were ethnically cleansed. In Damur
(south of Beirut), for example, a thousand Christian civilians were
killed while the armed bands shouted ``Allahu Akbar'' and ``Jihad''
(Holy war slogans). Churches were burned down by dozens. An account of
the horrors is too long to include in this testimony. Here are few
examples of massacres:
1975: Beit Mellat, Deir Eshash, Tall Abbas (north Lebanon), Damur
(Mount Lebanon)
1976: Chekka (north Lebanon), Qaa, Terbol (Bekaa valley)
1977: Aishye (south Lebanon), Maaser el-Shuf (Shuf Mountain)
1978: Ras Baalbeck, Shleefa (Bekaa valley)
1983: Major massacres in Aley and the Shuf mountains. In addition
to the 241 US Marines and 78 French paratroopers savagely assassinated
by Hizbollah
1984: Iqlim el-Kharrub (Mount Lebanon)
1985: East Sidon (South Lebanon)
1990: Matn district
III. The present state of harassment
Since the so-called national reconciliation agreement of Taif was
implemented by the Syrian army in 1990, Lebanon is under occupation and
its Christian community under systematic oppression. Under this Syrian
controlled regime, freedoms were eliminated.
Here are some of the flagrant abuses of human rights against
Christians around the country:
Constant and arbitrary arrests of young men and women. Armed
elements break into their homes by night and kidnap them to
``security'' centers. The last campaign was during December
1996, when 450 young Christians were thrown in jail and beaten
for days. They spent Christmas alone in helplessness.
Christians are tried by military courts for ``forming
Christian associations,'' ``opposing Syria,'' or for allegedly
``contacting Israelis or Jews.''
Christians are severely tortured in Lebanese or Syrian jails
or in detention centers by Hizbollah. Even the President of
Lebanon has recognized the existence of 210 detained in Syrian
jails. Our estimate indicates around 600.
In the so-called ``security zone'' of south Lebanon Christians
live under the fear of Hizbollah's terror, In 1996, Hizbollah issued a
public religious fatwah (religious edict) calling for the murder of
``all those who have been in contact with Jews.'' As we all know, there
are thousands of Christians who work in the Galilee, inside Israel. All
of these civilians will be put to death by the Iranian-backed
organization if Israel withdraws. As of today, neither the Lebanese or
the Syrian governments have issued a rebuttal to this Fatwah. We
therefore, assume that Beirut and Damascus are endorsing the massacre
of the Christians in south Lebanon by Hizbollah. Meanwhile, south
Lebanon's villages are the target of snipers, bombs, kidnapping, and
economic blockades.
IV. What to expect in the future
Mr. Chairman, it is certain that my community in the security zone
and Jezzine is under present and real danger. Christians are presently
safe because of the presence of Israeli troops and the local defense
force known as South Lebanon Army (SLA). However, in the case of an
Israeli unilateral withdrawal from the area, and disbanding of the SLA,
we expect a generalized massacre of Christians, an ethnic cleansing,
and de-Christianization of south Lebanon. This potential holocaust of
Christians will have a tremendous impact on the region's Christians.
For Lebanon has always been the hope for Middle East Christianity.
V. Suggestions
For the short term, I present the following suggestions aimed at
saving the Christians of South Lebanon, as long as Hizbollah and the
Syrian occupation forces are present and influential in that area.
(1) That the US government formally asks the Israeli government not
to withdraw from the security zone before a solution is found for the
protection of the Christian community in south Lebanon.
(2) That the US government help the Christians of south Lebanon to
form a local authority which will enable them to face the
administrative, economic, social, and security challenges.
(3) That the US government extend a direct humanitarian support to
the encircled Christian community in south Lebanon, and help them
establish a safe haven until the regional problem is solved.
(4) That the US Senate, and the US Congress extend invitations to
the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon, and other Christian leaders in south
Lebanon and in exile, to testify about the fate of their community.
Such a message can bring about the truth of persecution to the American
people and allow Christians worldwide to extend their support to their
brethren in faith in our tormented country.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
__________
H. Prepared Statement of Esmaeil Ebrahimi
Conversion from Islam to Christianity:
I was born into a strict Muslim family in Tehran. \1\ As a child, I
fell into a well and almost died, but it seemed like a force was
protecting me. At age fourteen, I felt there was a presence with me,
like a guardian angel. Later I felt that God had a special plan for my
life, and that I would bring God's truth to people. In my late teen
years, God saved me from death when I almost froze during a mountain
climbing excursion near Tehran. I served my two years of military
service from 1983 to 1985, at the peak of the Iran-Iraq war and again
God protected me.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ This English language statement is a translation of the
original Persian language statement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1986, through the invitation of my brother, Ebrahim, who had
previously converted from Islam to Christianity, I saw the movie Jesus
of Nazareth. I immediately realized that in Jesus Christ I had found
what I had been searching for. After a second viewing of the film, I
clearly saw my sinfulness and how God had accepted and loved me with
all my sins. In an evangelistic meeting at a park, a short time later,
a man shared Christ with me and I prayed and received Christ into my
life as Lord and Savior. Thus, in 1988, I made a decision to convert
from Islam to Christianity and began attending the Emmanuel Evangelical
Persian Church in north Tehran. I began sharing my new-found faith with
other people. I was baptized by Rev. Sepehri in the Emmanuel Church,
along with about 12 other people, in 1989. Soon my younger brother,
Bahman, and my mother, Anis, also embraced Christianity.
Persecution in Iran Because of My Conversion from Islam to Christianity
and My Evangelistic Activities:
Because I shared Christ with my clients at my tailor shop, Islamic
Revolutionary Guards began to come to my store posing as clients. They
were actually trying to obtain evidence about my conversion from Islam
to Christianity to use against me. They warned me to stop sharing my
Christian faith with others. I knew that I must obey Christ's command
to share my faith, but I was now more careful. Nevertheless, on July
13, 1990 two Revolutionary Guards came into my store and took me to the
General Prosecutor's office. They blind-folded me and put me in
solitary confinement without any information about their plans for me.
The next day, Revolutionary Guards interrogated me about my Christian
faith. They announced that I was to be executed for abandoning Islam.
During this time, my family did not know of my whereabouts.
Three days later, I was interrogated again, but this time in the
Revolutionary Court Building. After more interrogations and about three
months of imprisonment and much psychological and physical abuse, I was
forced to sign a statement not to preach Christianity and was released
in October, 1990. Later, I learned that my release was due the
intervention of the late Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr, then
superintendent of the Assemblies of God Church and president of the
Council of Protestant Churches in Iran, and to the upcoming visit to
Iran of Mr. Galindo Pohl, the U.N. Special Representative of the
Commission on Human Rights.
Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr was killed by government agents in January
1994 after he led an international campaign to free Rev. Mehdi Dibaj,
an Iranian Muslim convert and evangelist, who had been imprisoned for
nearly ten years and sentenced to be executed for ``apostasy''. Rev.
Dibaj and Rev. Tatavous (Tateos) Mikaelian were killed by government
agents in June 1994. Rev. Mikaelian took over the position of president
of the Council of Protestant Churches in Iran after Bishop Hovsepian-
Mehr's death.
I married my wife, also a convert from Islam to Christianity, in
1991. When my wife converted to Christianity, her neighbors learned
about it and began to persecute her by saying unkind things. One day a
Revolutionary Guard came to her door and warned her that if she did not
cut off her association with Christians, ``we will put a lead bullet
into your empty head.'' She was frightened and didn't attend church for
two or three weeks, then resumed going to church.
When our son was born in 1992, we had difficulty in obtaining an
Iranian identification booklet because we had given him a name which
was not an approved Islamic name. However, after we produced our
Christian marriage certificate, by God's help, we succeeded in
registering him under his Christian name.
After we were married, we lived and worked in Turkey with the
Iranian Christian church. For two-and-a-half years after our return
from Turkey we lived in Tehran in a basement in a state of fear. We
were under surveillance and our phone was tapped. My business and
inventory were confiscated by government authorities. After the killing
of the three pastors in 1994, persecution of ordinary Muslim converts
and Christians who evangelized Muslims increased. We feared that it
would only be a matter of time before I would be arrested, imprisoned
and charged again with abandoning Islam. My name and description had
been given to all land border stations to prevent my exit from Iran.
Therefore I was counseled not to leave Iran overland. We began to
carefully plan our escape from Iran. When we learned that the Embassy
of India in Tehran was giving visas to Iranians, we secretly obtained
visas to India and purchased our plane tickets.
Without saying goodbye to any of our friends and family or telling
anyone of our plans, my wife and son and I flew to India in December
1994. The government officials at Iran's Mehrabad airport did not
search us or discover our official documents, including documents
pertaining to my imprisonment.
Persecution of Other Family Members Because of Their Conversion From
Islam to Christianity and their Evangelistic Activities:
Prior to 1986, my older brother, Ebrahim, had converted from Islam
to Christianity. He received instruction from Transworld Radio in Monte
Carlo, that broadcasts Persian Christian programs into Iran. He worked
as an employee of the Iran Bible Society. After the government
authorities closed the Iran Bible Society in 1990, Ebrahim served with
Campus Crusade for Christ International, a U.S. based organization. He
was imprisoned in Kermanshah in 1992 because of his conversion from
Islam to Christianity and because of his evangelistic activities.
Ebrahim and his wife fled Iran in 1994 and were accepted as refugees in
Canada.
My younger brother, Bahman, also a Muslim convert to Christianity,
had to discontinue his graduate studies in Iran. Because of the
persecution he received for his Christian faith, he fled Iran in 1994,
and was accepted as a refugee in Canada.
My mother had fled Iran to Canada several years earlier because of
her conversion to Christianity.
Persecution in India by Iranian Government Agents:
Seven months after our arrival in India, with the help of Iranian
Christians International, Inc., a Colorado based organization who
assists Iranian Christian refugees, my wife, son and I were recognized
by the UNHCR in New Delhi as refugees. Because the UNHCR monthly
stipend is so little, we were forced to live in a one room apartment
without air conditioning in a poor and fanatically Muslim part of New
Delhi. A number of Iranian government agents and embassy personnel
lived near us, including embassy officials who lived in the apartment
below us. Because I did not received any mail that had been sent to me
since these officials moved into our building, I believe that they had
asked the postman to deliver all of my mail, and perhaps the mail of
other Iranian tenants, to them.
Other Iranian and Afghan refugee Muslim converts to Christianity in
New Delhi were severely persecuted by Iranian and Afghan government
agents while I lived in India. There were several kidnaping attempts,
severe beatings requiring hospitalization, attempts to run over the
converts with motorcycles and automobiles, and death threats. The
motorcycles and cars had Iran/Afghanistan embassy license plates.
Although reports of these incidents were submitted to the U.S.
Immigration and the UNHCR, the truth of these reports has not been
accepted by the U.S. INS and the UNHCR.
Persecution in India by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service:
After being recognized as a refugee by the UNHCR in July 1995, I
immediately applied to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS) at the American Embassy in New Delhi. Although most U.S. INS
interviews at refugee processing posts are scheduled within two months
of filing, I was not interviewed until eight months later. I was told
that since my mother lived in Canada, although I had a U.S. sponsor, I
must apply to Canada, and not to the U.S. In May 1996, Iranian
Christians International, Inc. contacted U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf 's
office requesting his intervention for another Iranian Christian
refugee and me. Congressman Wolf faxed a letter to the Honorable Frank
G. Wisner, U.S. Ambassador to India, requesting detailed information
why the other family and mine were rejected.
A month later Mr. Johnson, U.S. INS officer, gave me a second
interview. However, he was very hostile and abusive. Now I submit the
description and content of my interview with the U.S. INS in New Delhi
for your information.
June 6, 1996 Interview of Mr. Esmaeil Ebrahimi with Mr. Johnson, First
Officer U.S. INS, New Delhi, India:
I went to the U.S. Embassy with my wife and son at 10:00 A.M., June
6, 1996. At 10:30 A.M. Mr. Manouch (an employee of U.S. INS) took us to
the U.S. INS section of the Embassy and the office of Mr. Johnson. My
wife and son were directed to the next room and only I was allowed into
Mr. Johnson's office.
Mr. Johnson was standing in his office with a very angry expression
on his face. After I sat down Mr. Johnson asked, ``Why didn't you apply
to the Canadian Embassy?'' I thought he was referring to July 1995,
when I first applied for immigration to the U.S., so I said, ``As soon
as I was recognized as a refugee in July 1995 I applied to the U.S.
INS,'' Mr. Johnson became angry and screamed, ``Didn't I tell you to
apply at the Canadian Embassy?'' I responded, ``It is illegal to
concurrently apply to two countries for resettlement as a refugee. I
couldn't do that.'' Mr. Johnson shouted, ``How do you know it is
illegal? Have you been in contact with an immigration officer?'' I
replied, ``No, I asked the receptionist at the information desk.'' Mr.
Johnson said, ``Who is a receptionist? You must have obtained that
information from an officer.'' I responded, ``That is not the case as
refugee applicants are not allowed inside [to obtain such information
from an officer].'' Mr. Johnson angrily said, ``Who do you think you
are that you are trying to teach me immigration law? When I ordered you
to apply to Canada you should have done it. Who do you think you are?
You are a nobody. You have no status. Who gave you the right to
complain [about U.S. INS, New Delhi]?'' I said, ``I did not complain to
any place.'' Before my response was translated Mr. Johnson said with
anger, ``I am an independent person here. No one in America can write
to me and tell me what to do. I can decide whom to accept and who to
reject [as refugee]. No one is allowed to tell me what to do.'' (This
statement was evidently in response to Congressman Wolf's letter to
Ambassador Wisner.)
He then looked at my file and asked the date of my baptism. I
responded, ``1989.'' Mr. Johnson asked, ``Where were you baptized?'' I
said, ``In Tehran, Iran.'' He asked, ``Why then the letter affirming
your baptism is from a church in Germany?'' I responded, ``Rev. Sepehri
[who wrote the affirmation letter] was formerly my pastor in Iran and
the director of the Iran Bible Society. Due to danger to his life he
fled from Iran to Germany. Rev. Sepehri baptized my wife and me in
Tehran, Iran. We contacted him in Germany to receive affirmation of
this fact.'' Mr. Johnson then asked for the original of the fax from
Rev. Sepehri. I showed him a photocopy which I had laminated. In order
to intimidate me, Mr. Johnson said the top part of my copy and what was
in my file did not agree. I responded, ``It is as clear as the day for
me that the two are the same.'' Mr. Johnson said, ``What if I contact
Rev. Sepehri?'' I responded, ``It is a great idea. That is the best way
to verify [the fact of my baptism].''
Mr. Johnson seemed to relax a bit and thumbed through more of my
documents in the file. Then he asked, ``Who is Ebrahim Ghaffari?'' I
said, ``He and his wife are directors of ICI [Iranian Christians
International].'' Mr. Johnson asked, ``Who is ICI?'' I explained about
ICI's work.
(Gap)
Then Mr. Johnson asked, ``Why do you want to go to the U.S.? Why do
you think you will be safe only in the U.S. while you are safe here in
India where there is an Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran?'' I
responded, ``India is not safe for Muslim converts to Christianity and
evangelical Christians from Iran. Muslim fanatics have put us under
pressure. I want to go to the U.S. to live and work in a safe
country.'' Mr. Johnson said, ``There are Muslim fanatics in the U.S.
also. You will not be safe there either.'' I responded, ``In the U.S. I
will no longer be a refugee, but an immigrant and the police will
protect me.'' Mr. Johnson said, ``The police in India will protect
you.'' I responded, ``No, that is not so. Only UNHCR supports us, but
even then it takes months to see an officer for an appointment. The
Indian police protect those who pay a bribe.'' Mr. Johnson said, ``Do
you think we in the U.S. hire the police to protect you on a daily
basis?'' Then he added, ``How do you want to live [support yourselfl in
the U.S.?'' I responded, ``First, I have a sponsor. Second, I will work
and I have faith that I can support my family and myself.'' Mr. Johnson
said, ``I was born in a Christian family myself. I am more of a
Christian than you. You don't need to teach me about faith.'' Then he
asked, ``There are many poor people in America and they have a strong
faith, but are not able to support themselves. If you think you can get
a job based on your faith then you are stupid. Do you know any skills/
jobs?'' I said, ``Yes, I am a tailor.'' Mr. Johnson stated with
ridicule, ``I don't think you will be able to have an income as a
tailor. It is not an important occupation.''
Then he asked, ``If you had a chance, would you return to Iran?'' I
said, ``Never.'' Mr. Johnson asked, ``Why do you think if you return to
Iran you will be killed? You exited [left] Iran legally.'' I responded,
``The Iranian Christian pastors who were killed in Iran in 1994 also
had Iranian passports and had gone in and out of Iran repeatedly.'' Mr.
Johnson asked, ``What is your source of support now?'' I said, ``I
received a small allowance from the UN and a little that my mother sent
until two months ago. She is no longer able to do so.'' At his point
Mr. Johnson looked at his calendar and told me, ``Be here at 10:00 A.M.
sharp on June 21, 1996 to receive our decision.''
Mr. Johnson took no notes during the interview. Sometimes he was so
angry that he would ask a question and not pause for my response. By
the end of the interview he seemed calmer.
My wife who was in the next room during the interview, had heard
all the screaming and shouting in Mr. Johnson's office. When I saw her
after the interview she was frightened, upset and crying.
After the interview, we were accepted for resettlement in the U.S.
as refugees. Following another tortuous process with the U.S. INS, and
further intervention of Iranian Christians International, Inc., we
arrived in the U.S. in December 1996, six months after we were accepted
for resettlement and twenty-four months after our arrival in India.
(The normal time period for processing to the U.S. after being accepted
is two to four months.) Our second child was born less than a month
after our arrival in the U.S. The doctor in New Delhi had told my wife
not to travel during her third trimester of pregnancy. This information
was given to the U.S. INS several times.
Conclusion:
The adversarial attitude of the U.S. INS officials and inconsistent
refugee processing has led to Iranian Christian refugees finding
themselves between a rock and a hard place. They cannot go back to
Iran, yet spend months or years in limbo living in hostile and
impoverished conditions before being processed to the U.S. First a
refugee must go through a long and difficult ordeal to obtain UNHCR
refugee status and financial assistance and then go through another
lengthy and arduous process with the U.S. INS to be accepted for
resettlement as a refugee in the U.S. During the time I was going
through this process, an Afghan refugee set herself afire because the
UNHCR refused to provide adequate medical care for her family.
Many of the refugees are financially destitute and cannot survive
unnecessarily drawn-out appeals. The complete refugee processing
procedures at the U.S. INS in New Delhi must be thoroughly investigated
and changes made so that other Iranian Christian refugees currently
stranded in India can be speedily processed to the U.S.; and so that
other fleeing refugees in the future will not need to go through the
severe hardship that my family and I faced.
This Subcommittee must continue to pressure the Iranian government
to discontinue its persecution, arrest, imprisonment, torture and
killing of Iranian Christians; to re-open churches and the Iranian
Bible Society, and allow Muslim converts to attend church, and pastors
to preach in Persian, the language of 90% of Iranians; and to allow
Iranian Christians to leave Iran. This Subcommittee must take the lead
in applying international pressure.