[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE FIRST ANNUAL STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1999
__________
Serial No. 106-97
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
64-167 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman
WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa TOM LANTOS, California
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DAN BURTON, Indiana Samoa
ELTON GALLEGLY, California MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
DANA ROHRABACHER, California SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
PETER T. KING, New York PAT DANNER, Missouri
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South BRAD SHERMAN, California
Carolina ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
MATT SALMON, Arizona STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
AMO HOUGHTON, New York JIM DAVIS, Florida
TOM CAMPBELL, California EARL POMEROY, North Dakota
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
KEVIN BRADY, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina BARBARA LEE, California
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
Richard J. Garon, Chief of Staff
Kathleen Bertelsen Moazed, Democratic Chief of Staff
------
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DAN BURTON, Indiana Samoa
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
PETER T. KING, New York BRAD SHERMAN, California
MATT SALMON, Arizona WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
Grover Joseph Rees, Subcommittee Staff Director
Douglas C. Anderson, Counsel
Gary Stephen Cox, Democratic Staff Director
Nicolle A. Sestric, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Honorable Robert Seiple, Ambassador-at-Large for International
Religious Freedom, U.S. Department of State.................... 7
Ms. Nina Shea, Member, U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom........................................................ 26
Mr. Stephen Rickard, Director, Washington Office, Amnesty
International USA.............................................. 29
Dr. Paul Marshall, Senior Fellow, Center for Religious Freedom,
Freedom House.................................................. 35
Rev. Nguyen Huu Le, Executive Director, Committee for Religious
Freedom in Vietnam, Former Religious Prisoner in Vietnam....... 38
Mr. Abdughuphur Kadirhaji, Uighur Muslim from Urumqi City,
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Regon, China........................ 40
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a U.S. Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, Chairman, Subcommittee on
International Operations and Human Rights...................... 52
Honorable Dan Burton, a U.S. Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana............................................... 57
Ambassador Seiple................................................ 58
Ms. Shea......................................................... 73
Mr. Rickard...................................................... 77
Dr. Marshall..................................................... 85
Rev. Le.......................................................... 92
Mr. Kadirhaji.................................................... 96
Additional material submitted for the record:
List of Names of Sikh victims, submitted by Rep. Burton.......... 100
List of Confiscated Church Properties, submitted by Reverend Le.. 121
THE FIRST ANNUAL STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM
----------
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on International,
Operations and Human Rights,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. In Room
2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith
(Chairman of the Subcommittee) Presiding.
Mr. Smith. The Subcommittee will come to order.
Good afternoon. Today's hearing is the latest in a series
of Subcommittee hearings focusing on religious persecution
around the world. Over the last 5 years, we have heard from
numerous government officials, experts, eyewitnesses and
victims at a dozen hearings focusing on various aspects of the
problem including worldwide anti-Semitism, the persecution of
Christians around the world, the 1995 massacre of Bosnian
Muslims in Srebrenica, the enslavement of black Christians in
the Sudan, and the use of torture against religious believers
and other prisoners of conscience.
Last year, this Subcommittee marked up H.R. 2415,
Congressman Frank Wolf's landmark legislation on the problem of
international religious persecution. In November, an amended
version of the Wolf bill was enacted into law as the
International Religious Freedom Act of 1999. Among the most
important provisions of that act were an Annual Report on
International Religious Freedom, a Special Ambassador for
Religious Freedom, and we are very happy to have here today an
independent bipartisan Commission on International Religious
Freedom.
Today we will hear testimony on the first annual report
provided to Congress pursuant to the Religious Freedom Act, and
among our witnesses are Ambassador Robert Seiple and
Commissioner Nina Shea, whose offices were created by the act.
So today's hearing is living proof that the United States has
taken some important steps toward helping millions of people
around the world who are persecuted simply because they are
people of faith.
Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go. The first
Annual Report exhibits some of the strengths but also some of
the weaknesses of the State Department's annual Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices, which address a broader range of
human rights violations. As we learn year after year in our
hearings on the Country Reports, the production of an honest
and effective report on human rights violences entails a series
of struggles.
First, it is necessary to get as many facts as possible and
to get them right. Then it is important to state the facts
clearly and honestly. It is important to avoid sensationalism,
but it is at least as important to avoid hiding the facts
behind exculpatory introductions or obfuscatory conclusions.
Finally, and most difficult of all, it is necessary to
translate a clear understanding of the facts about religious
persecution into a coherent policy for ending it.
In general, I believe the first Annual Report on
International Religious Freedom succeeds in getting the facts
straight. There are some important omissions, such as the
Indonesia report's failure to examine the evidence of anti-
Catholicism that has played an important role in the repression
of the people of East Timor by elements of the Indonesian
military.
I would note parenthetically we just spent all of last week
working on a 1-day hearing looking at the problem there, and we
were very pleased to have Jose Ramos-Horta as well as Xanana
Gusmao as two of our lead witnesses, in addition to Julia Taft
and Howard Koh. So that is one thing that we had in here.
But I am impressed with the extent to which the report
states hard facts even about governments with which the United
States enjoys friendly relations. For instance, the reports on
France, Austria, and Belgium detail the recent official
harassment and/or discrimination by the governments of these
countries against certain minority religions such as Jehovah's
Witnesses and some Evangelical and Pentecostal denominations.
Even more impressive is the first sentence of the report on
Saudi Arabia. It is a simple declarative sentence, and I quote,
``Freedom of religion does not exist.''
Unfortunately, in some places, the report could not seem to
resist trying to mitigate the unpleasant appearances of the
hard facts by surrounding them with weasel words. In several
reports on Communist countries, the government's failure to
enforce anti-religion laws uniformly--which is typically due to
inefficiency, favoritism or corruption--is reported in words
that suggest the possibility of secret first amendment
sympathies on the part of local or central governments. We are
told, for example, that the Cuban government's efforts to
control religion, quote, ``do not affect all denominations at
all times.''
The report on Laos even makes the remarkable assertion that
the central government was, and I quote, ``was unable to
control'' harsh measures taken against Christians by local and
provincial authorities, although these measures were fully
consistent with Communism party doctrine and previous actions
by the central government.
Ambassador Seiple, in calling attention to these
transparent attempts to sugar-coat the facts with meaningless
and/or misleading editorial comment, I do not want to detract
from the very good work that your office and the Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor have done on this report. On
the contrary, these nonsequiturs and disconnects are strong
evidence that there was a struggle within the administration
between human rights workers who tried to tell it exactly like
it is and some of our embassies or regional bureaus who were
carrying water for their odious clients. In general, the good
guys appear to have won.
Despite these important victories that have led to this
strong, honest, and thorough report, I am deeply concerned that
it might not result in the necessary changes in U.S. policy.
This is particularly sad because the International Religious
Freedom Act provided an important mechanism for bringing about
such changes. Specifically, the law provides that on or before
September 1st of each year, the same day the annual report is
due, the President shall review the status of religious freedom
in each foreign country to determine which governments have
``engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of
religious freedom'' during the proceeding 12 months.
These countries are to be designated as countries of
particular concern for religious freedom, and the President
then must either impose diplomatic, political or economic
sanction against the governments of these countries or issue a
waiver of such action. This year, however, the President did
not designate any countries of particular concern until late
last night, about 5 weeks beyond the statutory deadline.
Ambassador Seiple, I want to congratulate you for prying
that list loose from wherever it was in the Federal bureaucracy
in time for today's hearing. Unfortunately, this designates
only five countries along with two de facto authorities that
are not recognized by the U.S. as natural governments.
In choosing these seven regimes--Burma, China, Iran, Iraq,
Sudan, Serbia, and the Taliban--the President made only the
easy choices. Six of them are pariah regimes, already under
severe sanctions for reasons other than religious persecution.
The seventh, China, must have generated a warm debate within
the administration, not because the evidence is unclear about
the atrocities the Chinese government commits every day against
Roman Catholics, house church Protestants, Uighur Muslims,
Tibetan Buddhists, and other believers, but because a
designation of China as a country of particular concern might
be bad for the relationship.
Ambassador Seiple, I am glad the forces of light prevailed
when it came to designating China. But where is Vietnam, which
brutally suppresses Buddhists, Protestants and others who will
not join official churches run by the government itself and
which attempts to control the Catholic Church through a
Catholic Patriotic Association modeled closely after the
Chinese institution of the same name? Where is North Korea,
whose government imprisons evangelists and then treats them as
insane? Where are Laos and Cuba, which engage in similar brutal
practices? Where is Saudi Arabia in which, and again I quote,
``freedom of religion does not exist?''
Does the administration really believe these governments
have not engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations
of religious freedom? Or were the President and his advisers
more worried about injuring the relationship or interfering
with ongoing efforts to improve the relationship than with
giving the honest assessment required by the plain language of
the statute?
Mr. Ambassador, as you know, the Executive Summary of the
report contains a description of U.S. actions to promote
religious freedom abroad. Among other things, it states, ``the
most productive work often is done behind the scenes. It
happens when an ambassador, after discussing with his senior
official his country's important strategic relationship with
the U.S., raises one more thing, access to the imprisoned mufti
or information on a missionary who has disappeared.''
Unfortunately, this description tends to confirm rather
than dispel some of the most frequent criticisms of this
administration's treatment of religious liberty issues in its
conduct of U.S. foreign policy: First, that the administration
is squeamish about holding governments publicly accountable for
their repression; second, that the administration focuses on
specific high-profile cases rather than pressing for systemic
improvements; and, third, that the administration too often
treats religious liberty as ``one more thing,'' an addendum to
other policy discussions, rather than mainstreaming it into
other larger deliberations concerning economic, trade, aid,
security policies and the like, those things that might provide
concrete incentives for repressive regimes to change their
actions.
Mr. Ambassador, we need to convince, I believe, repressive
governments that religious freedom is not just ``one more
thing.'' Totalitarian regimes often come down harder on
religious believers than on anyone else. This is because
nothing threatens such regimes more than faith. In the modern
world, in which the rhetoric of cultural relativism and moral
equivalence is so often used to make the difference between
totalitarianism and freedom seem just like just a matter of
opinion, the strongest foundation for the absolute and
indivisible nature of human rights is the belief that these
rights are not bestowed by governments or international
organizations but by God. People who are secure in their
relationship with God do not intimidate easily.
So we must remind ourselves, and then we must remind our
government, that human rights policy is not just a subset of
trade policy, and refugee protection is not just an
inconvenient branch of immigration policy. On the contrary,
these policies are about recognizing that good and evil really
exist in the world. They are also about recognizing that we are
all brothers and sisters, and we are our brothers' and sisters'
keepers.
Mr. Ambassador, this report is a good first step toward
restoring these human rights policies to the place they deserve
as a top priority in American foreign policy, and I am very,
very grateful to have you here.
I would like to yield to my colleagues before introducing
our very distinguished guests.
The Chairman of the Full Committee, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank our distinguished Chairman of the Committee
and ranking minority Member of the Subcommittee on
International Operations and Human Rights, the gentleman from
New Jersey, Mr. Smith, and the gentlelady from Georgia, Ms.
McKinney, for holding this important hearing today. I see we
are joined by Congressman Lantos, who has been a staunch
supporter of religious freedom, and I want to especially
commend Congressman Frank Wolf, the gentleman from Virginia,
for his leadership on the important International Religious
Freedom Act. Although we regrettably had to accept some
weakening amendments to the bill from the Senate at the time we
adopted it, his leadership ensured the strong bipartisan
measure to final adoption.
In response to section 102 of the International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998, the State Department 1 month ago released
its first Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for
1999; and while the report can be criticized for its lack of
depth in many areas, I want to thank our good Ambassador who is
here with us today for focusing resources in the right
direction.
Ambassador Seiple has done an outstanding job as our first
Ambassador on our international religious freedom issues.
Besides the mandate to provide detailed information with
respect to religious freedom around the world, the
International Religious Freedom Act also requires that the
President or his designees, in this case the Secretary of
State, to determine which countries should be designated as
countries of particular concern.
I am informed that the list is made of up of Burma,
People's Republic of China, Sudan, Iran, Iraq and the Taliban
in Afghanistan. While there are many other nations that could
be mentioned, I was concerned to learn that Vietnam, Laos, Cuba
and Saudi Arabia were not designated. Vietnam and Laos have the
same restrictive policies on unapproved and unregistered
religious institutions as the People's Republic of China.
According to the Country Report on Human Rights Practices,
Saudi Arabia has a systematic discrimination based on religion,
and that is built into their law. Cuba imprisons and tortures
Protestant evangelists who refuse to work with denominations by
the government. Despite the opening of the talks that came
about through the Pope's recent visit, they turned out to be
just that, talk.
We hope that the administration will not be reluctant to
list Vietnam and Laos as countries of particular concern
because it is trying to ensure that these repressive regimes
obtain most favored nations trading status. Our Nation's
foreign policy must never be to ensure that business comes
before the right to freely practice one's religion and the
freedom of assembly.
We look forward to hearing from our distinguished
witnesses; and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this
hearing.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Chairman Gilman.
Mr. Lantos.
Mr. Lantos. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me at the outset commend my friend from Virginia, Frank
Wolf, who emphatically pursued this goal, and we are all here
to celebrate what in fact is a victory for religious freedom in
no small measure, thanks to his commitments and his efforts.
I also want to pay tribute to you and to Chairman Gilman
for your unfailing support of religious freedom. I want to
welcome our distinguished Ambassador and look forward to many
annual reports over the coming years.
I want to congratulate both you and the administration on
this report. I agree with my colleagues that the list of seven
could easily be expanded, and I hope that in coming years it
will either be expanded or the performance of these countries
will change so that they will not have to be included in this
infamous listing of countries that deny religious freedom.
I particularly want to commend the administration for
including China in the list. It is important for all of us in
Congress to recognize that we have a far greater degree of
freedom as individual Members of Congress to express our views
since it is not our responsibility to conduct official
diplomatic relations with other countries.
It is far easier for a Member of Congress to recommend that
China be on the list than it is for an administration which has
a tremendous variety of relationships with China to include
China. So I commend you, Mr. Ambassador, and Secretary Albright
and the President and the Vice President for having the courage
to include China in this list because China surely belongs on
that list.
I also agree with my colleagues that a number of countries,
ranging from Saudi Arabia to Vietnam to Cuba, should be
included on the basis of their performance; and I hope that in
subsequent reports, they either will be included or their
improved performance will qualify them not to be included.
But I think it is easy to nitpick the first historic report
on religious freedom globally. The United States is the only
country on the face of this planet--I want to repeat this--the
United States is the only country on the face of this planet
which has an annual report prepared by its administration and
submitted to its Congress on this most important subject.
I think it is very important to underscore the positive.
This is a major legislative achievement and a major
accomplishment by the administration. The report is extensive,
impressive, accurate and overwhelmingly depressing. It is
depressing because this fundamental human right, the right of
religious freedom, is so little observed in so many countries
of this world; and religious hatred and bigotry still permeate
the official public policy of large numbers of countries on the
face of this planet.
I think it is extremely important that we rejoice in our
combined and joint efforts as Republicans and Democrats and as
a Congress and as an administration; and I look forward to
working with you, Mr. Ambassador, and your staff, for years to
come, hopefully, to improve the cause of religious freedom
globally.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Lantos. I think you
pointed out so well that we do work in a bipartisan way on
human rights in a town that seems to have partisanship written
all over it. At least this is one area where we can come
together and promote the common welfare for people across the
planet. So thank you very much for your comments.
Mr. Pitts.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding
this hearing. Your efforts on behalf of religious freedom have
positively affected numerous people around the world, and I am
honored to work with you and commend especially Congressman
Wolf and Congressman Lantos, Chairman Gilman, to work on behalf
of promoting human rights and religious liberty around the
world.
I also want to commend Ambassador Seiple and the numerous
individuals in the State Department who spent, I am sure, a
tremendous amount of time and effort in the report that we are
examining today.
As a newly appointed member of the Helsinki Commission, I
have concerns regarding the state of religious freedom in
Europe and Central Asia and the Caucasus, concerns about how
the 1997 Russian religious law is being implemented.
The 1998 Uzbek law, which I think is the most restrictive
law in the OSCE region, criminalizes unregistered religious
activities. It penalizes free religious expression. Over 200
individuals have been imprisoned in Uzbekistan this year for
their religious practices. In countries such as Hungary and
Bulgaria and Ukraine and Romania, new laws restricting
religious freedom are in various stages of legislative process.
In Azerbaijan, the raid of the Baptist Church on September 5th
and last Sunday's raid of the German Lutheran Church underscore
the price that religious believers pay for their faith.
Because of time limitations, I won't go into detail. But,
like the Chairman, I am very concerned about the religious
liberty violations in the People's Republic of China, Sudan,
Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Egypt,
Iran, and others.
I am very disappointed that Vietnam and Pakistan were not
designated as countries of particular concern, despite
widespread religious liberty violations in both of these
countries.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing. I
look forward to working with all of you, all of us together on
behalf of religious liberty around the world.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Pitts.
Mr. Wolf?
Mr. Wolf. No opening statement. That is OK.
Mr. Smith. The prime sponsor of the bill has nothing to
say.
Mr. Smith. Let me introduce our distinguished witness,
Ambassador Robert Seiple, who was confirmed as the State
Department's first Ambassador-at-Large for International
Religious Freedom on May 5th of this year. For the last 11
years, he has served as president of World Vision, the largest
privately funded relief and developmental agency in the world.
A former Marine and recipient of the distinguished Flying Cross
and numerous other awards for his service in Vietnam,
Ambassador Seiple previously served as president of Eastern
College and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Mr. Ambassador, welcome to the Subcommittee. We look
forward to your statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT A. SEIPLE, AMBASSADOR-AT-
LARGE FOR INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Mr. Seiple. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Members
of Congress. With your permission, I will, in the interest of
time, read a shortened version of my prepared text and ask that
the entire text be entered into the record.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, the full text will be made a
part of the record.
Mr. Seiple. It is a pleasure to be here today to testify
about the Department of State's first Annual Report on
International Religious Freedom. I consider it an honor to
appear before you, knowing as I do the key role you played in
the Committee in promoting religious freedom and in creating
the International Religious Freedom Act.
We share a common vision, a simple but profound vision. It
is to help people who suffer because of their religious faith.
Such people live literally around the globe, and they number in
the millions. They live in fear, afraid to speak of what they
believe. They worship underground in 21st century catacombs,
lest authorities discover and punish their devotion to an
authority beyond the state. They languish in prisons and suffer
torture, simply because they love God in their own way.
They are children stolen from their parents, sold into
slavery and forced to convert to another religion. They are
Christian mothers searching for their missing sons. They are
Buddhist monks in reeducation camps, Jews imprisoned on
trumped-up charges of espionage, Muslims butchered for being
the wrong kinds of Muslims. They hail from every region and
race, and their blood cries out to us. Not for vengeance, but
for hope and for help and for redress.
Nor should we speak of human suffering merely in terms of
numbers. Suffering has a face. You will forgive me if I repeat
a story I told elsewhere. But in my office there is a lovely
watercolor painting of a house and a garden. The painted scene
is one of peace, which reflects the forgiveness in the artist's
heart. But that painting has its origins in hatred.
The artist is a young Lebanese woman named Mary, who at the
age of 18, was fleeing her village after it was overrun by
militia. Mary was caught by a militiamen who demanded with his
gun that she renounce her faith or die.
She refused to renounce her faith. The bullet was fired,
severed her spinal cord. Today Mary paints her paintings of
forgiveness with a paintbrush braced in her right hand. She
represents both the painful consequences of religious
persecution and the best fruits of religion. Mary is filled
with physical suffering, yet she forgives. In so doing, she
points the way to an enduring answer to religious persecution
and that is, of course, reconciliation.
In order to have forgiveness and reconciliation, we must
elevate the notion of universal human dignity, the idea that
every human being has an inherent and inviolable worth. Lest we
forget the face of suffering, or of forgiveness, I have
dedicated the first Annual Report on International Religious
Freedom to Mary.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, you are to be
commended for your work on this issue and for calling this
hearing. Together with the International Religious Freedom Act
and our own new Report on International Religious Freedom, this
hearing will sharpen the focus for those of us who may be in a
position to help, while at the same time it will provide hope
to believers in every place where hope is in short supply and
where each day brings fear of more persecution.
We are all aware that religious liberty is the first
freedom of our Bill of Rights and is cherished by many
Americans as the most precious of those rights granted by God
and to be protected by governments. This Congress was wise in
recognizing that freedom of religion and--in a religious
context--freedom of conscience, expression and association are
also among the founding principles of international human
rights covenants.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the
International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, as well
as other human rights instruments, grant citizens of the world
the right to freedom of religion. As a consequence, when we go
to officials of foreign governments to urge them to protect
religious freedom, we are not asking them to do it our way. We
are asking them to live up to their commitments that they have
made, both to their own people and to the world.
Mr. Chairman and Members, as you well know, on October 27th
of last year, President Clinton signed into law the
International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Section 102 of
that bill calls for the submission to Congress of an Annual
Report on International Religious Freedom to supplement the
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices by providing
additional detailed information with respect to matters
involving international religious freedom.
On September 9th, we submitted to Congress the first
International Religious Freedom report. It is this. This is
1,100 pages long. It covers 194 countries and focuses
exclusively on the status of religious freedom in each. I would
like publicly to thank the hundreds of Foreign Service Officers
worldwide who helped research, draft, corroborate and edit this
new report.
I want to extend a special thanks to officers in the Bureau
for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, in particular, the staff
of the Office of Country Reports and Asylum Affairs. These
dedicated officers worked overtime, literally and figuratively,
in order to meet the deadline and to produce the best possible
product.
Finally, I wish to thank my own staff in the Office of
International Religious Freedom, not only for their hard work
but for their love of their work. They are proud to say, as you
do in the International Religious Freedom Act, that the United
States stands with the persecuted.
The report applies to all religions and beliefs. It targets
no particular country or religion, and it seeks to promote no
religion over another. It does, however, recognize the
intrinsic value of religion, even as it acknowledges that
religious freedom includes the right not to believe or to
practice. Integrity has been our goal as we sought to ascertain
and report the status of religious freedom in all countries
around the globe.
The report includes an introduction, an Executive Summary,
and a separate section on each of the 194 countries. The
introduction lays the philosophical groundwork for promoting
religious freedom. While noting there is more than one
understanding of the source of the human dignity, it also
acknowledges a religious understanding of that source, namely,
the idea that every human being possesses an intrinsic and
inviolable worth that has a devine origin and is part of the
natural order of things.
So understood, religious freedom can provide support for
all other human rights. When the dignity of the human person is
destroyed, it is not simply a practical rule that is being
violated, but the nature of the world itself.
Mr. Chairman, I am sure you will agree that if the idea of
human dignity is viewed merely as a utilitarian matter, solely
the product of legislation or treaties, it becomes perishable.
Any national or international standard that reflects only the
norms of a given cultural or historical period can be abolished
for the convenience of the powerful.
Drawing from the individual reports, the Executive Summary
provides a brief description of barriers to religious freedom
in some 35 countries, grouped around five themes ranging from
discrimination to harsh persecution. As required by the act,
the Executive Summary includes, but is not limited to, those
countries that may be designated countries of particular
concern.
Each of the 194 Country Reports begins with the statement
about applicable laws and outlines whether the country requires
registration of religious groups. It then provides----
Mr. Smith. Mr. Ambassador, I think your microphone just
went out. Thank you.
Mr. Seiple. Each of the 194 Country Reports begins with a
statement about applicable laws and outlines whether the
country requires registration of religious groups. It then
provides a demographic overview of the population by religious
affiliation, outlines problems encountered by various religious
groups, describes societal attitudes and finishes with an
overview of U.S. policies.
The drafting process was similar to that used in preparing
the Human Rights Reports. We worked diligently to include as
much factual information as possible, relying not only on our
other sources but also on material from experts in the
academia, nongovernmental organizations and the media. Our
guiding principle was to ensure that all relevant information
was assessed objectively, thoroughly and fairly as possible. We
hope that Congress finds the report to be an objective and
comprehensive resource.
The International Religious Freedom Act also requires that
the President, or in this case his designee, the Secretary of
State, review the status of religious freedom throughout the
world in order to determine which countries should be
designated as countries of particular concern. As the Chairman
and the Committee Members know, we have delayed the
designations in order to give the Secretary ample time to
consider all the relevant data, as well as my own
recommendations.
She has been reading relevant parts of the report itself,
which was not completed until September 8th. Designations must
be based on those reports, as well as on the Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices, and all other information available to
us.
I am pleased to tell you that the Secretary has completed
her review. We will shortly send to the Congress an official
letter of notification in which we will detail the Secretary's
decision with respect to any additional actions to be taken.
While I am not prepared today to discuss those actions, I do
wish to announce the countries that the Secretary intends to
designate under the act as countries of particular concern.
They are Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, and Sudan.
The Secretary also intends to identify the Taliban in
Afghanistan, which we do not recognize as a government, and
Serbia, which is not a country, as particularly severe
violators of religious freedom. I will be happy to take your
questions about the restrictions on the exercise of religious
freedom in all of these areas.
I would also note that there are many other countries that
our report discusses where religious freedoms appear to be
suppressed. In some instances, like Saudi Arabia, those
countries are beginning to take steps to address the problem.
In some countries, such as North Korea, religious freedoms may
be suppressed, but we lack the data to make an informed
assessment. We will continue to look at these cases and collect
information so that, if a country merits designation under the
act, we will so designate it in the future.
Let me turn briefly to the subject of U.S. actions to
promote religious freedom abroad.
Secretary Albright has said that our commitment to
religious liberty is even more than the expression of American
ideals. It is a fundamental source of our strength in the
world. The President, the Secretary of State and many senior
U.S. officials have addressed the issue of freedom in venues
throughout the world. Secretary Albright some time ago issued
formal instructions to all U.S. diplomatic posts to give more
attention to religious freedom both in reporting and in
advocacy.
During the period covered by this report, all of 1998 and
the first 6 months of 1999, the U.S. engaged in a variety of
efforts to promote the right of religious freedom and to oppose
violations of that right. As prescribed in the International
Religious Freedom Act, the Executive Summary describes U.S.
actions to actively promote religious freedom.
Drawing on the individual reports, it describes certain
activities by U.S. Ambassadors, other embassy officials and
other high-level U.S. officials, including the President, the
Secretary, Members of Congress, as well as the activities of my
own office.
Our staff has visited some 15 countries in the last several
months, including China, Egypt, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Serbia,
Russia, Indonesia, Laos, Kazakhstan, Israel, Saudi Arabia,
France, Germany, Austria, and Belgium. We have met with
hundreds of officials, NGO's, human rights groups, religious
organizations and journalists, here and abroad. I am delighted
to report to you that our office has become a clearing house
for people with information about religious persecution and
discrimination and for the persecuted themselves. By fax,
telephone, E-mail and direct visits they tell us their stories.
We listen, record, and, when appropriate, we act.
At the very least, we believe we have created a process by
which their stories can be verified and integrated into our
annual report. With persistence and faith, perhaps our efforts
will lead to a reduction in persecution and an increase in
religious freedom.
Mr. Chairman, I have provided in my written statement a
description of U.S. efforts in three countries, China,
Uzbekistan, and Russia, where Congress has shown particular
interest and in which we have expended considerable diplomatic
effort.
In China, our collective efforts on behalf of persecuted
minorities, and I include Members of Congress in that
collective, have been persistent and intense, but have
unfortunately had little effect on the behavior of the Chinese
Government.
In Uzbekistan, our efforts have met with some success,
although it certainly is too soon to discern long-term or
systemic change for the better.
In Russia, our interventions with the Russian government
have apparently blunted the effects of a bad religion law.
Again, I am willing to discuss with you any country about
which you have concerns.
Let me close, Mr. Chairman, by thanking you for your
leadership in the promotion of international religious freedom
and the entire Committee for its willingness to hold this
hearing. As I said at the outset, we share a common vision. It
is of a world in which people of all religions are free from
persecution. To create such a world, we seek to change the
behavior of those regimes which engage in or tolerate abuses of
religious freedom and to signal persecutors and persecuted
alike that they will not be forgotten.
But, Mr. Chairman and Members of Congress, there is a
profoundly important point that I believe is sometimes missed
in our discussions of religious freedom, a point I briefly made
earlier and one with which I am certain you will agree. Let me
return to it in closing. To protect freedom of religion is not
simply to shield religious belief and worship. It is that, but
it is more. When we defend religious freedom, we defend every
human being who is viewed as an object or a product to be used
or eliminated according to the purposes of those with power.
I believe that to guard religious freedom is to lift high
the noblest of ideas, indeed the idea that is the seed bed of
our own democracy. It is a religious understanding of human
dignity, the conviction that every person, of whatever social,
economic, religious or political status of whatever race, creed
or location, is endowed by God, with a value which does not
rise or fall with income or productivity, with status or
position, with power or weakness.
Mr. Chairman, let us together renew our determination to
combat religious persecution and to promote religious freedom.
By so doing, we hold out hope for those who live in fear
because of what they believe and how they worship. By so doing,
we give pause to those who contemplate tormenting others
because of their religious beliefs. By so doing, we strengthen
the very heart of human rights.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Seiple appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ambassador Seiple, for your
very powerful statement and very persuasive words and for your
personal commitment to undertake so many trips abroad to meet
with the leaders of religious faiths and, perhaps even more
importantly, with the government officials to personally convey
our government's deep concern about the plight of persecuted
religious individuals or groups. I want to thank you very
strongly for that.
I also want to commend Mr. Farr for his good work and other
members of your commission and your office for the fine work,
again, in producing this voluminous document which becomes the
basis for action; and we hope that that is what will follow.
Mr. Burton has joined us, and I would like to yield to him
for any opening statement.
Mr. Burton. Yes, I have just have a real quick opening
statement. I want to apologize, Mr. Chairman, because I do have
to go to another hearing.
I have heard good things about Mr. Seiple. Many times we
have people testify that we take issue with, but it sounds like
to me you are doing a pretty good job.
The Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab
recently issued a new report on enforced disappearances,
arbitrary executions and secret cremations of Sikhs in the
Punjab in northern India. It documents the names and addresses
of 838 victims of this policy, and I have those I would like to
submit for the record.
The report is both shocking and distressing. The Committee
is an umbrella organization of 18 human rights organizations
under the leadership of a Hindu human rights activist. The
report discusses ``illegal abductions and secret cremations of
dead bodies.'' in fact, the Indian Supreme Court has itself
described this policy as ``worse than a genocide.'' the report
includes direct testimony from members of the victims'
families, other witnesses and details of these brutal cases.
The human rights community has stated that over 50,000
Sikhs have, quote, ``disappeared'' at the hands of the Indian
government in the early 1990's. How can any country, especially
one that claims to be the world's largest democracy, get away
with so many killings, abductions and other atrocities? It is
going on not only in Punjab but Kashmir and elsewhere in the
India.
Will the Indian government prosecute the officials of its
security forces who are responsible for these acts? Will the
Indian government compensate the victims and their families? I
think not.
Mr. Seiple, I want to thank you for the reception you have
given my staff and other organizations that may have submitted
various reports and information for your review. I am
encouraged by some of the findings in your report that focuses
the attention in India on Christian persecution.
I also want to point out to Mr. Seiple and my colleagues
that, last week, Human Rights Watch issued a 37-page report
that details violence against Christians in India that include
killings of priests, rapings of nuns and the physical
destruction of Christian institutions, schools and churches.
But I want to remind everyone that there is persecution in
Indian of almost all religions. So I hope that you will take a
hard look at this report from the Committee for Coordination on
Disappearances in Punjab, and I look forward to working with
you in the future.
Mr. Chairman, as I said before, I would like unanimous
consent to submit the names of 838 Sikh victims that have just
disappeared from the face of the earth and are believed to be
cremated by the Indian government. Also, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to, since I do have to leave, thank you for holding this
hearing and also submit a few questions for the record.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, Mr. Burton, your submissions
will be made a part of the record.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Seiple.
[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Smith. The chair recognizes the Chairman of the Full
Committee, Mr. Gilman, who regrettably is on a short timeframe
and will have to depart, but he has some questions that he
wanted to ask.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, I thank you for conducting this important hearing.
We thank Mr. Seiple for being here, for his good report,
even though it left out some of the countries we are concerned
about.
Mr. Ambassador, is the President merely saying that there
are only seven regimes in the world that inflict torture or
other cruel treatment of prolonged detention without charge on
religious believers? Is that contrary to the report itself?
Mr. Seiple. When we did the report, we looked at the
language in the act, and the bar created four countries of
particular country concern. It is very specific language. It
talks about the government that either engages in or tolerates
ongoing, systematic and egregious--and then it goes on to
define egregious as acts of persecution, which include things
like prolonged interment, torture, rape, disappearance and
general mayhem about people and does that on the basis to a
significant degree because of religion. That is the standard
that we apply to every one of the countries.
I am prepared in anticipation of this question to talk
about those that either came close or came over the line or
didn't quite meet the line, but simply to say that this in our
mind was a very high bar, and when a country is so designated,
it is a very significant blight on their record, and that is
the approach that we took with every country.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Ambassador, were any agencies outside the
State Department consulted about which countries should be
included in the list?
Mr. Seiple. We talked to literally hundreds of people and
NGO's and human rights organizations. We also went through this
with the commission head. The commission normally in a given
year would have a report to give to us by the 1st of May.
The commission is the independent commission started up
late this year. I did have those conversations with the
commission, all of which is to say that I think that we have
inputs. In fact, a lot of the reporting in places will show
that those inputs came from places like Human Rights Watch,
Amnesty, Freedom House, and any place that we could get
verifiable information. If we could sustain it with
credibility, it is in the report.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Ambassador, did you discuss this with any
Federal agencies?
Mr. Seiple. In the sanctioning process that we have begun
and that you will hear about when the official letters of
designation come for CPC's, those other Federal agencies, like
the Treasury Department and so on, have to be included as we
discuss sanctions. So, in that sense, there are other avenues
and other venues and other parts of the U.S. Government.
We have also worked very closely with this Congress in a
couple of countries, namely Uzbekistan and very recently Egypt,
and continued to work with staffers here in Congress at all
levels.
Mr. Gilman. Did any of the other Federal agencies or
departments recommend to you that you not include any of those
countries that you were considering?
Mr. Seiple. Our recommendations were only based on the
facts. We wanted to make sure that we had the report right so
that the second exercise of designation would flow from the
report and the report would be an acceptable and credible
rationale for that designation.
Answering your question specifically, no.
Mr. Gilman. One last question, Mr. Ambassador. With regard
to Tibet, during the period covered by the report, diplomatic
personnel consistently urged both central and local Chinese
authorities to respect religious freedom in Tibet. Figures as
prominent as President Clinton and Assistant Secretary Koh
raised specific issues of concern about the human rights
situation in Tibet. Yet at the same time, by the report's own
reckoning, religious freedom in Tibet diminished, and the
Chinese Government launched a 3-year campaign against religious
exercise.
Given the inefficacy of admonitions in the Beijing regime,
what more can be done to address this deteriorating situation
in Tibet? We would welcome your recommendation.
Mr. Seiple. As we point out in the report, this has not
been an easy time with our relations with China and primarily
because of the human rights abuses. This has not been a year
when the human rights situation has improved. It has remained
consistently bad. You are right to point out the widespread
abuses in Tibet and, of course, we could go to other parts, as
you will hear today, of China, as to how that happened.
The silver bullet for making all of that right, for getting
the attention, I don't know. We will continue to look for a
dialogue that produces results. We will continue to talk to the
Chinese in terms of the international covenants they have
signed which clearly spell out their obligations for mutual
accountability to the global community, on what they are doing
in places like Tibet.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ambassador, I noted and I was glad that you undertook
the trip to China last January; and one of the first items
mentioned in U.S. action to promote religious freedom abroad in
the Executive Summary was to raise the issue of Bishop Su of
Hebei province.
I had met with Bishop Su when he was briefly out of prison.
He requested the meeting, and he actually celebrated mass with
our human rights delegation, and then for that, apparently, he
was rearrested and has spent time in prison, and now his
whereabouts remains somewhat of a mystery.
In explaining that the new law does have some sanctions,
however modest those sanctions may be, however waivable those
sanctions may be, did you get information concerning Bishop Su
then or now or any time in between those conversations almost a
year ago? Second, did they take you as if you had credibility
when you say that there are some things, penalties, that could
be imposed if there is not a mitigation of your violations of
these basic human rights?
I would like to yield.
Mr. Seiple. As we point out in the report, the whereabouts
of Bishop Su Ahimin is still, as you say, unknown. Everyone
that has gone and every high-ranking official that has brought
up this individual in this particular context has gotten the
same information. We have not been allowed to see people. We
have not been allowed to visit priests that had been put in
prison, even though, in many cases, as I pointed out to them
when I was there in January, if you would let me go and talk to
the priest, maybe we could put to rest the provocative stories
that are coming out around the world. Still they would not
allow me to go. They would not allow our embassy to go.
So our information comes from other sources. I think it is
good information, but it hasn't come from government.
Have we been ignored as a representative of this country in
terms of human rights? We don't have much to point to in this
last year, except that we had been faithful and persistent in
explaining the position, explaining our desires to promote
religious freedom, not to take punitive actions and point
fingers and act in a judgmental fashion but to find ways to
take the ball forward in a way that can be helpful to the
government as well as to the people who this day are repressed.
Whether there are larger issues that overshadow this, they
are very concerned about their anniversaries. They are very
concerned about their economy. They are very concerned about
the bankruptcy of the Communist ideology. Maybe there are other
issues that overshadow this. But they know as a part of our
foreign policy--and I think by designating China, it may have
been a surprise, but by designating China, they know that we
are not going to sweep any of this under the rug when it comes
to our bilateral relationship.
Mr. Smith. There is no doubt that light acts as a
disinfectant, and it is certainly helpful and gives us more
moral suasion when we would deal with them. But, again, did
they convey back to you then, or at any time since, that they
take seriously the fact that some penalty might be imposed upon
them, some kind of sanction so that they might curb some of
their more egregious behavior?
Mr. Seiple. I have to answer that somewhat indirectly,
because specifically we never posed that with an answer to come
back. I think the penalty for the Chinese in a global community
is putting them in the group that we have designated today. I
think that is the largest thing we could have done to them.
I think that they will care more about that, and again from
indirect intuition and conversations with a wide variety of
Chinese in this last year, I think that will mean more than any
specific sanction that ultimately comes with the letter that
you will be receiving shortly from the Secretary.
Mr. Smith. I do hope you are right. I know that you are
very sincere and you believe that and it is likely that it
could lead to some good and we all certainly hope that is the
case.
Let me just ask you and really followup to Mr. Gilman's
question with regards to those countries that are included and
those that somehow didn't make the bar. Were there countries--
did the President accept your recommendations in its totality?
Were there some like Saudi Arabia which again had that very
clear definitive, declarative sentence that there is no
religious freedom in Saudi Arabia and we do know that there are
arrests. We know that there are punishments, including the use
of torture, against people, especially if they convert from
Islam to Christianity.
It is hard--it seems to be a real stretch to say they
shouldn't be included in the list, even if our relationship as
it is, is strategic and close, all friends commit human rights
abuses, since we are a mirror perhaps, why weren't they on
there?
Was there any kind of political vetting that went on with
regards to this country's too much of a strategic ally or was
this the plain, unvarnished truth?
Mr. Seiple. This is the plain, unvarnished truth. We do not
look for political justifications. We didn't talk to folks who
perhaps would bring that to the fore. We looked at the facts
and, again, took the facts up against a very high standard. If
you look at the standard that I mentioned before, the standard
that comes out of the act, we tried to be very faithful there,
but as you look at that standard, it is systematic, ongoing and
egregious.
There is no question that Saudi Arabia is systematic,
ongoing and egregious in terms of the persecution as it is
defined in the act, not in the period of the report. I had a
conversation with their foreign minister last February, and we
talked about in these very narrow lines of realpolitik for us
to negotiate--can we get non-Muslims worshipping privately
without threat of the Mutawwa coming in and harassing them,
beating them up and everything else? I got from him a
commitment that that would not happen. Non-Muslims can worship
as long as it is privately, and they can worship in a secure
environment.
To date, in the preparation of the report time, that has
been a faithful keeping of the word. That is not a major
victory, it is not a large step, it is a very small step, but
in a very difficult context. We want to move the ball forward,
and I think that is positive. I think we have a government
there willing to work with us within fairly tight restrictions.
We wish it would be better. We wish that there would be
optimism to our way of thinking about this and the
international covenants that the global community has come up
with, but we have made progress in terms of Saudi Arabia over
where we were.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you briefly about Vietnam,
because that is something that other Members and myself
included in our opening comments. Many of us know many people
who have recently immigrated from there. We work with human
rights organizations, and there is a question as to why that
country was not included as well. Maybe there is a good answer,
and we look forward to hearing that. If you are outside the
official government structure, as in China, you are in for
almost like, very severe limitations, including incarceration.
We know that they, just like China, impose a quota on the
number of kids you can have. That two child per couple policy
has real religious significance especially when Catholic and
other Christian denominations speak out against that. As a
matter of fact, they can be arrested for it.
What about Vietnam?
Mr. Seiple. First of all, I am not here to defend any of
these countries. Obviously, a lot of them are closed cases.
This was my 12th trip into Vietnam last July. I know the
country well, I know the people well, and I know the groups
well. What I have seen over the last several years, although
this was my first year and my first visit going in for
international religious freedom and had confirmed by every
religious group that I met with, Catholics, Buddhists,
Protestants, evangelical Protestants, both belonging to the
Temlon Church and other groups, that would be more coming out
of the hills, tribesmen and so on. Every group I talked to
assured me that things were better in terms of religious
repression in the last 5 years. Things had come to a better
place than they had been.
Now, the shoe can drop at any time and things can change.
But in the period of this report, we saw progress, we saw
general amnesties for the first time. Many of the people that
had been in prison had been let out. We have been led to
believe that there will be more amnesties. We have seen the
Marian devotion at Le Van. Last year, 100,000 Catholics were
allowed to gather. This year that group is 200,000. This is
progress.
Will it continue? I don't think we should be Pollyanna-ish.
I think we have to watch it closely. We have a tremendous
Ambassador in Pete Peterson there making these same cases and
these same points with the Vietnamese government. It was a
close call, but there was progress. They were receptive to
diplomatic initiatives, unlike some of the countries that have
been on the list.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Let me just followup. In Vietnam,
reliable sources have described the Dien Bien region as the
center of a new anti-Christian campaign by Vietnamese
officials. Vietnamese government documents support these
reports.
One particular document describes a pilot project aimed at
preventing the growth of Christianity throughout the country.
In certain areas of Vietnam, government officials encouraged
villages to attend seminars to learn about the government's
attitude toward Christianity. Villages are required to sign a
statement promising that they will not study the Christian
religion or take part in any Christian activities such as Bible
reading or worship services, and they will actively tell them
not to participate in the Christian religion.
I was just wondering, is this something that your
commission is aware of, is looking into, has spoken out
against?
Mr. Seiple. I think you are talking about many of the Hmong
tribesmen, and we spent a lot of time on this issue in order to
understand it, in order to help the Vietnamese understand it.
By the way, these are the folks that fought with us back in the
1960's and 1970's, and we should look for ways not only to take
their part but to raise their issue to the Vietnamese in terms
again of the international covenants that they have signed, and
we have done that.
It is complicated. Some are Christian, some are millennial
cults, and unfortunately, the Vietnamese government, not
knowing the difference, could come down with a hammer on all of
them. It is complicated, because they are historic enemies. As
I say, they fought on our side. It is complicated because of
the ethnicity and their location on the borders.
Again, in my recent trip, we spent probably the majority of
the time with every person we talked to talking about this
issue. If these issues that have come to light since the
closing of the report continue to rear their head, we can come
back, obviously, and make them a country of particular concern.
I hope that won't happen, I hope the diplomacy will work, but
obviously we have that option.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
Mr. Wolf.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I am not a Member of the Committee, and I want to
thank you for the opportunity to be here and also for your
helping in getting this passed. I think the record should show
that Chris Smith has done more to help the persecuted, the poor
and the suffering than just about almost anyone else in the
Congress. So I just want to thank you for that and thank you
for having the hearings.
Mr. Ambassador, I want to welcome you here and thank you,
too, for the work and for the report. I have a couple of
questions.
At the outset I was just wondering, China is of a
particular interest, and it was one of the countries that you
named. In the text on China, you never used the word
``persecution'', and looking in Afghanistan the word
``persecution'' is used on page 4 of the report for
Afghanistan. What would lead you to use the word
``persecution'' in Afghanistan and not use the word
``persecution'' in China? You used the word--or the government
in the report used the word ``restrictions.'' What would be the
difference there?
Mr. Seiple. Let me answer that in general. First of all, we
did each country separately. I am delighted that you read the
reports to find that word. I am chagrined that you found that
word by reading the reports carefully, but let me say that we
tried to write without any kind of volatile----
Mr. Wolf. I didn't mean that as a criticism, just so you
know. I am just trying to get the sense if there was a style of
writing.
Mr. Seiple. I appreciate that. The style of writing was to
be in a narrative style without volatile language. A statement
of facts, just stating the facts as we know them, without
biasing the fact with a word that carries a little bit more
emotion than perhaps we want in the report. We felt in the
countries-of-particular-concern exercise we could do the
denunciation, and that is where we would use the language that
would specifically talk about persecution. Persecution is an
important word to us. I am not sure how it escaped in one and
not the other, but we take it seriously in terms of the
definition that the act provides us with.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you.
The law prescribes several actions by the State Department:
web site, training at the Foreign Service Institute, prisoner
list. Where does that sit with regard to those three?
Mr. Seiple. The web site is up and running--www.state.gov.
You don't have to have your own hard-bound copy, but that is
there. We have worked extensively with the Foreign Service
Institute specifically in two areas: What are the courses that
are going to be provided on this issue for incoming Foreign
Service Officers, and what kind of training will we give our
Ambassadors before we go into the field?
In terms of the prisoner list, we have a lot of work to do.
Where we have them, they have been collected and collated in
our office. As you point out correctly by the act, we are the
office that is supposed to keep them. In many countries, they
are up to date and up to speed, and we are pleased with how
complete they are. In some countries, we are still working on
that.
Let me say in that regard, and this is also back to
Chairman Smith's comment earlier, any of the information that
you have that perhaps we don't have, we would love to take it
off your hands to make sure that it gets into the next report,
or if there is a correction that has to go into the country
reports that come out in January that we can make that
correction as well.
Mr. Wolf. I would share the comment that was made by the
Chairman, Mr. Smith, and also Chairman Gilman with regard to
several of the other countries, Vietnam and North Korea, but I
am not second-guessing you, obviously, and I think it is a
process that you are moving through. I think the list that you
selected--Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, and Sudan--nobody could
question, and maybe, looking at it from your point of view,
there has been a minor improvement and maybe that is a reason
not to be on the list. I think the fact that you made a fair
report at the outset sends the message that the next time
another country comes on that they will show that they are
slipping back, rather than making progress. So maybe the fact
that you have only limited it to these is really appropriate.
But I think there are some other countries that other Members,
myself included, think that should be on there.
I think the question that I have is of the enforcement. I
think the fact that China made it is enough, to a certain
degree, but I think you are going to have to do more, and my
sense is the first enforcement that you take will be watched by
the other countries. I think it ought to be tough, but I think
it ought to be fair. I think it ought to be something that an
objective group of people would look at and say, this is tough,
but this is certainly, certainly fair, and I would emphasize
fair as well as the tough.
But that all eyes will be watching, because if it gets to
the point that you make this list and nothing really happens,
then some of these countries will almost view the list as a
badge of honor because of the types of some of the people that
are running some of these countries. I can almost hear some of
the prison wardens just kind of feeling that they are really
doing great because they made the list versus the other.
So I think how you enforce it and when you come out with
whatever it will be--and of course, in the bill, the list
ranges from almost nothing to fairly significant. But I would
just urge you to be very, very careful, because everyone is
going to be watching. It is like when you are in school and the
first person is punished, I think it sends a message to
everybody else. We go from a private demarche, which would be
irrelevant, to prohibiting the U.S. Government from procuring
or entering into a contract for the procurement of any goods
for the foreign government. So there is a big list that I know
you are going to have a tough job with, but I hope it is tough
enough but fair enough that it sends a message to everyone that
is not on the list.
I think also, because of the credible job that you have
done here, and I think if the enforcement is tough enough,
although fair, my sense is you are going to find other
countries doing certain things to make sure that they are not
on the list. I think you are going to find people who are never
arrested solely because a country doesn't want to be on the
list. I think you will also find that some of the jail cells
are open and people get out because they don't want to be on
the list. Every year, it is like the battle for MFN in the old
days with the Soviet Union and others, things would improve. I
think your list may do more good that we never really see. But,
it is the crack down that doesn't take place because the list
is ready to come out. So I think how that is done is very
important.
One other--or two other questions. On page 7, you said, in
some instances like Saudi Arabia, those countries are beginning
to take steps to address the problem. What steps is Saudi
Arabia taking?
Mr. Seiple. The step that I mentioned in terms of Saudi
Arabia was the commitment that not only could non-Muslims
worship privately, but they would worship without harassment.
That was not the case--was not always the case; and, as I said,
in the period of this report, they kept their word.
Mr. Wolf. So next year, you will go and look to see if that
commitment was kept. If it was not kept, that would be a
negative for them; if it were kept, that would move them
farther forward?
Mr. Seiple. We would like to see a continuum going forward.
We are in the business of promoting international religious
freedom and, as I said, with Saudi Arabia the steps are going
to be small. It is going to take lots of time, but I hope this
is the first of many steps.
Mr. Wolf. Positive reinforcement can be as effective as
negative.
Mr. Seiple. Absolutely.
Mr. Wolf. So I think it is the carrot and the stick.
One last question. Very, very appropriately I see you added
the country of Sudan on the list, and we know you know 2
million people have died. I am sure you watched or have heard
about the movie Touched by an Angel and how they covered it,
Senator Brownback's recent trip there with Congressman
Tancredo, and I think it is so factual that nobody can even
debate this issue. I am pleased that it is on. I have been
concerned. You have China and Sudan, you almost get a two-for
with regard to this.
The Chinese National Petroleum Company, who wants to raise
capital in the United States, has a project in Sudan. Their
main foreign investment is the oil fields and the construction
of a pipeline in Sudan. If our government allows Sudan to earn
an estimated $500 million, which I have seen in the articles
that they want to use for buying more weapons to kill more
innocent people, you will have a problem of the listing of the
Chinese National Petroleum Company. They get the oil, they get
the revenues, Sudan doesn't have to purchase oil on the open
market, so they have more that they can use to kill people, and
then they get $500 million of revenue from this that they can
buy and develop an armament industry.
I have written to the Chairman of the SEC and the New York
Stock Exchange asking them not to allow CNPC to raise capital
in the U.S. I mean, to think that schoolteachers and retirees
might unwittingly invest in it, and I am a Presbyterian--maybe
the Presbyterian fund for ministers will invest in it? Most
people wouldn't know how CNPC is invested in Sudan. To think
that American dollars of teachers and religious leaders or
insurance agents or anybody would be invested on the New York
Stock Exchange which would allow the Chinese National Petroleum
Company to earn revenue.
Then also where the PLA and others can do what they are
doing, and we know in Tibet and places and in China, and also
enable Sudan to proceed with the war, would you speak, or would
the government speak certainly to the SEC and explain the
concerns that the State Department has with regard to
terrorism? There are many terrorist training camps in Sudan.
The Sudanese government was implicated in the assassination
attempt on President Mubarak, and the people who did this are
still there in Sudan. There are stories of slavery and
everything else.
Would you feel it is appropriate--and I would urge you if
you do, I don't want to ask you anything that is not--but for
the State Department to consider contacting the Securities and
Exchange Commission, a Federal agency, and the appointments at
the SEC are made by the President, confirmed by the Senate, to
not list--to urge the New York Stock Exchange and Mr. Richard
Grasso not to list this company on the New York Stock Exchange
for several reasons. One, China has now made the bad list,
Sudan has now made the bad list, and by listing this company,
we are not even providing a sanction, we are providing actually
an encouragement, and I hope they won't be listed.
Mr. Seiple. That is a very interesting point.
Obviously, people at the State Department working on
Sudan--and our office works a great deal on Sudan--are very
concerned about what happens to the dynamic of a 16-year war
once you have this income stream coming into the north. I would
appreciate very much getting a copy of the letter that you have
sent, and maybe this is an area where we could work together to
do some good.
Mr. Wolf. Good. I would appreciate it.
Again, let me just personally thank you and thank all of
your staff for the good efforts and work.
Years ago, there was a Congressman Mike Barnes who passed a
bill to raise the drinking age to 21, and I remember supporting
the bill on the floor at that time and saying, because of his
efforts, there will be a lot of people who never get the
telephone call saying that their son or daughter is dead.
Because they don't know why. It is just because that law made a
difference.
My sense is that if this is pursued as the way you have
been doing, there are many people who will never be thrown into
jail, many people who will never make the web site and maybe
people who will just never have the problem solely because this
commission and the notoriety and the sanctions will keep
countries in check who care deeply about what the United States
and the west think. So, for that, future generations who won't
even know about this report or about your position will really
be able to be helped. So thank you very much.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate you holding the
hearing to do this. Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Wolf.
Let me just conclude with a couple of followup questions,
and we will submit a number of questions for the record and ask
you, if you would, to respond.
The first is with regard to Iran. I noted in the September
29th Jerusalem Post, Secretary Albright suggested that the 13
Jews now being held in Iran will not be executed, which
obviously is good news. But do we have information as to
whether or not they are being held simply because they are
Jews? Has there been any work done by the Bureau to determine
whether or not they are truly innocent victims and hopefully
are going to be released?
Also, the situation of the Baha'i. As we know, there was an
execution about a year ago of a man who was accused of
converting a woman from Islam to Baha'i. There are Baha'i on
death row, two simply for, quote, ``apostasy.'' What can we do
to try to effect their release or at least a downgrading of
their sentence?
Mr. Seiple. Both of these issues are somewhat long-
standing. Obviously, the Baha'i is for a much longer time. Both
of them are very egregious, both of them speak I think to the
act and partially, certainly on the part of the arresting of
the 13, why we have that designation of country of a particular
concern. The conjecture, the conventional wisdom is that they
are not spies. Everyone has said that that knows them inside
and outside the country. The conjecture is that this is part of
the ongoing debate, fight, conflict within Iran between the
moderates and the clerics. We are concerned about that debate
and how innocent people might get chewed up in the debate.
The person that you mentioned conducting the investigation,
the judiciary minister, he was one who had called for the
assassination, even before the investigation was finished, the
investigation that his ministerium leads. This, obviously,
produces a chilling effect. We would like to have more leverage
in that country than we do, but we have lots of friends, allies
who are working this issue with us. It is one that we have been
very, very clear since it started. They know the seriousness of
this, and we will continue to pound away as we must and as we
can along with our allies to make sure that this is properly
and quickly resolved.
On the issue of the Baha'is, you have a classic case that
fits the act of a government that consciously, in an egregious,
systematic, ongoing way, on the basis of faith, tries to
persecute and does persecute. Of the 300,000, 350,000 Baha'is
that are still living in Iran, this also is a very difficult
time for them to live under that repression. We will do
everything that we can--whether it is 350,000 people or 13
people or one person, we will do everything that we have within
our power to do to make sure that the repression stops.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. I really appreciate that.
On Russia, I noted in the report you used with regard to
the 1997 Russian law that it was a potentially discriminatory
law. I will never forget, both Mr. Wolf and I undertook a trip
a couple of years ago as this law had just been signed by
Yeltsin, and we were talking about our hopes that it would not
be enforced or perhaps even overturned by the court, their
court, because aspects of it are such that it could very easily
lead to draconian measures against religious believers and
especially groups that would then be left out of the mainstream
and would not be able to operate under the law.
Since this report has been issued, has there been any
degradation or diminution of religious freedom under that law?
We are all watching with bated breath and hoping that it does
not become very quickly what it could become.
Mr. Seiple. That is the problem, the potential for it and
the chilling effect of waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Russia does not have the best implementation system in the
world when it comes to their laws and so you have an even more
uneven implementation of this particular act. In some places
there is total freedom and in other places people are harassed.
This was a giant step backward, it was pointed out by
everybody from the President on down when they did it. It was
contradictory to their own constitution. We wish that they had
stayed with their 1990 progressive law. We will have to
continue to follow this, but, at this time, we think we have
the attention and we think, as I mentioned in my statement,
that we blunted any effectiveness of this going in a negative
direction.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask one final question, Mr.
Ambassador.
Uzbekistan was not identified as a country of particular
concern, and your testimony notes positive changes in recent
months, including reports that large numbers of Muslim
prisoners may have been released. That claim of a large-scale
prison release was made by the Uzbek government itself. Was it
credible, in your view, and has the Uzbek government given any
information about the actual charges against these prisoners or
any details identifying their cases?
Mr. Seiple. The report was that 300 Muslims would be
released and that as many as 1,000 or 2,000 would shortly be
released. The Uzbekis have made that statement. That is no
longer an allegation. In terms of seeing the flesh of those
folks walk out of prison, we cannot yet report that that has
happened. The Uzbeki government, however, has taken steps to
release other prisoners, they have taken steps in a positive
direction to allow for registration, and they have taken steps
to look at, as you pointed out, that most horrific law that
they put together in 1998, and hopefully we will see some
amendments in the future.
So there has been progress in Uzbekistan, more hopefully to
come, obviously much to watch.
Mr. Smith. I would just note that we are planning on the
Helsinki Commission, which I also chair, a hearing probably on
the 18th, it is not set in concrete, on Uzbekistan and the hope
is to try to get further into that issue and other issues as
well on human rights.
I do have one final question and that is on Turkey.
Ambassador Hal Koh and hopefully I and many others will be
traveling over there for an OSCE ministerial. Yet many of us
are concerned about human rights in general, whether it be the
use of torture, which I raised during a bilateral recently with
a number of parliamentarians, and the responses were very
interesting. It wasn't complete denial, but it remains a major
problem.
But 3 weeks ago we were told police raided a Turkish
Protestant church in Izmir and arrested 40 Christians. This
past Sunday the Istanbul security police interrupted a morning
worship service, arresting most of the adult members of the
congregation, along with 11 foreigners and five children. On
August 3rd, a Turkish Christian was arrested for selling
Christian literature at a convention for intellectual
discussion and exchanges. He was reportedly beaten and then
released without formal charges.
In your view, are these signs of increasing religious
hostility toward non-Muslim faiths in Turkey?
Mr. Seiple. Very disturbing, very troubling. We have the
same reports.
As soon as they came, we started working on them with our
desk and with the Turkish, our own embassy there. I think it is
something that we should be deeply troubled about, because this
is a close friend and ally. If you can't tell candid truth to
close friends and allies, who can you tell them to? When we get
to that point where your visit is ongoing, we would like also
to do some briefing on this situation and others that ought to
be brought to the attention of the Turkish authorities.
Mr. Smith. I do appreciate that.
Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much for your testimony.
Thank you for the good work of your commission.
I hope you have sufficient resources, and it is something
you might want to comment on, if you have any closing comments,
whether or not you have sufficient staff, who are I am sure
overworked and working many long hours not only to put this
together but to continue their fact-finding and also to develop
a strategy for implementation of what is outlined in the bill.
So if you have any comment on that, please.
Mr. Seiple. I think it is illegal for me to lobby for more
money to Congress, so please cut me off whenever you think I
have crossed that ethical line.
I have been in government now for one whole year. I have
been aghast at how underfunded and under-resourced this
government funds its arm into the global community. At a time
when we have all of the advantages of being the sole remaining
superpower in this transitional period, when we can be doing so
much by way of preventive and preemptive diplomacy, we are
suffering the death of a thousand cuts. It is not just our
bureau, it is not just getting mandates without funding--
although that is true. I see it throughout the State
Department.
I bring that to your attention. Thank you. I wouldn't have
said it if you hadn't asked, but I bring it to your attention
more as a private citizen who has only been in government for a
year. The taxpayers might feel good about that. I think we are
mortgaging the future.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that. Just for the record, we are
trying to up at least the amount of money available to the
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Bureau, Secretary Koh's
bureau. We envision at least a doubling. My travels, and you
might see this as you travel, have underscored in virtually
every mission that I have visited--particularly when we are in
an area that is a frontline country where human rights are
nonexistent or violated to some extent--that the human rights
officer very often is outmanned or is a very junior Foreign
Service Officer. The number of Commerce people far exceed him,
usually to the second and third power. There are just so many
more of them, and less of the people who care about human
rights.
I am often told, ``Well yes, but it is the Ambassador's
portfolio to deal with human rights as well,'' and that is
true, but we do need specialists who just do nothing but or
spend a major part of their time in government service working
on that. We are trying to increase at least that portion of it.
I do appreciate your comments, and I admire your work.
Mr. Seiple. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. The Subcommittee will resume its sitting.
I would like to introduce our second panel beginning with
Ms. Nina Shea, a member of the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, as well as the Director of the Center for
Religious Freedom at Freedom House. As a lawyer specializing in
international human rights for the past 12 years, she has
focused exclusively on the issue of religious persecution. Ms.
Shea is the author of ``In the Lion's Den,'' a book detailing
the persecution of Christians around the world.
Second we will be hearing from Mr. Stephen Rickard, who is
the Washington Office Director for Amnesty International, USA.
Previously, Mr. Rickard has served as the Senior Advisor for
South Asian Affairs in the Department of State, as well as a
professional staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations
Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.
Next, Dr. Paul Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Center
for Religious Freedom at Freedom House and is the editor of
that organization's survey of Religious Freedom Around the
World. The author of 16 books, Dr. Marshall is also a visiting
fellow at the Claremont Institute and an adjunct professor of
philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.
Fr. Nguyen Huu Le is the Executive Director of the
Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam. He served as a
Catholic priest in Vietnam until the Communist government
ordered his arrest in 1975. He was captured while trying to
escape and spent the next 13 years in various reeducation
camps. In 1978, he and four other prisoners escaped but were
recaptured and tortured, two of them to death. He was shackled
in solitary confinement for 3 years. He was released in 1988
and escaped to New Zealand where he served as the chaplain for
the Vietnamese Catholic congregation.
Abdughuphur Kadirhaji is a Uighur Muslim from Urumqi City
in Xinjiang, China. For the past 15 years he was worked as a
manager and then director of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous
Region Government Foreign Affairs Office. He came to the United
States in March of this year and is currently living in
Virginia with his family.
Mr. Smith. Ms. Shea, if you could begin.
STATEMENT OF NINA SHEA, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM,
FREEDOM HOUSE
Ms. Shea. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
On behalf of the U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom, I wish to thank you for holding these critically
important hearings today. Mr. Chairman, your stalwart support
over many years for religious freedom throughout the world and
your championing of the International Religious Freedom Act
itself is to be heartily commended.
I must say it is a real personal honor for me to be
addressing this topic in front of some of the great standard
bearers in the House of Representatives of religious freedom
for persons all over the world--Congressmen such as Frank Wolf
and Congressmen Pitts, Gilman, Lantos, Burton and yourself.
Continued attention on the part of the Congress to this
most fundamental issue is, in the Commission's judgment,
essential to mobilizing the appropriate foreign policy tools to
deal with religious persecution abroad.
I am appearing here as the representative of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom of which I am one
of 10 commissioners. Our Chairman, Rabbi David Saperstein, and
Vice Chairman, Michael Young, are both on travel today at
conferences dealing with issues relating to religious liberty.
Ambassador Robert Seiple, who is a witness for the State
Department, is also on our Commission as an ex-officio member.
As you know, the Commission was established under the
International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which also
mandated the State Department report that we are discussing
today. The Commission is charged with advising the President
and the Congress on strengthening religious freedom and
combating religious persecution worldwide. It is part of the
Commission's mandate to evaluate the decisions of the
administration whether to designate a country for particular
concern and to recommend effective responses where appropriate.
In a few weeks, we will be holding our own set of hearings on
the State Department report.
Last month, the Commission welcomed the release of the
State Department's first Annual Report on International
Religious Freedom. Over 1,000 pages in length, it reflects a
monumental effort on the part of Ambassador Robert Seiple and
his Office on International Religious Freedom at the Department
of State. We appreciate that producing this report may have
been a cultural wrench for the State Department and Foreign
Service Officers who are accustomed to dealing mostly with
human rights reports on political persecution and political
prisoners.
Of course, it is always possible in this type of exercise
to critique specific country reports, but as the first historic
attempt by the State Department to describe the status of
religious freedom worldwide in one compilation, it is a step in
the right direction. We again express our appreciation to
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Ambassador Seiple for
their diligence in producing the report.
What is most extraordinary, Mr. Chairman, however, is the
priority listing of countries of particular concern, or CPC's,
that the State Department released at today's hearing. The
report itself contains an overwhelming and unselective
compilation of facts and information without reaching
definitive conclusions or conveying a sense of priority. In a
report of this magnitude and type, prioritizing American
concerns becomes essential. Not to do so is to lose sight of
severe persecutors in a welter of detail. Congress wisely
understood this danger and foresaw the need to give real focus
and priority through CPC designations.
The Commission is especially pleased that the governments
of China and Sudan are on State's brief CPC listing and will
receive appropriate focus and the concerted attention of the
U.S. State Department, the Congress and our Commission, as well
as others in the nongovernmental sector, by virtue of this
designation. It is this CPC designation that triggers under the
act a Presidential announcement within 90 days of what policies
the administration will adopt to improve religious freedom in
the countries in question.
China and Sudan are the two countries that the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom has decided to
review during its first year of work as countries with severe
and ongoing problems of religious persecution, China has the
world's largest number of religious prisoners while Sudan's
government is waging the largest genocidal war in the world
today, replete with enslavement, scorched-earth bombings and
calculated starvation against its religious minorities in the
south and central part of the country.
Arguments can be made that many other countries should be
included on today's list. Mr. Chairman, I think I have a
different take on the question of the selectivity or the
brevity of the list than you do. I believe that the issuance of
this highly selective CPC list that includes China, the world's
largest religious persecutor, and Sudan, the world's most
hideous persecutor, will send the strongest possible signal
both to officials here and to governments throughout the world
of a renewed recognition of the salience of religious freedom
to American foreign policy.
I believe there is no better way to help the persecuted
religious believers in Vietnam, Pakistan, Egypt, North Korea,
Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere than to see China and Sudan become
first cases on a short list of countries where the U.S.--and if
the U.S.--is prepared to spend political capital to end the
scourge of religious genocide and persecution. Targeting a
powerful nation like China and a rogue state like Sudan in a
foreign policy priority listing signals that business may not
be conducted as usual, that the United States may be adopting a
zero tolerance policy for hard-core religious persecutors. This
possibility of a change in movement in foreign policy will be
the best assurance to persecuted peoples everywhere. We have
observed that foreign governments are keenly aware of the
report and, as of this morning, are on notice that America has
a deep, abiding concern for religious freedom for all peoples
and may be prepared to act accordingly in its foreign policy.
If this listing is meant for something more than a 1-day
commentary, however, the United States must take appropriate
followup action and apply pressure on the CPC's from its range
of foreign policy tools. Two steps in particular should occur:
First, the administration should exhibit leadership in
making Sudan the pariah state with the same concerted moral and
political action that succeeded in making a pariah out of the
apartheid government of South Africa.
Today's financial pages are reporting about the enormous
amounts of international investments going into Sudan from
companies such as Canadian Talisman Energy, Inc. China National
Petroleum. Mr. Wolf made reference to this issue, and I would
like to suggest that the record include an article from
Investors Business Daily yesterday about this very issue of
China and Talisman's investment in Sudan. According to the
Speaker of Sudan's parliament, Hassan Turabi, the revenues from
these oil investments will be used to shore up Sudan's military
arsenal in its genocidal war.
Ms. Shea. Second, the administration must demonstrate that
the United States will not build its relations with China on
sand and that America understands that appeasement of a
government that persecutes as many as 100 million believers is
neither consistent with our values or our tradition nor will it
serve our long-term interests. History has demonstrated that
American interests are best served by relations predicated on
the defense of principles that are shared by civilized nations
around the world.
Mr. Chairman, the Commission believes that the
administration has made a great forward stride in producing the
report and, most importantly, in prioritizing American
concerns. We look forward to working with the administration
and Congress over the next critical 3 months when policies are
to be developed regarding China, Sudan, and the other CPC's.
It is critical now this process has begun that there be
appropriate followup in terms of policy action. As Mr. Wolf
stressed, all eyes will be watching how the list is enforced.
If actions aren't tough, tyrants all over the world will be
emboldened. In China, Sudan, and the other countries of
particular concern, the lives of millions of religious
believers are quite literally at stake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Ms. Shea.
I want to thank you personally for the work you did and the
insight you provided for the legislation itself when it was
under consideration. As you know, it went through many
evolutions and it was changed very often. It went from
Subcommittee to Full Committee and kept changing, but the
essential character remained the same. You were very, very
helpful in that process as an individual, and I do want to
thank you for that and for the good work you do on religious
freedom issues.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Shea appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Smith. Mr. Rickard.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN RICKARD, WASHINGTON OFFICE DIRECTOR,
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Rickard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be
invited to testify today before you on the first Annual
Department of State Report on International Religious Freedom.
Few people do as much day in and day out as you do to help
human rights victims around the world, to raise human rights
issues, and it is an honor to be here to testify before you and
with the other distinguished panelists that I am appearing
with.
Winston Churchill reportedly said of Clement Attlee that he
was a modest man who had much to be modest about, and I truly
feel a little bit like Clement Attlee testifying here with Nina
and Paul and with others who have actually suffered for their
convictions and before you, Chairman Smith. I am very grateful
and I would like to express appreciation on behalf of Amnesty
and its members to the many people, yourself included, other
human rights champions in the Congress, Frank Wolf, Nina and
Paul and others who have done so much to raise the profile of
this issue, to draw greater attention to it, to mobilize people
on behalf of this issue.
Four years ago, Amnesty International ran a worldwide
campaign on the terrible human rights crisis in Sudan. We
produced videos, materials, and I can assure you that the
300,000 Amnesty members in the United States and the more than
1 million Amnesty members around the world who sat at kitchen
tables and in church basements and in high school classrooms
writing letters to the State Department and to the government
in Khartoum about the human rights crisis in Sudan are
delighted and even thrilled that this issue is getting more
attention. It certainly deserves it, and we welcome and
appreciate the help of all of those who have put it front and
center.
I am also grateful for the work that you and they have done
to build bridges between people working on human rights issues.
That is extremely important. Not everyone has done that. There
have been some harsh words spoken about the failure of some
groups to work on these issues, particularly our colleagues at
Human Rights Watch. I personally regret that, and I am
delighted that others did not join in that chorus. They are
fantastic colleagues who do great work, and I appreciate the
work that people did to build bridges between people who cared
about this issue.
I don't want to duplicate the testimony that Nina, Paul and
others will do on particular countries. Instead, I would like
to offer some comments about policy, the issues of the record
and report, and then look at a limited number of reports. My
remarks are not intended to be a comprehensive survey; and, Mr.
Chairman, with your permission, I might ask that we be able to
submit some additional written materials, as you say in the
House, to revise and extend my remarks, more to extend rather
than to revise.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, your full remarks and any
submissions you or any other witnesses would like to provide
will be made a part of the record.
Mr. Rickard. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Rickard. Mr. Chairman, this is Amnesty International's
very first ever annual report that was published in 1961, just
a crazy group of people with the idea that individuals speaking
out for individuals could make a difference. It says here that
the core of Amnesty's work was going to be to defend people's
right to practice Article 18 and Article 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. That was the original purpose of
creating Amnesty International.
As you well know, Article 18 is the article that states
everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion. This right includes the freedom to change one's
religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community
with others, in public or in private, to manifest his religion
or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Pursuant to that founding purpose, the very first Amnesty
conference ever held by an Amnesty section in Paris in 1961 was
a conference on religious persecution.
The very first investigative mission undertaken by Sean
MacBride was a mission to Czechoslovakia to protest and
investigate the imprisonment of Archbishop Beran and to
investigate the other conditions of other religious prisoners.
This is an issue that is very, very dear to our hearts, and it
is a real delight to see a comprehensive report on this issue
mandated by the Congress.
Mr. Chairman, one of the shortest and most powerful credos
over uttered was offered by the Apostle James when he wrote,
``As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without
works is dead.'' Faith without works is dead. It is a powerful
challenge to any person of conviction no matter what their
particular religion or beliefs. So it is with any human rights
report. Reports without action are dead. This is an impressive
report. I agree with Nina's characterization of this report as
a milestone. It is impressive, but much more impressive will be
a comprehensive plan to assess the violations that it
documents.
The final legislation that the Congress adopted gave the
administration a great deal of flexibility in terms of crafting
a response to these abuses. In the abstract, everyone agrees
that flexibility is a desirable thing to give policymakers.
Let's hope that the administration uses that flexibility wisely
and forcefully and doesn't give flexibility a bad name. Trust
is essential. It is better when we are working together on
these issues instead of at cross-purposes.
As I have said in the past when I have testified before
you, Mr. Chairman, all of the efforts of those in the State
Department who truly care about human rights are,
unfortunately, undermined by the perception that at critical
moments when push comes to shove, the U.S. commitment to human
rights takes a back seat to fighting for other goals. Whether
it is fighting drugs or terrorism or promoting trade or the
amorphous, ever-popular stability, there is, as I have said,
the view that human rights remains in far too many ways an
island off the mainland of American foreign policy. The report
is impressive, and we look forward to impressive action that
matches the problems that it documents.
I would also like to say a few words about the role for
Congress here. It is Congress that mandated the report. It is
Congress that mandated the original report. It is Congress that
mandated the creation of the Human Rights Bureau. In so many
ways Congress has led the U.S. Government on human rights
issues.
But there are a number of critical things that the Congress
could do, considered doing, and then did not do that I think
would help to add additional weight to the effort that led to
the mandating of this report. As we said, one of the most
important things in the original Wolf-Specter legislation, and
one of the things we were the most deeply disappointed about
that was not adopted in the final form, was the beginning
effort to turn back the tide on some of the incredibly
retrograde steps that have been taken on the issue of political
asylum in the United States. I commend you, Mr. Chairman, for
leading that fight. It is a pity that you lost or that it
wasn't in the final legislation, but I strongly encourage every
American who cares about religious persecution to call, to
write, to visit their Members of Congress to say that you don't
believe that people fleeing persecution should have to run the
gauntlet to achieve a haven from persecution in the United
States. I don't believe that Americans, if they understood the
current situation, would think that that is what the United
States should stand for.
Last, it is the fundamental constitutional responsibility
of the Congress to determine how our tax dollars are spent, and
you have led the fight to try to increase funding for human
rights activities within the State Department, and I think that
is extremely important. It is disappointing that the Department
has resisted your proposal to increase funding for human rights
activities. Even with the severe reductions in foreign affairs
funding which have occurred in recent years and which
Ambassador Seiple referred to, the priorities of the State
Department are out of order. There can be more funding for
human rights activities. There needs to be more funding for
human rights activities within the Department.
However, I also agree with Ambassador Seiple that the
overall context of decreasing funding for foreign affairs
activities overall also undermines our ability to have a
powerful and effective human rights strategy. Speaking solely
for myself and not for the administration and with the caveat
that I at least for 2 years served at the State Department, I
have to say that I have been increasingly reminded of the
section of Exodus where Pharaoh says to his taskmasters in
response to the appeals of Moses and Aaron, ``You shall no
longer give the people straw to make bricks. Let them go and
gather straw themselves.''
If the Department of State wants the Human Rights Bureau to
be an effective champion for human rights, it has to give it
straw to make bricks. If the Congress wants the United States
to be an influential and effective player on the world scene on
behalf of human rights and other issues, the Congress needs to
give diplomats the straw to make bricks so that they can build
a firm human rights foundation.
Mr. Chairman, I do have one very specific recommendation on
a topic that I know you have been interested in. I think that
this report is further evidence of the need for the Congress
and the administration to work together to have a comprehensive
approach to controlling the potential export of repressive
equipment from the United States.
The administration has said many times that they support
this, that they don't want repressive equipment like electric
shock equipment being exported from the United States, but we
believe at Amnesty that in fact it has happened, that electric
shock equipment, for instance, has been exported to Saudi
Arabia, a country with a terrible problem of religious
persecution and torture. I think that, given the statements of
the administration and your own interest in this, there ought
to be the opportunity to sit down together and come up with a
proposal where we will manage these exports, at least as
rigorously as we do, for instance, dual-use nuclear exports,
where we say we are really going to watch where these go and
how they are used and demand lots of documentation.
Turning to the report itself, let me say overall that our
initial review of the contents is quite positive. We have some
disagreements, not all of them minor; but, overall, it would be
wrong not to commend the Department, Ambassador Seiple and
Assistant Secretary Koh for this important and useful document.
Obviously, we have not had the opportunity to review all of it;
and, as I said, I would like to just focus on some illustrative
cases, not the case where religious persecution is the worst
necessarily, not in any way a comprehensive survey, but a few
countries that might illustrate whether or not the
administration has flunked the litmus test for candor standard:
that is, countries where there may be the greatest temptations
to shade the truth.
Saudi Arabia. One can hardly imagine a more forthright
opening sentence than ``Freedom of religion does not exist in
Saudi Arabia,'' and that is welcome candor, particularly with a
country where there is great sensitivity. The State Department,
however, in the text that follows is much more dry and
mechanical in explaining the situation in Saudi Arabia, and I
go into greater detail here, but substantively we think that
much more could be said and said more forcefully about the
degree of active harassment and persecution that exists within
Saudi Arabia. There is an implication that, while they have a
system of rules and if you follow the rules everything will be
OK, that really doesn't capture the situation in Saudi Arabia.
It is not bad, but in tone it can be much better in terms of
describing the situation, and we think stronger language is
justified.
Israel. The Israel report unflinchingly addresses an issue
that is not always addressed, which is the disparity between
government support for Israeli Arabs and other Israeli citizens
in terms of the quality of education, housing and employment
opportunities that they receive. I think the report was quite
candid, frank and comprehensive in covering this issue.
One issue that it does not cover and should, and doubtless
this is an area where we can work with them, is the issue of
Israel's treatment of conscientious objectors, which in fact,
is not very good. The trials that they use to handle those are
not really free, fair trials. There are disparities in who gets
exemptions and who doesn't. It is one area where we think that
we need to work with the Department to raise the profile of
this issue.
The Caspian Sea region. This is an area where I think the
report is good as far as it goes, but it illustrates a problem,
which is that there is not as much information available. Some
of the areas that are a little harder to get to, we don't have
as many diplomats there. I list some of the items that have
happened just in the last few months, probably after the report
went to print, in that region which need to be reflected in
next year's report, and we look forward to working with the
Department to enhance the coverage of some of those areas that
aren't in the headlines as much.
I have talked about Turkey and Vietnam in my written
report. Let me just say about both countries that the issue
that we highlight, although there are a couple of places,
particularly in the Vietnam report, where we think there is
very important information that would have given a better
picture of the degree of government hostility to outside
scrutiny on this issue--they mention the reaction to the U.N.
Special Rapporteur's report. They don't really give a sense of
how vigorous it was. We welcome the fact that the U.S. backed
up the Special Rapporteur on that, but we think that more could
have been done to give a full flavor of the situation there.
But in both of those countries and in several others, the
key question is not what the report reports, the key question
is policy. We take no issue with Assistant Secretary Koh on
this, particularly his recent trip to Turkey. He was extremely
forthright. We consider his trip an extremely important step in
the right direction.
There needs to be one U.S. policy on human rights in these
countries which is supported across the board by the
Departments of State and Defense and Commerce and by the U.S.
Ambassadors and in the regional bureau, as well as Assistant
Secretary Koh. It is not enough to send Assistant Secretary Koh
and Ambassador Seiple out to read the riot act to people and
then have others come in and smooth the ruffled feathers
afterwards.
Mr. Chairman, I address a number of other countries, and I
would like to submit additional comments in writing. Let me
just say, overall, we commend the administration's efforts on
the report. It heeds Secretary Koh's promise to tell it like it
is in most cases. There are cases where we look forward to
working with them to improve the report.
Mr. Chairman, religious persecution today is a depressingly
ecumenical phenomena. Tyrants fear religion, and they fear
people of faith because they claim openly to have allegiance to
a higher authority. Tyrants fear people who perhaps have others
outside of the national boundaries who care about them and
worry about them and are willing to mobilize on their behalf.
We owe it to those people to stand with them. This step is an
important milestone in the right direction, and we look forward
to seeing action to follow the report.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Rickard, for Amnesty's
extraordinary work throughout the years.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rickard appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Smith. Getting back to that 1961 document that you held
up, we mentioned the resistance we are finding with regard to
enhanced funding for the Human Rights Bureau. I think the
record clearly shows, because you were part of that entire
process as we went through various drafts, that there was an
incredible resistance to the bill itself.
Mr. Smith. We were told by very responsible people within
the administration that we were establishing a hierarchy of
human rights. If that were the case, those of us who supported
sanctions against South Africa because of apartheid were wrong
because we established a hierarchy saying racism is egregious
behavior that would simply not be tolerated, and the same thing
could be said about Jackson-Vanik and the fact that we actually
risked superpower confrontation to promote the cause of Soviet
Jewry I think that was one of our proudest moments.
So I think you know we got here through a very difficult
process. Now we need--and your words certainly and your work
helps to enhance that--to continue to keep on our eye on the
ball. As you said, quoting the Book of James, faith without
works is truly dead.
I want to thank you.
Mr. Rickard. Mr. Chairman, I want to steal a line again
that I stole from your staff director, which was that I regret
the notion that we need to treat everyone equally badly. The
only concern we have, and I think it is a legitimate concern,
is that in an era of shrinking resources you can have some
situations on some issues where you pit victims against each
other. I know we all want to avoid that. That is why the effort
to increase funding for these activities to give people the
straw to make the bricks is so important. We applaud your
effort in that direction.
We like to see it go across the board on U.S. foreign
policy issues. Again, I am speaking for myself on that point.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rickard.
Mr. Smith. Dr. Marshall.
STATEMENT OF PAUL MARSHALL, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM, FREEDOM HOUSE
Mr. Marshall. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the
invitation to be able to testify this afternoon. I will
concentrate my remarks on the report itself.
I believe that after Boswell and Dr. Johnson had been
invited to see a dancing dog Boswell remarked that the dog did
not dance very well. Dr. Johnson replied, the wonder is not
that it is done well, the wonder is that it is done at all. So,
too, with the State Department's first annual report on
international religious freedom.
The mere fact that this report now exists is an important
step and shows a growing awareness of the vital importance of
religious freedom and religious persecution around the world.
Since Members of this Committee have played an important role
in that movement, you deserve our commendations. But, contrary
to the dancing dog, the report is very well done.
Currently, I am editing a survey, a world survey of
religious freedom and working with about 60 writers and
reviewers. So I am in a good position to cross-check much of
the information in the report, and it is in general very good
and often a mine of information. So I would like to commend the
State Department and particularly the people who worked on this
report.
In addition, the list of countries of particular concern
singles out some of the worst persecutors, including two on
which Freedom House focuses particularly, China and Sudan.
However, the report does have some problems, and on these I
will concentrate.
In several instances it downplays the severity or
significance of restrictions on religious freedoms, perhaps in
deference to the government's concern. This appears in the
reports on Egypt, China, and Saudi Arabia, and some of those
instances have come up in previous testimony.
I think my most important critique is this, the report
sometimes uses a truncated view of religion. This is not a mere
definitional quibble. It is central to the proper
implementation of the entire International Religious Freedom
Act.
The focus of the act is not on human rights violations
against religious people. That would probably include most
human rights violations in the world. But the focus is with
persecution where the grounds themselves are in part religious.
Hence, if we work with a truncated and minimalist view of
religion, this will lead inevitably to a truncated
implementation of the provisions of the act. This is
particularly important as in much of our society, in
discussions by diplomats or journalists or scholars, there is a
tendency to gloss over the realities of religion, particularly
after redefining it as ethnic.
We now have a famous expression ``ethnic cleansing'', but
that expression came into origin to describe the murder of
Muslims who are not an ethnic group, they are a religious
group. So what we have called ethnic cleansing is, in fact,
religious cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.
The report occasionally does this itself but at other times
describes various events and actions and beliefs as political
or cultural or economic rather than religious--that is a
quote--as if these were mutually exclusive categories. But many
things are religious and political or cultural and religious or
economic and religious. I include a lot of examples in the
written testimony.
It is to be expected that religion will be intimately and
complexly connected with every other facet of human rights.
This particular problem comes to the floor in its coverage of
the Sudan. The Sudan report does a very good job of detailing
religious persecution in the areas under the direct control of
the Khartoum regime, and it describes the practice of
slavery.However, the war and the conduct of the war itself
whose details we know, with up to 2 million dead and 4 to 5
million displaced with widespread massacre, rape, torture and
forced starvation, that is absent from the report. It is not
covered. It is not dealt with.
We are not told why, but I presume the reason is that the
war itself must be defined as ``not religious.'' Hence, what
may be in terms of size and intensity the world's worst
situation of religious oppression is absent from the report.
This is akin to disregarding race and describing South Africa's
repression of the opponents of apartheid. After all, particular
people arrested such as Nelson Mandela were not singled out
because of their race, white people were also jailed, but
because of certain acts, and anybody of any race committing
those acts would also have been arrested.
But on those grounds would we say that those arrests were
political, not racial or cultural, because a policy was the
cause of political unrest, of opposition, of demonstration, and
then political repression? Race colors the entire thing. So
even a war on South Africa's borders, fighting in Namibia, is
conditioned by the racial--was conditioned by the racial policy
of the government. A similar pattern holds for Sudan.
The report describes the Khartoum government as ``an Arab
regime that is Muslim'' when in fact it is, legally and in
self-description, a Muslim regime. The regime has repeatedly
described its war as a jihad and a religious duty and has
publicly declared its goal to forcibly Islamicize Sudan.
While there are many factors in this, as there are in every
war, and while the regime certainly persecutes those Muslims
who oppose those views, which is a majority of the Muslim
population of the country, southern leaders have stressed
repeatedly that the government's refusal to change its stand on
shari'a and Islamicization is a major barrier to peace. In this
context, the war itself should be understood as an extension of
religious persecution.
In contrast, in dealing with Iraq, the report does outline
Sudan's persecution of Shiite Muslims and of Assyrian
Christians. I think it is correct in doing so, but this simply
makes the contrast with the Sudan doubly jarring.
Just one other instance, Mr. Chairman, in describing the
current conflicts in the Indonesian islands of Muluka, in which
several hundred, perhaps several thousand people have died this
year, the report attributes the problems arising there to
migration which is again, I quote, the ethnic balance. But what
is at issue there is, again, the religious balance.
So I mention these points again that if these things are
not seen as religious, if they are defined in other terms, it
means they will not come under the purview of this legislation
and will not be addressed by the State Department in a way that
it should do so.
Finally, yesterday the government designated as countries
of particular concern, China, Sudan, Burma, Iran, Iraq, Serbia
and Afghanistan. I concur with these judgments. However, I
would question the exclusion of Saudi Arabia, North Korea,
Vietnam, and Pakistan. Politically it is wise to have a
concentrated focus, and I welcome it, especially the
willingness to include China. But it does not necessarily
reflect the worst situations.
In closing, let me reiterate that my focus on problems
should not overshadow the fact that this welcome report is very
good indeed. We must now ensure that our actions are as full as
our analyses. President Clinton said to religious leaders 2
weeks ago, the cause of religious freedom at home and around
the world will continue to be something that the United States
will have to work and work and work on.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Dr. Marshall.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Marshall appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Smith. I would like to yield to Mr. Sherman.
Mr. Sherman. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having these
hearings, and thank you for your continued work on religious
rights and human rights.
I think this report is a step forward in general. I think
some of its criticisms of Israel were beyond what was
appropriate. I particularly take exception to one part of the
report where it says the government states that it protects the
holy sites.
I think many of our colleagues have been there. These are
among the most protected sites in the world, and yet to imply
that it is merely a statement of the Israeli government that
the sites are protected implies that maybe the sites are not in
fact protected.
In addition, I do not think that it is a denial of
religious rights for Israel to look at its northern area and
see a need to encourage settlement on vacant land by those who
are most loyal to the regime. It certainly doesn't interfere
with the exercise of any religion to find out that there is a
village across the valley that practices the majority religion
of the country.
But I think, in general, this is a good report; and I look
forward to next year's work. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Sherman.
Mr. Smith. Father Le.
STATEMENT OF REV. NGUYEN HUU LE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMITTEE
FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN VIETNAM
Rev. Le. Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the
Subcommittee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to
testify not only on behalf of the Committee For Religious
Freedom in Vietnam but also for the victims of religious
persecution in Vietnam.
Our Committee applauds the publication of the Annual Report
on International Religious Freedom. We are, however, troubled
by its lack of depth and its omissions of many critical facts
and the inaccuracy of some information contained in the section
on Vietnam.
First of all, the report gives the false impression that
religious repression in Vietnam does not stem from a sustained,
consistent policy of the central government but arises from the
arbitrary actions of local authorities. Vietnam's Communist
government is anti religion by virtue. Its Communist doctrine
views religions as enemies of the people. Its policy is to
ruthlessly weed out all religious activities that it cannot
control and exploit for its own ends.
Immediately after its takeover of South Vietnam in 1975,
the Communist government cracked down on the Protestant and the
Catholic churches and outlawed the Unified Buddhist Church of
Vietnam, or UBCV, the Hoa Hao Church and the Cao Dai Church.
Church leaders were arrested, detained, tortured, humiliated.
Many died in detention; and I, myself, spent 13 years in jail
for having defended religious freedom. I was tortured, beaten
and sent to 3 years in solitary confinement.
In order to wipe out all vestiges and influence of the
independent churches, the government replaces them with state-
sanctioned organizations, whose role is to enforce government
policies on religions.
The Committee of Hoa Hao Buddhist Representatives formed in
May of this year is a case in point. It is headed by a
Communist cadre.
The government has deftly created a church within a church
to divide and conquer the Catholics. The role of the
government-created Catholic Patriotic Association is to drive a
wedge into the Catholic community. Priests who belong to this
association are rewarded with special privileges. The wide
latitude in practicing their faith, including some educational
and humanitarian activities reported by the Department of
State, is accorded only to religious persons who work with or
for the government.
In recent months, the government has stepped up its
rigorous effort to harass, intimidate and persecute religious
leaders and to impose further restrictions on religious
activities such as the publication of religious books and
documents.
In May, the public security police interrupted the summer
retreat of Buddhist monks in Saigon and threatened harsh
punishments if the latter were found to support the banned
UBCV.
A group of recently released Buddhist monks were rounded up
for questioning around the time Secretary Albright arrived in
Vietnam.
Mr. Tran Quang Chau, a Cao Dai leader, has been held under
house arrest after he cosigned an open letter last month asking
the government to recognize independent churches and to return
all confiscated church properties. The Department of State's
report does not reflect this reality in Vietnam.
While the report recognizes ongoing religious repression,
it attributes this to the arbitrary, isolated attitude of
certain local officials in certain remote areas. In reality,
religious repression is a policy of the central government that
is being carried out systematically throughout the country. But
the repression is well camouflaged and therefore not easily
detectable, especially to foreigners. I would like to repeat--
very well camouflaged and therefore not easily detectable
especially to foreigners. This may have contributed to the
regrettable omissions and inaccuracies in the report.
While the government's treatment of prisoners appears to
have improved in recent years, the reality behind this facade
is as deplorable and as appalling as ever.
We understand that the Bureau of International Religious
Freedom will make recommendations to the President based on its
findings, so we would like to suggest the following:
First, the Department of State should work to facilitate
the visit to Most Ven. Thich Huyen Quang, Supreme Patriarch of
UBCV, by a delegation of American Buddhist leaders and medical
doctors. The Most Ven. Huyen Quang, 81 years old, has been
detained for the past 22 years. His health is deteriorating due
to old age and lack of medical care.
Second, the U.S. consular offices in Vietnam should make
every attempt to identify victims of religious persecution and
process their applications for refugee status.
Third, the U.S. should use all available diplomatic and
trade-related leverages to persuade Communist Vietnam to
release all the religious prisoners, officially recognize the
independent churches, and to return all confiscated properties.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit
a partial list of confiscated church properties for inclusion
in the Congressional Record of this hearing.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, Father, your submission and
that of all of the witnesses will be made a part of the record.
[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]
Rev. Le. We hope that next year the Department of State
will include in its report a detailed account of the progresses
and will evaluate Vietnam's degree of cooperation in these
particular areas.
Thank you very much for listening to me, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much for your testimony. It
really is an honor to have a man who has suffered so much for
his faith and for freedom to be our distinguished witness
today. Thank you very much.
Rev. Le. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Rev. Le appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Smith. I would like to ask our final witness, Mr.
Abdughuphur Kadirhaji, if he would present his testimony.
The Interpreter. To save time, I am just going to read the
English version off of his speech.
Mr. Smith. OK.
STATEMENT OF ABDUGHUPHUR KADIRHAJI, UIGHUR MUSLIM, URUMQI CITY,
XINJIANG, CHINA
Mr. Kadirhaji. Dear Mr. Chairman, Members of Congress, and
ladies and gentlemen, my name is Abdughuphur Kadirhaji. I am a
Uyghur Muslim from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
I thank you for giving me this precious opportunity to testify
before you on the religious persecution of the Uyghur people in
China.
The Chinese Government perceives religion as the No. 1
threat to its existence in China, especially in the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Chinese Communist Party sees
religion as opium used to drug the people.
I came to the United States of America in this March. While
I was in China, I have seen the religious persecution and
discrimination against the Uyghurs. As a devout Muslim myself
and also a state employee, I had never been able to publicly
worship and express my religious beliefs. I was always afraid
of losing my job and social benefits.
For us Uyghurs, the most degrading and humiliating thing
the Chinese Government does is that the Chinese Government
often receives the Uyghurs back from pilgrimage and offers them
alcohol to drink so as to desecrate their holy pilgrimage to
Mecca. Many people, including myself, for fear of losing our
jobs and positions have to drink without choice.
Not only in times of pilgrimage does the Chinese Government
humiliate the Uyghur people but also in times of Ramadan, the
holy month of fasting in Islam. During the month of Ramadan,
the Chinese Government often intentionally offers free food and
alcohol which is forbidden in the Quran in the form of banquets
and feasts to the Uyghurs who fast for the sake of God.
The government also offers bread and drinks to the Uyghur
students in high schools and colleges and universities to make
sure that they are not fasting in Ramadan.
In December, 1994, after I came back from my pilgrimage and
visit to Mecca, Chinese officials poured wine on me when I
refused to drink alcohol because of my religious beliefs. In
1995, in the holy month of Ramadan, the Chinese officials in my
company constantly offered me alcohol, cigarette and food which
are forbidden in Islam, so as to break my devotion to God and
my religion. I had to comply in many cases by asking God's
forgiveness.
Since 1994, the religious restrictions and the persecutions
have been so severe in Xinjiang that an ordinary Uyghur Muslim
couldn't possibly pray five times a day and carry out his daily
religious duties.
Now I want you to use some examples of religious
persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang to give you a clear account.
According to my wife who worked in the Foreign Relations
Office for the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional government,
in 1996, the Chinese Social Science Academy and Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Regional Social Science Academy conducted a joint
research project and published a book on the religious history
of the Xinjiang from 1949 to 1996.
This research project was directly supported and funded by
the Chinese central government. This book clearly explains that
Islam and religious ideas are dangerous to the unity of
nationalities in Xinjiang and to the unification of China, and
the government should do whatever necessary to root out this
religious threat. This book was distributed to high-level
Chinese government officials. The name of this is called ``Pan-
Turkism and Pan-Islamism in Xinjiang,'' and my wife has a copy
of this book in Chinese.
Religious education is also not allowed in Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region. Communist party members, teachers, students,
workers and any Uyghur who works for a state-owned enterprise
are not allowed to go mosques and religious schools. Those who
disobey this rule will be fired from their jobs and will lose
all of the social benefits.
Many Uyghur students have been expelled from their schools
for going to mosques and for praying. Nevertheless, some Uyghur
parents still secretly send their children to Muslim countries
in Central Asia to study Islam, but the Chinese Government
always put diplomatic pressure on these Muslim countries'
governments to return the Uyghur students.
In one case, a group of Uyghur students were returned from
Pakistan to China. When they got to the Chinese border, the
Chinese police immediately detained them. Some of the older
Uyghur students protested, but they were arrested and
imprisoned. The others though were released but denied many
social benefits.
In April, 1998, Abdusalam, a young devout Uyghur Muslim in
my hometown, went to a mosque. The government-trained communist
imam was saying that Allah says that if someone oppresses you,
you should be patient and not fight back and that you should be
obedient to your Chinese Government and shouldn't complain
about your sufferings. Abdusalam, having profoundly studied
Islam, challenged this and said that, in the Quran, Allah said
if someone hurts you, you have the right to defend yourself. He
pointed out what the communist imam was saying was false.
Abdusalam was soon arrested and put in jail. He was
tortured in prison by the Chinese guards and was later sent to
a hospital with serious injuries. However, after some time he
was reported dead. The Chinese police claimed that Abdusalam
committed suicide by throwing himself out of the third floor
window. But the people of Ghulja don't believe he committed
suicide because he was a very pious Muslim, and in Islam
committing suicide is a great sin. A Muslim always has to be
hopeful even in the worst situation of his life.
Abdusalam's parents obtained the body, and his body was so
mangled and deformed that they found it so hard to recognize
their own son. But the people of Ghulja believe that he was
tortured to death by the Chinese police before he was sent to
the hospital.
Abdusalam had never been politically active. He had never
participated in any demonstration. All he did was point out
that the communist Chinese government propaganda that the imam
was spreading to the Uyghurs in the mosque was wrong.
My sister's husband, Abdushukur Kamberi, went to Pakistan
in 1986. There he studied Islam with several renowned Islamic
scholars. Therefore, he earned a reputation as a very
knowledgeable man in Islamic theology. The Chinese government
felt threatened by him after he came back and tried to use him
by giving him a religious title. By appointing him, the Chinese
Government attempted to involve him in spreading the Chinese
propaganda instead of the Islamic truth.
He defied them and visited all of the mosques in the city
and told the imams that the mosque was not the place for
Chinese communist propaganda. It is only a place for the
Quranic truth and the traditions of the prophet Muhammad.
After several months, he went to Urumqui to bring his
mother's and other relatives' passports for visas to make the
pilgrimage to Mecca. But the Xinjiang Regional Public Security
used this as an opportunity and arrested him in July, 1997. The
Chinese police claimed that he was trying to escape China. But
he wasn't even bringing his own passport.
The Chinese government put him in jail and severely
tortured him and sent him to a Chinese military hospital.
Currently, he is under house arrest.
Under Chinese constitution, people have the right to
religious freedom, but China is not ruled by law. The Chinese
government religious policies are totally different from what
is written in the law. The communist imams are government
trained and only serve the brutal, repressive communist Chinese
regime. They worship the Chinese communist party instead of
God, and they put party above God.
In their sermons, they only preach about obeying the
Chinese government and its policies, having a good relationship
with the Chinese government and Chinese people, unifying all
nationalities and implementing the one-child policy.
There are informants and spies disguised as pious Muslims
inside many mosques to monitor what the Uyghur religious
leaders and people do and say.
The Chinese government claims that it sends thousands of
religious students abroad each year to study, but almost all
the Uyghur religious students from abroad have been arrested
and harassed. The Chinese government claims that it supports
Uyghurs going for pilgrimage to Mecca, but the Chinese
government only supports and funds the informants and spies in
the pilgrimage group to monitor the Uyghurs words and deeds
throughout the entire journey.
In many cases, the Chinese government never approves those
Uyghurs who want to conduct pilgrimage to Mecca on their own.
Earlier this year, in February, while I was in Beijing, more
than 400 Uyghurs who had legal passports, visas and round-trip
tickets to make the pilgrimage to Mecca were deported back to
Xinjiang because they were not part of the state-approved
pilgrimage delegation.
Each year the Chinese government only approves a very small
number of chosen, well-checked, loyal Uyghurs to go for the
pilgrimage. The Chinese government always associates Islam with
the so-called separatist activities and readily arrests those
devout Uyghur Muslims in the name of unification.
The religious freedom guaranteed in the Chinese
constitution is a sheer lie. It is aimed at deceiving the world
that China respects the right to religious freedom, especially
the right of minorities to choose and worship their own
religion. On the contrary, the Chinese government often denies
the legitimate rights of Uyghur people to worship and to study
Islam and force them to obey the government through communist
Chinese propaganda. In China, religious freedom is only on the
paper but not in practice.
There is not religious freedom for the Uyghur people in
China under the atheistic communist Chinese government, and we
hope that the U.S. State Department could address these issues
in their contacting with the Chinese authorities.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much for that excellent
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kadirhaji appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Smith. I just have a few questions, and then will open
things up for any comments that our witnesses might have.
Ms. Shea, I think your point is very well taken about the
moral equivalency of the Sudan and China. I think as time goes
on, especially since these countries were just announced as
countries of particular interest, that we will soon be seeing a
blast from the Chinese embassy in terms of refuting this. We
hope that they respond. If they don't, I can assure you
additional hearings and perhaps site visits to that country
will raise it.
Unfortunately, there were some omissions, at least in my
view and in the view I think of some of other members of the
panel. But I think your point was very well taken that the
juxtaposition of those two countries hopefully will not escape
the notice of the world because China certainly fashions itself
somehow as--and it is--an emerging superpower. But with that
superpower status comes at least the most basic of all
recognitions, and that is the right of the freedom of
conscience and basic religion.
So I really appreciate you making that point.
Ms. Shea. I think that American policy with regards to
China will reverberate throughout the world, particularly in
Asia. Particularly in Vietnam. I have noticed in my own
monitoring a deterioration in religious freedom in Vietnam
alongside that with American delinking of trade privileges with
China. They take their cues from the U.S. relationship with
China. In a way I think China and Sudan are both representative
of two types of very serious threats to religious freedom.
Mr. Smith. I think it is important. On one of my human
rights trips to China when I met with members of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, the assorted government affairs
people who were there for the various businesses that the
Commerce folks at our embassy had arranged for me to meet were
totally disbelieving that there was a religious persecution
issue. Totally.
One of the CEO's in a very dismissive tone of voice said,
why don't you just go with my secretary to church. She goes to
the Catholic church. It is open.
I said, it is part of the Catholic Patriotic Association,
the overseer of that being a branch of the Chinese government,
and anyone who is part of the Roman Catholic church is part of
an underground church and faces severe persecution and
disciplinary action.
He didn't believe it. He said, ``That is not true.''
So this recognition in this report certainly will go a long
way to establishing a fact, to the best of our understanding,
as to what the real reality is in China.
Now this is news. We have known it for some time. We have
raised it. But now it gets the imprimatur of a report from a
body that has looked at it with a fresh set of eyes and come to
that same conclusion.
Ms. Shea. I think this is a big departure for the State
Department, and I am very hopeful that it will act on this now,
this list of priorities.
One thing that caught my eye in Ambassador Seiple's
testimony is that he was, toward the end of it, talking about
their success cases, and he mentions that in Uzbekistan that
there was--the Uzbek government responded. He says that the
U.S. Government had pressed the Uzbek government at virtually
every level to take concrete actions in reducing the incident
of religious persecution.
He said, while it was persistent and intense pressure--but
I think you put your finger on it, which is that maybe the
Commerce Department officials, the trade delegations that go
over there don't give this intense and persistent message. It
is the human rights officials who don't have by themselves a
lot of leverage who give that message. If there was a continual
pressing at every level, you might see results in China, too.
Mr. Smith. Plus they buy into the show that the Chinese
government puts on, the Potemkin village that portrays any
suggestion that there is repression here as a myth.
Let me, with regard to the two-step process that Mr.
Rickard mentioned--and you have been utterly consistent. I have
been in Congress 19 years. Amnesty, whether it be Republican or
Democrat administration, tries to hold that administration to
account for an honest portrayal in the country reports. But
there also needs to be a linkage to policy.
When I first took the Chairmanship of this Subcommittee,
when the Republicans took control, you and each of your
representatives have always said that the country reports on
human rights practices are excellent documents, notwithstanding
some flaws, witch you point out. But there is always this major
disconnect between facts on the ground, country by country, and
any linkage to policy.
Probably the most glaring was and continues to be the
delinking of MFN with China, about which reasonable people can
have differing opinions on. But there are other ways of
engaging as well, with many penalties that accrue to offending
countries.
You made the point, and I hope it does not go unnoticed by
Ambassador Seiple and everyone else in his shop and by
Secretary Madeline Albright, that hopefully this isn't going to
be just an exercise of good reporting followed by a lack of
works or followup.
We will try within this Committee to see that even those
modest penalties with all the waivers that were provided are
utilized to the greatest extent possible in a cooperative
venture with the administration. Our end game is just more
religious freedom, that is all we want, and those offending
countries should know that.
I will never forget--and this was brought out by one of our
witnesses, and I think Mr. Wolf mentioned this--just a couple
of years ago, slavery was dismissed as nonexistent in the
Sudan--and I know Nina Shea has spoken to this many, many
times--and in Mauritania, where it is probably less of a
problem but still existed. We had the first hearing on that in
our Subcommittee in 1996 and we were roundly criticized for
believing a myth--that it just doesn't occur, it was
exaggerated and hyperbole.
Now I think there is a consensus that it is a problem. So
hopefully this report becomes the catalyst for, thinking ``wow,
it is as bad as we thought in this country or that, and we need
to do something about it.'' We will try to give the
administration, no matter whose control it is under, maximum
arrows in their quiver to prudently promote a policy that
protects the free exercise of religion.
So perhaps you might want to speak to the two-step, and the
message is go forward from here: good report, now we need
action. It can't be mitigated by that rose-colored lens of
constantly saying, oh, it might hurt commerce. It might do
this. There are too many people suffering.
Mr. Rickard.
Mr. Rickard. Let me just make a couple of points.
First, I want to just very strongly endorse something that
Nina just said, and that is the ripple effect from the backing
down on human rights in China. I just think that has had a
devastating impact throughout Asia, and I think the closer you
get to China maybe the more so. Amnesty never took a position
on linking MFN, for or against it. Whatever you think about it,
taking that position and then backing down was devastating to
the most important thing you have to have as a diplomat pushing
any issue, and that is credibility.
You don't have credibility if they don't believe you really
care about the issue. When push comes to shove, you will really
care about the issue, and it is going to be a serious fight
about it, then people just kind of say, OK, fine, we will hear
you out; we will hear your demarche.
I have to tell it you that in representing the United
States, in making human rights demarches at times following the
delinking, I got the very definite impression that the reaction
of some foreign diplomats was, to essentially say ``I don't
like this. I don't like that you are coming in here and telling
us what we ought to do.
At the end of the day, I know it is just talk, and I figure
I have got to put up with this for 20 more minutes. I am paid
to that, OK; and when does the trade delegation arrive?''
I think that is why, when people say, why do we fight this
meaningless fight in Geneva year after year? Gee, we lose. What
is the point? What you are trying to show the Chinese is that
we do care about this and that there is some point past which
we will not retreat, and this is one of them. We will at least
go to multilateral fora that are designed to raise human rights
issues, and we will raise the gross human rights violations
that you are committing, and if we stop, a very different
message will be sent. We are in a hole. We have got to
establish credibility on human rights issues.
I believe that the people of the Department care about it.
I absolutely believe that, but they need help proving it to
people, that they will be there when push comes to shove.
I would like to make one little point that I actually meant
to make in my testimony. This is not a central or critical
point, but I think it is an interesting one about the way the
United States reacts to criticism and scrutiny and the
implications that that can have for our ability to push human
rights issues abroad.
Recently, we talked about the Special Rapporteur visit in
Vietnam, and recently a head of state refused to let another
Special Rapporteur visit facilities, claiming reportedly that
the Special Rapporteur was just a tool of people that wanted to
discredit the state.'' I have to tell you that the head of
state was Governor John Engler of my home State of Michigan
refusing to permit the Special Rapporteur on violence against
women visit prison facilities in Michigan.
I am a very proud native of the State of Michigan. I am not
remotely suggesting that the situation in Michigan is
comparable to other places they might investigate. But you then
see the Vietnamese government holding a press conference and
saying in these words, ``individuals or organizations which
come to Vietnam to conduct activities concerning human rights
or religion and interfere with the internal affairs of the
country will no longer be accepted.''
Whatever we may think about, that particular mission, the
refusal to cooperate with it and to call the Special Rapporteur
a tool of people who are trying to simply discredit the state
is unquestionably fodder for people who want to say, you don't
accept scrutiny. Why should we accept scrutiny? We agree with
you. They are just tools.
I am not implying moral equivalence, although there are
problems and we have documented a lot of them. But there is no
question that when President Clinton issues an executive order
that says we ratified these human rights treaties and I want
the Federal Government to look to make sure we are actually
implementing them and we are taking them seriously and we are
cooperating and we are filing our human rights reports on time,
and he gets 30 United States Senators sending him a letter
saying, we are really troubled about this, and we are very
upset about it, and what are you trying to do, it undercuts our
ability to say to other countries we take this seriously. We
demand that you take it seriously. We are treaty partners. We
have a right to demand that you live up to these standards. We
are not imposing our values on you. These are internationally
recognized norms that you voluntarily accepted when you agreed
to these conventions, and now we want you to live up to the
obligations.
So there are implications for our reaction to
understandable prickliness from time to time about criticism.
We just need to say, come on in. We will take the suggestions.
We will consider them just like everybody else ought to.
Mr. Smith. You may find it interesting that in the 1980's,
in the Helsinki Commission, we initiated a policy that in our
bilaterals especially with then what was the Soviet Union if
they had complaints against the U.S., we wanted them in
writing, and we would followup those complaints or those
criticisms with a written report. We expected the same from
them. It did provide for a much more open dialogue.
So I think your point is well taken. We have nothing to
hide, and when we have problems we need to clean them up.
I would like to ask the question in terms of deeds again,
and this would be to Mr. Kadirhaji. The report correctly notes
the harsh treatment of the Uyghurs in Xingiang, China,
including executions and possible killings but U.S. Government
policy says nothing about U.S. interventions on behalf of
Muslims who have been persecuted in Xingiang.
To the best of your knowledge, has the U.S. Government, any
of our embassy personnel, anyone made a representation on
behalf of Uyghurs?
The Interpreter. He has no idea. He doesn't believe that
any U.S. Government officials addressed these issues.
Mr. Smith. I will provide that question to Ambassador
Seiple as well. Hopefully there will be, if there has not and
hopefully there will in the future, representations on behalf
of the Uyghurs. I suspect there probably have been.
Just one final question, and again it goes back to the
Sudan, and again talking about words and deeds. The report
points out that two clerics, two priests, had been arrested,
two of many I am sure, but their names are given in the report,
Hillary Boma and Lino Sebit, who may face possible execution
and crucifixion for unsubstantiated charges.
I was wondering if any of our witnesses are aware of their
plight. Perhaps, Nina, being a member of the Commission, you
might have some insight as to what the government is doing on
their behalf.
Ms. Shea. I am aware of that case. I don't know what our
government is doing on their behalf. We don't have an
ambassador there, as you know, and I am not sure--our
Commission has not undertaken that portion of its investigation
yet to know what the U.S. policy actually has been on the
religious persecution in Sudan, as opposed to terrorism where
we know that there has been investigation and action.
Some of our Commission members that are Presidential
appointees did not get appointed until very late and we had to
get special legislation to enable us to spend money, so we
really didn't get off the ground until late summer or
September. So that is something that we are going to look into.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask one question about North Korea which,
based on all of the available information that I have seen,
should have been on the list because of its very extreme and
repressive policies with regard to religion and every other
human rights abuse under the sun. Yet the report cites a lack
of information or a lack of the capability to report as one
reason why it didn't make the list, which obviously would lead
a country to be less open and more closed in order to avoid any
kind of penalty pursuant to this law, if they were so inclined.
Is there not room for presumption based on best available
information to put a country, a rogue nation like North Korea
on the list and not somehow give them a false sense of being
excluded?
Ms. Shea. Yes, I think there is. It is the most Stalinist
state in the world. That is why you can't get in there and do
an investigation. There are some refugee reports of Christians
and other religious believers being punished to the third
generation in prison. In other words, if your grandmother was
caught praying, the grandson is still in prison serving a term
for that.
There is new evidence coming out. There is also the
converse that there is a cult built around the leader, and that
there is a coerced religion really. People are forced to
worship the Korean leader. So I think that is another argument
you can make that it is--there is no religious freedom.
However, we don't have any relations with Korea or trade
relations with Korea now, so you can argue that all the tools
are being used in that situation.
But I think--I always believe in highlighting. I think the
reporting itself is important, of exposing the human rights
violations. No government likes to be accused of the most
draconian human rights violations, and for that purpose alone I
think it is worth it.
Mr. Smith. Yes. Dr. Marshall.
Mr. Marshall. Just to add to that, Mr. Chairman, the report
is correct, but it is very hard to check and authenticate
anything about North Korea. However, all the evidence there is,
including particular testimony from people going over into
China, is that it is highly repressive. I mean, it describes
some of those things. There are no reports or indications which
would give a contrary picture. So the weight of whatever
evidence we have says this is perhaps one of the worst
situations in the world. The report should certainly have
mentioned that. I was stunned when I read that, just almost an
empty space in the report.
Mr. Rickard. I will just add, I agree with what my
colleagues have said. I do think it is a dangerous precedent to
say, well, we can't do this because there is a lack of
reporting. Amnesty is about to launch an international campaign
on human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, and it is another
country where it is just very hard to get information. This is
the same sources, human refugees, you do the best you can.
But my personal view is, personally, I think it is
reasonable to have presumptions in situations where there is a
certain amount of evidence that points in one direction. It
depends upon what you are looking at specifically, but there is
no entitlement to some of the items that are listed in the
legislation.
Mr. Smith. I will like to recognize the Chief Counsel and
Staff Director, Joseph Rees.
Mr. Rees. I have a couple of questions for Father Le,
following up on some questions that the Chairman asked to
Ambassador Seiple. But I would like to note, on this question
of North Korea, that there is a presumption in the American
legal system and civil cases and in every other legal system I
know about that once an issue is before the court, if one side
has destroyed or hidden the evidence, you resolve solve that
issue against that side.
Father Le, could you just state briefly. Is your
organization, the Association for Religious Freedom in Vietnam,
an inter-faith organization with Buddhists and Catholics and
Protestants and Hoa Haos and others?
Rev. Le. Thank you for your question. The people sitting
behind me are from the different faiths including Buddhists and
Hoa Hao and Catholic as well, because our group is a
combination of different communities, different religions in
Vietnam, because we have the same--the same fate. We have
religious persecution, so we unite ourselves, and we call
ourselves Committee for Religious Freedom for Vietnam, and we
combine all different communities and different religions.
Mr. Rees. Are you active and in current touch with your
coreligionists in Vietnam so that you have sources of
information not just about what happened before you left the
country but what is happening today?
Rev. Le. Yes, I do. Because we are concerned very much
about our situation in North Vietnam. I, myself, as a witness
of the Vietnamese people itself, I have maintained contacts all
the time with my people inside the country.
Mr. Rees. So you still do keep that contact?
Rev. Le. Yes, I do.
Mr. Rees. I heard Ambassador Seiple testified that during
his recent visit to Vietnam the people with whom he was able to
meet in different religious groups, all of them--Catholics,
Protestants, Buddhists--everybody said that things had gotten
better in the last 5 years. What is your assessment of that
view?
Rev. Le. Yes, this is very good indication for me to make
clear about the situation of the religious situation in
Vietnam. We have two kinds of looks. The first one is
appearance. We do emphasize that from the outside the situation
looks OK. On Sundays and at festivals, the government allows
people to come to church as well, but in the reality, the
churches have no right, no right to do their own business.
Everything they do they have to get permission from the
government.
Second, is the government tries to create a church within a
church, during a wedge into the community to divide them so as
to control them.
Mr. Rees. You did testify about that, Father?
Rev. Le. Yes.
Mr. Rees. Let me just ask one more question. The report,
and our annual country report on human rights practices, talks
about organizational strictures on the Catholic church. It
talks about the issue of appointment of bishops, question of
seminarians, church property. It does not talk about any
doctrinal constraints.
Now during a staff delegation to Vietnam, we were told by
Catholics there that in fact there are also serious doctrinal
constraints. The example that was given was that if a priest
tried to preach from the pulpit that abortion was a sin that he
would be denied the right to preach from then on.He would
probably be put into internal exile, because that would be
perceived an antigovernment statement, even though he was only
making a moral statement of Catholic doctrine.
Is that correct? Or would he be allowed to do that as long
as he was organizationally regular, as far as the state is
concerned?
Rev. Le. That is correct. Because all in the sermons of the
preachers who have been--belonged to the ideology of the
government; because all church assemblies have to be submitted
to be checked by the government. This means you have to preach
everything according to the will of the government only. That
is what the situation is in Vietnam.
Mr. Rees. Do sermons have to be submitted in advance to the
government, approved in advance?
Rev. Le. Approved in advance, yes.
Mr. Rees. This is recently true? You have spoken with
people in the country and that is still true today?
Rev. Le. Sometimes. In different areas. Sometimes this
one--this one area is OK and another area is completely
different. But the real situation is that the Communist
government tries to control all the activities of--all the
religions, not only Catholics but all religions as well.
Mr. Rees. I want to recommend that you give that
information and any other information you have to Ambassador
Seiple's office, because I have seen a disconnect between some
of the information that the State Department has and some of
the things that people tell us about Vietnam.
Rev. Le. I will, because our main concern is very much so;
so we will try to give updated information about the situation
of the church in Vietnam. We will. Thank you.
Mr. Rees. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Unfortunately, we have a vote on the House floor that I am
going to have to rush off to. It is a very significant vote on
the health care reform.
But I do have a whole series of questions I did want to
pose, but time does not permit. I would like to get to all of
you some of the questions that would be pertinent to some of
your testimony today and where I think you might provide some
insight to the Subcommittee.
Again, I want to thank you for your excellent testimony,
for the good work that you do, your front-line leadership as
human rights activists. For that, the world owes you a debt of
gratitude. We certainly respect your opinion and your insights
and your courage. And I want to thank you all for your
testimony.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
October 6, 1999
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