[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 27, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-145
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
TOM EMMER, Minnesota
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
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Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina KAREN BASS, California
CURT CLAWSON, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
SCOTT DesJARLAIS,Tennessee AMI BERA, California
TOM EMMER, Minnesota
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable David N. Saperstein, Ambassador-at-Large for
International Religious Freedom, U.S. Department of State...... 5
Robert P. George, Ph.D., chairman, U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom................................ 34
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable David N. Saperstein: Prepared statement............ 10
Robert P. George, Ph.D.: Prepared statement...................... 40
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 68
Hearing minutes.................................................. 69
THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:30 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, and good
afternoon to everyone.
The world is experiencing an unprecedented crisis of
international religious freedom, a crisis that has and
continues to create hundreds of millions of victims, a crisis
that undermines liberty, prosperity, and peace, a crisis that
poses a direct challenge to the U.S. interests in the Middle
East, Central and East Asia, Russia, China and sub-Saharan
Africa, to name just a few.
In large parts of the world this fundamental freedom is
constantly and brutally under siege. The worldwide erosion of
respect for this fundamental freedom is the cause of widespread
human suffering, grave injustices, refugee flows and
significant threats to peace.
This Congress has heard the cries of Iraqi and Syrian
Christians who face the threat of extinction, slavery, and
death.
We have heard about the plight that Rohingya Muslims who
face attacks and such unimaginable discrimination from hardline
Buddhist groups that many choose slavery elsewhere than life in
Burma.
We have heard about the persecution faced by Chinese
Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims and Falun Going
at the hands of the Communist Party, suspicious of organized
religion.
Many of us on this subcommittee have seen first-hand the
religious dividing lines in sub-Saharan Africa that are the
cause of so much death and destruction, especially by groups
like al-Shabaab and Boko Haram.
In a world where some people are willing to kill those
whose beliefs are different from theirs, where anti-Semitism
persists even in the most tolerant of places, and where
authoritarian governments use strong religious faith as a
potential threat to their legitimacy, it is more important than
ever that the United States engage in robust religious freedom
diplomacy, which uses all the tools available enshrined in the
landmark International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The stakes are too high and the suffering too great to
downplay religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy. But,
unfortunately, we often hear from religious groups globally and
from NGOs working on the issue that this administration has
sidelined the promotion of religious freedom.
This criticism does not discount the exemplary work done by
our men and women at the State Department and the efforts of
Ambassador Saperstein himself.
They do important and substantive work but it seems too
often that the issue is marginalized and isolated from issues
of national security or economic development even though we
know from academic research that countries with the highest
levels of religious freedom experience more prosperity and less
terrorism.
Religious persecution has catastrophic consequences for
religious communities and for individual victims. But it also
undermines the national security of the United States.
Without religious freedom, aspiring democracies will
continue to face instability. Sustained economic growth will be
more difficult to achieve.
Obstructions will remain to the advancement of the rights
of women and girls and perhaps most urgent of all religious
terrorism will continue to be nourished and exported.
The global religious freedom crisis will not disappear
anytime soon. According to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center,
75 percent of the world's population lives in countries where
severe religious persecution occurs regularly.
It has been almost 17 years since the passage of the
International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. For the record, I
chaired virtually every one of the hearings that led to its
passage, and as we all know it was authored by Congressman
Frank Wolf, a tremendous advocate for religious freedom.
Religious freedom diplomacy has developed under three
administrations of both parties. Unfortunately, the grim global
realities demonstrate that our Nation has had little effect on
the rise of persecution and the decline of religious freedom
and it is worth asking why.
Is it worth asking not only what the State Department is
doing, but more importantly, what can be done better? Are new
tools and new ideas needed to help U.S. religious freedom
diplomacy address one of the great crises of the 21st century?
Does the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 need
to be upgraded to reflect 21st century realities? That is why I
introduced the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act
of 2015.
This legislation named after the author, as I mentioned a
moment ago, of the original IRF Act would, among other things,
strengthen the role of the Ambassador-at-Large for
International Religious Freedom and the International Religious
Freedom office at State and give more tools to the
administration to address the crisis we face.
The bill is roundly endorsed and supported by a broad
diverse array of religious freedom, civil society, and diaspora
organizations.
They acknowledge what too many policymakers and
administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, have been
unable to appreciate.
America's first freedom ought to be infused at every
possible level into our foreign policy. Upgrading and
strengthening U.S. international religious freedom policy and
further integrating it into U.S. foreign policy, and national
security strategy, will send the clear message that the U.S.
will fight for the inherent dignity of every human being and
against the global problems of persecution, religious
extremism, and terrorism.
In so doing we can advance the best of our values while
protecting vital national interests.
I would like to yield to Mr. Cicilline for any opening
comments he might have.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
you and Ranking Member Bass for your leadership and for calling
today's hearing on the global crisis of religious freedom to
give us an opportunity to discuss the current state of
religious freedoms throughout the world.
And while the hearing title suggests solely a focus on
crises, it is my hope that we might also hear about examples of
positive trends in policy development and successful efforts to
open spaces for religious expression all across the world.
Spirituality and deeply held religious beliefs are central
to the lives of billions of people in the world and the freedom
to hold those beliefs without fear of persecution is essential
for the respect of basic human rights.
I want to offer my appreciation to today's witness for
agreeing to participate in this hearing including Ambassador
David Saperstein from the United States State Department and
Mr. Robert George, chairman of the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom.
I commend your dedication and commitment to ensuring
religious freedom in the world as an extension of the ethos of
the human rights of all people regardless of race, creed,
sexual orientation, or political affiliation must be respected.
I look forward to hearing your perspectives on the status
of displaced persons on the continent, the status of religious
freedom in the world, and the impact it has had on the human
rights of all people.
In a time when sectarian violence rages within and between
various world religions and the repression of religious
minorities persists, it is critical that we raise awareness of
these challenges as well as offering continuous support to
national, regional, and global institutions which seek to
address these issues.
The infringement of religious beliefs and exercise goes
beyond just a human rights violation. It poses a threat to
national and regional peace and stability and creates
conditions for marginalization and poverty within persecuted
groups as well as so many other negative consequences on the
individual and on society.
Whether it is the desecration of mosques, churches, or
synagogues or the defamation of violent assaults against
adherents to particular religious groups, it is critical to
provide oversight and forward-thinking policy in these matters
to ensure that we can help to expand religious freedoms
worldwide.
As a proud representative from the state of Rhode Island, a
state founded by Roger Williams in pursuit of religious
liberty, this is an issue particularly important to me and to
my constituents.
And I know that I stand with all of my colleagues in
Congress in our commitment to uphold the religious freedoms and
to expand global human rights and I look forward to the
testimony of our witnesses today, and I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
I would like to now yield to the chairman of the
Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, Dana
Rohrabacher.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much and thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for your stalwart efforts over the years on the
issues of human rights but particularly on this particular
human right, which is the right to worship God or not worship
God according to one's own conscience.
And you have played such an important role. You personally
have saved thousands of lives and I want to thank you for that
and people ought to know that our activism here has an impact
overseas for people who are living in a shadow of tyranny and
repression and murder.
We know that suppression of religious freedom has been--
always been part of the human condition.
We know that the history of Christians, even 1,000 years
ago we had Christian armies slaughtering each other or going
into separate countries and slaughtering the Huguenots for
killing the Catholics and et cetera, et cetera.
That, I am pleased to say, thanks to people like you in the
United States and in the Western world is something we have put
behind us now and it is important that America needs to lead
the way on issues like this.
And today, of course we face an enormous challenge and that
challenge is that Christians in the Middle East in particular
are being targeted for extinction.
They are targeted for genocide and we know that during the
Communist era that the Communists who we help defeat wanted an
atheist dictatorship and are responsible for murdering millions
of people, but of all faiths, I might add.
But today, we have the threat of our generation is to cope
with the rise of radical Islamic terrorism which is targeting
Christians in the Middle East for extinction.
Unless we act, those people who represent a culture, a
large population of people who worship God, will be wiped out.
Genocide will be successful.
Now, we have some challenges with Muslims, like in Burma
and elsewhere. Muslims are being denied their rights. We need
to acknowledge that.
But we need to tell the Muslim world without hesitation
that this fight with Christianity to the point that they are
exterminating Christians in Syria and elsewhere, the church--
when Morsi was in charge there in Egypt they were burning down
Catholic churches--this has got to stop. I have a piece of
legislation I would like to work with you, Mr. Chairman, on. I
have one that is a sense of the House that the Christian
community in the Middle East are targets of genocide and that
our immigration policy from that part of the world should put
anyone who is a target of genocide at the top of the list of
priorities of being admitted to the United States.
And that's the sense of the House. I am currently working
on a resolution that would actually change the basic law--
immigration law to reflect that priority.
If people are targeted for extermination, targeted for
genocide, we should make them a priority to offer the safe
haven of the United States, which we are so proud of, that we
have been the shining light and the refuge to the world.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Chairman Rohrabacher, and
just for the record, thank you for all of your leadership going
back to your days as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan.
Just last week, we met with Prime Minister Sharif from
Pakistan and I followed you, but you led very, very
effectively, raising issues of religious persecution and
blasphemy laws and the like and I want to thank you for that
leadership.
I would like to now yield to Dan Donovan, who is the former
district attorney for Staten Island and now a Member of
Congress and a welcome member of this subcommittee.
Mr. Donovan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and to show
you how smart my mother and father raised me I am not going to
speak after somebody who wrote speeches for President Reagan.
I am very interested in hearing the witnesses' testimony so
I will yield my time until further into the proceedings.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Donovan.
I would like to now welcome our very distinguished first
witness, Rabbi David Saperstein, who is Ambassador-at-Large for
International Religious Freedom. He was confirmed by the Senate
on December 12, 2014, sworn in, and assumed his duties on
January 6 of this year.
Ambassador Saperstein previously served for 40 years as the
director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, a
rabbi and an attorney for 35 years.
Rabbi Saperstein taught seminars in First Amendment church-
state law and in Jewish Law at Georgetown University Law
Center. He has served on the boards of numerous national
organizations including the NAACP.
In 1999, Ambassador Saperstein served as the first chair of
the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and he
has been a great friend of this subcommittee on human rights,
to this chairman and many of us in the House and Senate and I
want to thank him for his leadership and yield the floor to
him.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAVID N. SAPERSTEIN, AMBASSADOR-AT-
LARGE FOR INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
STATE
Ambassador Saperstein. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am honored to be here, Mr. Cicilline, Mr. Donovan, Mr.
Rohrabacher, and my compliments to Ranking Member Bass for the
extraordinary work she has done as well.
I am honored to appear before you today on International
Religious Freedom Day and the 17th anniversary of the IRF Act
here.
Mr. Chairman, you did play--and everyone should know it--an
extraordinary role in the passage of that and in urging its
effective implementation and empowering the effective
implementation in all these years.
It has been an honor to have had the opportunity to work
with you over these years. It is a connection I cherish deeply.
The law has had a significant impact on the way religious
freedom is viewed, not only in the United States but around the
world.
In far too many countries people face the kind of daunting,
alarming, growing challenges you have all so articulately
described.
In countries with proud traditions of multi-faith
cooperation, often for centuries, where positive coexistence
was once the norm, we witness growing numbers of religious
minorities being driven out of their historic homeland and in
too many countries prisoners of conscience suffer cruel
punishment and torture for their religious beliefs and
practices.
Now, in our report this year there are several key trends I
would like to lift up and highlight. First is the abhorrent
acts of terror committed by those who falsely claim the mantle
of religion to justify their wanton destruction. The action of
non-state actors in this regard is the fastest growing
challenge to religious freedom worldwide.
In Iraq and Syria, ISIL has sought to eliminate anyone
assessed as deviating from its own violent and destructive
interpretation of Islam.
The group has displaced over 1 million from their homes
based solely on their religion or opposition to ISIL's
interpretations, be they Sunni or Shi'a. Shi'a were targeted by
ISIL. Christians and Yazidis were also targeted by ISIL or
anyone of the many other ethno-religious groups for whom Iraq
and Syria are home and they are suffering greatly--the
Turkmens, Sabean Mandaean, the Kaka'is, the Shabaks and the
others. Their victim stories are deeply troubling.
When I was in Iraq, the first trip that I took as the
Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, I
heard the story of an 18-year-old Yazidi woman from Mosul whom
ISIL fighters kidnapped and raped.
I heard this from members of her village, her family. She
was then taken to Kocho village near Sinjar Mountain where the
fighters separated out the village's men and boys over 12 years
old, and as she watched helplessly, lined them up next to
shallow ditches and shot them all. After a while, her cell
phone stopped working.
We do not know this poor woman's ultimate fate. What we do
know is that that same story has replayed itself countless
numbers of times with other victims.
We talk about the numbers, but every one of those numbers
is a human being. Every one of those numbers represents the
most horrific suffering that we can imagine.
We continue to see the negative impacts, secondly, of
blasphemy and apostasy laws in countries including Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan.
Such laws have been used in some countries as a pretext to
justify violence in the name of religion, which can lead to
false claims of blasphemy, creating an atmosphere of impunity
for those in social hostilities who choose to resort to
violence.
Repressive governments routinely subject their citizens,
third, to violence, detention, discrimination, undue
surveillance for simply exercising their faith or identifying
with the religious community. We see this dramatized by those
countless number of prisoners of conscience and we are deeply
committed to seeing them free everywhere in the world.
In China, members of unregistered religious and spiritual
groups, their advocates including Falun Gong, the house
churches, continue to face widespread harassment, detention and
imprisonment.
This reality has only been exacerbated by the growing
crackdown on human rights lawyers in China including those
seeking to work within China's legal system to enhance
religious freedom such as human rights lawyer Zhang Kai who was
arrested just before he and a group of other religious and
human rights activists were to meet with me on my trip.
Many governments have also used the guise of confronting
terrorism or violent extremism to justify repression of
religious groups, nonviolent religious activities or imposition
of broad restrictions on religious life.
Chinese officials have increased controls on Uyghur
Muslims' peaceful religious expression and practice, including
reported instances of restricting the ability to fast during
Ramadan, banning beards and head scarves. Tibetan Buddhists
face government interference under the cause of combatting
separatism.
Societal violence and discrimination continue to shape the
government's vital role in protecting religious freedom.
Even though these are not actions facilitated by the
government, governments are responsible under international law
to take appropriate action to ameliorate the conditions that
lead to such violence and protect harassed minority
communities.
And as you indicated, even in Europe many governments are
struggling to cope with the aftermath of terror attacks such as
those in France, Belgium, and Denmark, and at the same time
hundreds of thousands of Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, others have
fled into Europe in the past months.
We urge governments to uphold their obligations to protect
the human rights of refugees and migrants in their countries
and take steps to prevent them from facing official harassment
and discrimination on account of their religion.
We are deeply inspired by the works of countless religious
communities, civil society groups, and individuals around the
world who hold their governments accountable for international
commitments to protect freedom of religion and belief.
This remains the driving force behind our work. During my
confirmation last year, I described several key goals. We have
made progress on many of them in no small measure thanks to the
support on Capitol Hill.
First, we have been working successfully to build
partnerships with other nations to advance religious freedom
together since these global challenges require a global
response.
With the leadership of my good friend, Canadian Ambassador
for Religious Freedom Bennett, we have forged the International
Governmental Contact Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief,
drawing from every hemisphere, from countries with different
majority religious traditions to bring together nations, to
devise strategies to promote and protect religious freedom for
all.
And this parallels parliamentary network help, which our
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has played
such an important role in helping to shape.
Second, we have strengthened significantly our programmatic
work, an often overlooked but vital area of our work. Through
the Human Rights and Democracy Fund and other funding sources,
the State Department supports an ever wider range of programs
that have a direct impact on international religious freedom,
countering intolerance, combatting anti-Semitism, increasing
public awareness, training civil society and government
officials, strengthening the capacity of religious leaders to
promote interfaith cooperation, empowering religious minorities
to participate in political life, and combatting religiously
motivated discrimination and violence.
Third, we have strengthened our focus on religious minority
communities under siege. The Obama administration has appointed
Knox Thames as our Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in
the Near East and South/Central Asia.
We have spoken out frequently about what it would take to
allow minority communities displaced by violence to return
home, and Special Advisor Thames is actively focusing on
coordinating with government-wide efforts in this regard.
Fourth, we are building our office's capacity to advance
religious freedom worldwide. The Department of State has
significantly increased the staffing of our office, allowing us
to expand ongoing work and devote staff to--not just for
geographical focus to monitor countries across the globe but to
focus on thematic issues like the relationship between
religious freedom, countering violent extremism, the negative
effects of blasphemy and apostasy laws, intersection of women's
equality and religious freedom.
This has helped us engage every segment of the State
Department and of the administration and integrated religious
freedom into our Nation's statecraft in areas far beyond just
religious freedom itself.
And fifth, we have maintained a very close cooperation with
the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
represented here by its chair. He served a very exemplary role
as chair prior to this.
Professor Robert George is one of this country's great
public intellectuals and it is always an honor and a pleasure
to work closely with him.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we continue to face these
daunting, alarming, growing challenges. We are building new
partnerships, investing in new programs, increasing our staff,
coordinating with USCIRF.
We face this task with continued vigor and resolve to
ensure that everyone has a right to live in accordance with the
dictates of his or her conscience.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Saperstein follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Ambassador Saperstein, thank you very much for
your testimony, and because we do have votes that may come as
early as 1:30 to 1:45, I will lay out my questions and ask you
to answer them and ask others so that we don't--we can get to
Professor George in a timely fashion.
Just a couple of questions to start off with. There is a
perception, as you know, among many--the 2013 GAO report cited
this concern as well--that religious freedom is not a high
priority for this administration.
Now, in a revelation of priorities, as a matter of fact,
Robbie George did testify a couple of times before our
subcommittee at one point when--I mean, you are a breath of
fresh air. We are so glad you sit in this very strategic
position.
But the problem has been for almost 3 years nobody sat in
your position and CPC designations were not forthcoming even
though the act prescribed an annual designation.
They simply didn't happen and they did not happen so a lot
of countries that should have been put on notice and held to
account were not.
And I am wondering in the system how--I mean, do you meet
with Secretary Kerry? Does he take your phone calls? Is there
an integration of religious freedom and religious persecution
issues in all aspects?
Does DoD do the same thing? Certainly, whether it be
AFRICOM or any of our other efforts, I mean, many of our
soldiers and service members are as much diplomats as they are
warriors and I am wondering how integrated that is with your
efforts.
I know you have travelled--when you go to a country you
have an impact. But all the rest of the government it is a
whole of government approach, it would seem to me.
Can you speak to that issue of whether or not it is? Some
of the designations that USCIRF has--and I and others have
called for repeatedly are Vietnam and Pakistan.
We just met, as I mentioned, with the Prime Minister of
Pakistan a few days ago talking about blasphemy laws. I
remember when the minister was gunned down in cold blood on his
motorcycle some years ago, Shahbaz Bhatti.
I was with you. We were in mourning over his loss. Pakistan
has serious problems and Vietnam got an upgrade in order to get
WTO and to get MFN or PNTR as it is now called. I opposed it.
It said let the record speak for itself.
I went to Vietnam, met with a lot of people. A lot of those
that I met with are now in jail now, again, like Father Ly, who
unfortunately had another show trial, as you know so well.
I mean, Vietnam ought to be a CPC. What we do in terms of
implementing and sanctioning is purely up to the
administration.
But the designation itself ought to be done without any
other consideration of a foreign policy. And maybe if you would
speak to the pattern. I wrote the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act. We have a hearing in this subcommittee on
November 4th.
John Shattuck, who was the Assistant Secretary back in the
Clinton administration for human rights, testified right where
you sit against Frank Wolf's bill, against it on the record.
You know, it is baffling to look back--he was against it.
I have often thought there are a whole lot of people who
still haven't said this is something we need to work on within
State this patterns suggests that.
On the trafficking bill, three countries at least--
Malaysia, Cuba, and China didn't get Tier 3, egregious violator
of trafficking, even though the record is absolutely clear.
Malaysia was because of the TPP, Cuba because of our
rapprochement that we have engaged in, and China because we
don't want to offend China, which is ludicrous.
On the child abduction law that I wrote, the Sean and David
Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return
Act, Japan mysteriously dropped off even though there are 50
cases because of ``other considerations.''
And I am wondering from your perch, and I don't want to get
you fired, but do you see that there is a reluctance to really
engage these issues? And Vietnam jumps off the page. They need
our help.
You know, China threatens them as never before and it seems
that there is an effort to try to build bridges there. Calling
them out on their persecutions seems to me to be a very
important thing to do.
So this pattern troubles me when it comes to these
fundamental human rights issues and the clear points. Again,
even on China, as you know, China is in a race to the bottom
with North Korea when it comes to human rights.
We just issued--I chair the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China--we just put out our annual report on
October 8th. It is chilling horrifying reading on every human
rights point including religious persecution.
Even the patriotic church and the Three-Self Movement are
being attacked now and they were supposed to be protected by
the government.
So if you could speak to some of those issues I would
appreciate it.
Ambassador Saperstein. All right. Let me take a run at some
of these as quickly as I can.
First, the integration issue. It used to be a fight to talk
with the government over the last 15 years about how connected
religious freedom was with so many other concerns we have had.
I was really heartened when I arrived to find it is no longer a
fight here.
It is absolutely clear to everyone you cannot deal with
combatting violent extremism, with countering terrorism, if you
can have sectarian violence in a country, if you have large
numbers of people shut out of participation in a country
because of what their religious beliefs are.
It is absolutely clear you cannot build democracies, you
cannot have effective conflict resolution when you have groups
of people who have to choose between abiding by the laws of the
country and living out their lives in accordance with their
religious conscience where, again, they don't feel they can
affirm their lives in that country by following the system and
when that happens they are filled with the kind of frustration
and despair that makes them fertile field for extremists.
This is widely understood now in the State Department. In
the work of my colleague, Shaun Casey, on the religion and
global affairs effort that virtually doubles the number of
people at the State Department working on the broader religious
issues here, I have a staff of, depending on how you count
them, 20, 25 people with part-time people who help write the
report, even a little larger than that. Shaun has a staff that
size--together it gives us a formidable ability to really
continue to work closely with all the different arms.
Almost all of them are really appreciative. Not just open
but appreciative and they recognize you have to deal with these
issues.
It is a different day today. Is it still clumsy for many
people? Yes. These are very hard issues to deal with in an
effective manner.
I also have to say that I have been struck by, in every
country I have been to, and I presume it has been your
experience as well in your travels, how robust is the
engagement of the Embassies on an ongoing basis with the
religious communities.
When they pulled together their religious leaders they were
greeted with open arms. They were greeted with, you know,
people that they really knew and knew them. I think that is one
of the great contributions with what you did with the report.
Think about it. Every year 193 Embassies or councils have
to assign staff to draft the report. They have to be in touch
with beleaguered religious community or oppressed religious
community.
When I travelled in 2000 here that was the most common
refrain I had--we now have somebody to talk to, we never had
anyone to talk to, we know someone in the Embassy that we can
talk to.
Over the years, well over 1,000 Foreign Service Officers
have had the immerse themselves in this kind of work. They are
all over the place now.
So we find there is robust interaction in the Embassies,
far beyond what I imagined and I was aware of, before I took
this position. I find that to be really heartening as well
here.
Let me move on to your question about access and influence.
I was given a choice of several different variants of how this
might be arranged.
I consulted with some very good people, Congressman Wolf, a
little bit with yourself, with Tom Farr, others on this. They
promised me before I took this job I would have as much access
as I want.
I remember Representative Fortenberry asking the Secretary
of State this question and he said, you know, I had to work for
months to work it out for him to come on board--do you think I
did that where he is not going to have access.
There has not been a time that I have reached out to the
Secretary's staff, to the Secretary, to the other top staff
where I think within hours I have gotten a response, almost
always appreciating--affirming what I asked for and providing
what I requested.
Considering how busy they are, the fact that these
responses come at the highest levels quickly and so
encouragingly and supportive to me kind of speaks volumes about
that.
They really have lived up to that promise. There is not a
single time that I have been shut out where I wanted access.
I have had the time both formally and often step-asides
with the Secretary where he says what is going on here--bring
me up to speed here--what problems do you have here where I
have been able to share those with him.
So I have been very heartened and encouraged by that. I
agree with you about the CPCs. I was clear about that in my
testimony.
I am pushing very hard to revamp the way that we do this. I
do not think we are going to have this problem in the future
here and I think within a short period of time that will become
clear.
Let me get into some of the individual countries. It is
really hard for me on the wonderful work on trafficking which,
as you know, in my prior life here the coalition met on this
bill, met in my offices here.
You know how strongly I feel about the bill and how closely
we worked on it and the same with your child abduction law. It
is really not appropriate for me to answer some of these other
questions.
Obviously, everyone in government should always abide by
what the law says in terms of implementing these----
Mr. Smith. If you could yield for 1 second. The concern is
that there is a pattern. With Malaysia, it is the TPP and there
is no way that Malaysia could be a Tier 3 country and go
forward with the TPP.
Cuba, we are making nice in Cuba even though you read the
trafficking narrative in the TIP Report and it is inescapable.
It is a Tier 3 country, it is horrible, and yet they got a
country----
Ambassador Saperstein. I mean, I need to leave it, Mr.
Chairman----
Mr. Smith. So Vietnam ought to be----
Ambassador Saperstein. I need to leave it to you with your
great experience and this subcommittee with its great
experience to make the judgements about patterns.
May I just offer one comment about it, however? It is
absolutely true there are problems that emerge over the years.
They come in ebbs and flows.
They change over the years where things are not as
implemented as effectively as we might hope. They remain the
exceptions.
We deal year after year with scores and scores of
countries, some of whom we have deep relations with, we depend
on for important interests, where we call it as it was intended
to be. We name those countries and you focus on the times that
it has gone off base. I understand that.
I would just offer that in the main, all these things are
working and they are evoking change here and, I mean, I
remember in the very first year of the trafficking report when
Israel was named, many people said ``a close ally,''
``shouldn't do,'' and then within a year they had passed a
series of laws mainly that immediately took them out of it.
Mr. Smith. It was South Korea.
Ambassador Saperstein. You and I could name a score of
times off the top of our heads where this really has worked. So
I leave it to you to draw the question about the problematic
patterns.
But I think we ought to really celebrate also the patterns
that show enormous impact that these pieces of legislation you
have helped draft have had to beleaguered people all across the
globe.
Let me just say a word about particularly Vietnam here. I
have found over the years that there are often not things that
are right or wrong but different truths that are in tension
with each other.
So your picture of Vietnam I cannot argue with. You know
from our report I agree with everything that you are saying.
There are other parts of the picture, however, that I saw
when I was there and we heard from different religious leaders,
and as you know I met with Father Ly in prison.
He asked me to send his warmest regards to you and to
express how much he appreciates the staunch support that you
have given him. We visited other religious prisoners as well.
If you visit Vietnam today and compare it to when I was
there last, a number of years ago, or to people who really know
the country well and your own visits 15 years ago, wherever I
travelled, the churches are bursting at the seams in small
rural areas of the country, in the cities.
The churches are filled there. There is a vibrancy and
power, often filled with young families, that is truly
inspiring against all of these restrictions, in the face of all
of these restrictions.
They at least allow for this kind of life to happen and we
have found that these restrictions that you have talked about
are imposed very unevenly around the country.
There are many areas where the hand of government is much
lighter and in those areas the religious communities are
organizing. They contribute to the society, are able to provide
social services. There are extraordinary things that are going
on.
But you go to another city and they crack down all the time
and throw in jail the unregistered churches. In another city
they turned a blind eye so long as it is not flagrant.
That wouldn't have happened 15 years ago. There was no
room, no space for any of that. So we are focused right now on
using TPP where there has been an openness for improvements on
human rights in several areas, on labor law, on disability
rights, and other things that we have been engaged with Vietnam
on, where TPP has been a lever to get them to sign
international accords and treaties they have never signed
before to reform some of the rule of law issues that we have
been pushing on for years.
We are pushing very hard on religious freedom. I hope
everyone knows that Vietnam is now undertaking a complete
revision of their religion law.
On the one hand, there are parts of it that are positive
here. It would add provisions allowing for religious training
facilities, the explicit right for religious institutions to
raise money for the first time.
It would permit clergy to organize religious ceremonies
more extensively than it does. It gives prisoners religious
rights that it never gave before.
On the other hand, in the main, it didn't make the reforms
that you have been calling for and we have been calling for,
the same regulatory system that controls every aspect of life--
who can go to seminary, what they can teach, who can be
appointed as a leader of a church.
If you don't have the right to appoint your own clergy, how
can you really have religious freedom? I hear the requirement
to report everything you are planning to do for a year with
every deviance from it having to be approved by the government.
We have offered a number of suggestions of how to push
that. We have done that in consultation with the religious
leadership of Vietnam.
We really hope that they will make improvements that will
change it from permission to notification. If they want to keep
some awareness and control, at least let the religious
communities notify them what they are doing and move ahead.
They ought to have a restriction that says if they ask for
approval for something, if it doesn't come by the time the law
says, that it becomes a stamp of approval.
Otherwise, people wait for years and years for permission
to do things, and to ease the restrictions on the unregistered
churches so long as they don't violate some other kind of law.
So we are pushing very hard. One of the big problems is
some of the restrictions are written so vaguely it allows the
government to crack down on whatever it wants to do. You can't
have a legal system that does that.
It can't have over-broad vague rules controlling religious
life this way. So we are working to support the religious
community and the NGO community that are pushing hard for these
reforms.
Let us see what happens on this here. It is a country of
key priority for us here and we will continue to keep our
focus.
Mr. Smith. I thank you.
Before I yield to Mr. Cicilline, I would just note
immediately prior to the bilateral trade agreement, Vietnam was
taken off the list by the previous administration so there is
no partisan effort here and, very quickly, the day after they
won that benefit there was a snap back and the people who had
signed Bloc 8406, the human rights manifesto, many of the
religious freedom people that I met with on my last trip there,
which was right before the bilateral trade agreement were all
thrown into jail again.
And so it is the lack of durability and CPC, I would
respectfully say, doesn't mean you have to prescribe penalties.
You have the option.
Ambassador Saperstein. Yes.
Mr. Smith. But the designation is just a snapshot--what are
they doing--and it seems to me that they have not made the
grade. But that is--we will agree to disagree.
Mr. Cicilline.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Ambassador, for your testimony.
I have three subjects that I would like to cover and I know
I have other colleagues that are here so I will try to move
them quickly.
You made reference to the sort of, I think, some sense that
you are revamping or revising the CPC designation process. If
you could speak to that.
I mean, I do think there is some evidence of some
unevenness in this process and, certainly, USCIRF has made
recommendations about a greater number of countries being
designated and I recognize there are waivers that are granted.
But I would also like to hear your thoughts on the impact
of waivers, particularly waivers which sometimes seem to be
permanent.
The whole notion behind this and it has obviously worked
successfully is to identify countries of concern to raise the
profile of the issue and as a consequence compel them to change
their behavior or take action so the even and predictable way
in which this is done in the sense that it is being done
annually, as at least the legislation suggests, and then the
impact of waivers. So that is one.
The second thing is if you would just speak to what I think
is a growing concern for many of us, and that is the action of
non-state actors who very often are some of the worst violators
of religious freedom and, obviously, in places sometimes where
government is really nonexistent or functioning government is
nonexistent, what are the tools available for us to impact that
situation and should we consider being able to designate a
region even if it doesn't have an actual government responsible
as a place of concern, which I am not sure the current statute
provides?
And, finally, what are the most effective tools that you
have and what more can Congress do to enhance the objective of
your responsibilities and what are the most effective ways to
do it?
That may include some of the recommendations that were made
in the International Religious Freedom Report I just released.
So if you could just address those three I would appreciate it.
Ambassador Saperstein. Yes. Very quickly, there is an
agreement that we need to kind of standardize and regularize
the CPC process. We haven't quite completed that yet.
I can't comment on the internal deliberations but we are
trying to move ahead in a way that I think you will feel good
about when we are able to talk a little more openly about it.
It is part of the process of the CPC determinations. We not
only provide internal guidance to all of those in the decision-
making process and my office in DRL, through all the regional
desks all the way up to the Secretary, but also the analyses of
NGOs, of religious communities, and, most particularly, of
USCIRF here.
We take the Commission's recommendations of what the CPCs
ought to be. They are seen by everyone including the
argumentation for it as part of our process and I just want
people to know about that.
In terms of the impact of when waivers are given, the
sanctions are only one tool that we have in our programmatic
work in which we strengthen civil society and religious groups
are able to fight for their rights more effectively, where we
move together with international cooperation as we strengthen
these international arms to work together, to focus so that
countries that have better relations with some countries we may
not, can be effective in terms of fighting for the expansion of
human rights and religious freedom.
All of these are weapons that are tools, that are available
to us to do that work. We have this panoply of tools and when
sanctions aren't going to be imposed because of national
interests, national security purposes, then we use these other
tools as robustly as we possibly can.
Nonstate actors are a major challenge for us. We have very
little control and leverage with them. They are not in
diplomatic relations with us.
We, obviously, in countries like Iraq are committed to
strengthening the governments there to fight against these
groups. The same with those who face Boko Haram, who face al-
Shabaab.
We are working with the governments to try and use the best
techniques that we can train them in to provide resources for
them, to learn from best practices elsewhere, to help
coordinate efforts of countries in the surrounding areas
together to try and be more effective in the work that we do on
those.
But this is an evolving crisis that we will be spending
more and more time on. I have been encouraged to see how in the
State Department, and I know in our intelligence agencies and
defense world, we really have mobilized around these issues.
We are in touch on an ongoing basis with the defense
apparatus, particularly vis-a-vis the Near East, Iraq and
Syria, and with the intelligence agencies in terms of working
together on this.
I think you will be very heartened to know the extent of
the cooperation on the sharing of our relevant perspectives and
sharing of information on this.
What more? I mean, I think there are ideas you will have to
take a look and evaluate based on what we have heard here in
the Frank Wolf bill here.
There are other bills around. There are some good ideas in
those and you should, obviously, take a look at them.
Obviously, any time resources through the State Department
are expanded it is helpful to us. I want to say what I said
over and over again every time I have testified. There is
extraordinary work being done at the State Department.
There are not enough resources in some of the most vital
areas that we have. When we are forced to take from one good
area to another good area including to religious freedom, it
really hurts our overall mission.
So where there are additional resources putting in of the
work that you think is most helpful it really makes a
difference in our ability to do it and I am feeling that by the
funds that the Department was able to free up to allow us to
significantly expand our staff that will really significantly
strengthen our work.
Mr. Cicilline. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I yield
back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Chairman Rohrabacher.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. Just to reiterate, I
believe that at this particular moment when we are discussing
religious freedom in the world that the overriding issue and
attention needs to be on the Christians in the Middle East who
are literally targeted for genocide. And we can see that and we
need to deal with that is my priority.
But in terms of the broader scope of religious freedom,
with the fall of Communism and basically Marxism and Leninism
was an atheist philosophy of trying to superimpose an atheist
dictatorship on the world and they killed many believers of all
faiths and we can be happy that that part of the human history
has been, as Ronald Reagan said, put into the ash heap of
history.
And there has been progress made in Vietnam but there is a
long way to go, as you expressed. The very laws that are
applicable to all other elements of a controlled society are
applied to them.
Thank you for that insight. I think it is important for us
to realize those controls are being used by people who
fundamentally are atheists of the Communist nature who now are
in power and they have this bias against--the guys in power
have this bias against Christians because they were part of the
Communist tide that was going to sweep the world.
But let me ask you about Russia. That was the heart of it
and it is where it started. I have been to Russia several times
in the last couple years and I have been meeting with religious
leaders every time and they are reporting to me that they have
relative freedom of religion on Russia now. What would your
reaction to that be?
Ambassador Saperstein. Like many countries around the
globe, it is a mixed story. For those that are recognized in
Russia, there is a good modicum of ability to live their lives
in accordance with their freedom.
But in the name of anti-terrorism and anti-separatism, the
Russian Government also has cracked down on some Muslims, some
minority groups and we think--we understand legitimate concerns
about terrorism.
We support countries dealing with them. But when they crack
down by cracking down on peaceful religious practice as kind of
an inoculation against letting anything flourish that might
lead down a path that they fear toward this, it really becomes
problematic.
Mr. Rohrabacher. It is a very difficult line to draw, what
you are talking about----
Ambassador Saperstein. It is.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. Because in Russia they--even,
I mean, as I say, I have met with religious leaders. My last
several visits I--and the Mormons--even the Mormons said oh,
no, we are fine--we can knock on doors and seek converts and
the only group that was complaining were the Scientologists,
which, of course, is a question in Germany as well.
But in terms of trying to deal with the Islamic threat at a
time, we realize it is very easy to see our friends in Saudi
Arabia have been sponsoring mosques in order to promote radical
Islam not--and changing the society and not just to get
together to help people worship God together.
Where you draw that line of how you deal with people who
are trying to manipulate the Islamic faith toward a political
radical end, that is a very difficult line to draw.
Ambassador Saperstein. We agree it is a difficult line to
draw and, clearly, one of the tests ought to be where peaceful
people are acting peaceably they ought to be allowed to----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Sure.
Ambassador Saperstein [continuing]. Live in accordance with
their religious conscience.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Correct.
Ambassador Saperstein. Where they are violating laws here
that have to do with criminal activity and terrorist activity
then those should be addressed directly about it.
We have found in a number of countries including Russia
that is an over-broad crackdown on segments of the community
and they also have a registration process that can be tough.
There are smaller groups--Jehovah's Witnesses, other
groups----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Ambassador Saperstein [continuing]. Who really are feeling
enormous pressure----
Mr. Rohrabacher. That was the second group that was----
Ambassador Saperstein [continuing]. In this regard as well.
So some of the smaller groups are really having problems.
You know, the same thing--if you are talking about those
categories in countries and China. China still only recognizes
five major faiths. If you are not one of those faiths, you risk
going to jail if you try to function openly there.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I was just about to bring up China. So
thank you for that analysis. One last note on China--yes, they
have to be part of those five recognized faiths.
But do we not also still see a massive repression of, for
example, the Falun Gong in China? Wouldn't that be under the
umbrella of a religious freedom?
Ambassador Saperstein. I mean, it is why I named it in my
testimony here. There are still thousands of Falun Gong
imprisoned including mostly their leadership.
Many of them are in prisons where we do not know where they
are and their families and their lawyers can't contact. There
are many reported stories of torture and deaths in prison here
but we are seeing similar kinds of repression vis-a-vis the
Tibetan Buddhists and the Uyghur Muslims. And as I said, as in
Vietnam, you know, it is uneven around the country.
There are some places the government hand is lighter and
you see religious publishing houses and social services and
there are other places and unregistered churches able to
function, but in the main in China, unregistered churches are
always in danger of being arrested and we have this
extraordinary situation in Wenzhou where one of the deepest
concentrations of Christians in one area in China where they
are pulling down crosses over about 1,500 churches and
demolishing churches in the name of urban reclamation and they
talk about it being only a small percentage of all the
buildings.
But at 1,500 out of 6,000 churches there is 25 percent of
all the churches that have been affected by this. And it is a
clear effort to kind of repress the visible presence of the
growing resurgence of religious life in China.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, thank you very much for giving us
that insight of that type of repression.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher.
Curt Clawson, the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. Clawson. Thank you for coming in and thank you for your
service to our country.
I got two real quick questions so if you will--I know Mark
wants to go so we will go fast. The first one is really easy.
We read the information. We don't see anything about
Mormons and, you know, Mormons they can get mocked on, you
know, on Broadway and it doesn't matter.
So I am just curious no one ever mentions somewhere, I
think, millions of Mormons around the world. You never stumble
across it or off the radar, or what is the story there?
It wasn't a trick question. I am not----
Ambassador Saperstein. No, no, no.
Mr. Clawson. You know, I am just curious because of my own
ancestry.
Ambassador Saperstein. I respect that.
Mr. Clawson. Because if you don't know, you don't know. You
can let me know another time. It is okay.
Ambassador Saperstein. Let me--I am actually--I am pausing
because I want to say something--I want to phrase what I am
saying complimentary about the Mormon Church.
Because of their practice of young men and some women
voluntarily going on mission, they have worked out more
successfully than most religious groups.
A modus operandi to work with the powers that be as
effectively or more effectively than any other religious group
that I can--that I can think of, they tend to run into problems
there for--they try to play by whatever the rules are in a
different country and they are not as likely to push the
envelope.
So there are a score of countries I could name that do not
allow any kind of religious expression other than the one that
is a state-endorsed religious expression.
Disproportionately, these are Muslim countries in which a
Mormon would be arrested if they went around doing the normal
missionizing that they do, and since they don't tend to push
the envelope and test this but recognize that that is not a
country at this point they are able to function in----
Mr. Clawson. Right.
Ambassador Saperstein [continuing]. They tend to run into
this. That is why, of course----
Mr. Clawson. Right. No, no. I mean, I know. Render unto
Caesar what is Caesar's and render under the Lord what is the
Lord's.
Ambassador Saperstein. Indeed. So they----
Mr. Clawson. It is a good approach irrespective. Let me ask
one other question real briefly.
I have read the material. I see you speaking. I look at the
world in terms of global trade and I struggle--and I like what
you are doing--I like the program because people ought to be
able to go to church and kneel down and pray to whatever god.
But it never seems to really impact any trade and therefore
anybody's bottom line. If you are China, your billions of
dollars every month to the U.S. through Wal-Mart.
If you are the oil producers, none of that ever gets
impacted. Cuba is opening up. It feels like this is a program
at a big picture level I am saying no one's bottom line with
respect to trade is ever impacted even though we are the
world's growth engine.
So what are we really doing here and what am I missing
about that? Because all the countries that you mention there
are a lot of Nike shoes being made in Vietnam and all the toys
and electronics are coming from China. They are the factory of
the world.
And whether they abuse folks' religious freedoms or not
seems to matter not to the bottom line, which everyone
respects. Am I missing the big picture completely here or are
we kind of--it had got to be a frustrating job for you.
Tell me if I am missing something here because----
Ambassador Saperstein. You raise two issues. Let me just
say this because it has been alluded in some of the other
comments.
We are all committed to religious freedom and that includes
not only the right to worship. It includes the right to talk
about your faith, to change your faith, to proselytize others.
It includes, as someone said quite appropriately, the right not
to believe as well. It is a broad right that goes beyond just
the right to worship.
Mr. Clawson. Are we moving the needle?
Ambassador Saperstein. In some countries, we are. In other
countries, we are not, and we try to do everything we can to
move the needle by strengthening the ability of religious
groups to advocate for their rights, to work with civil
society.
We try to do it by our direct bilateral relations with
these countries to improve rule of law issues on that. There
are some countries we make real progress. Other countries are
much harder.
We do use economic levers on this. There are a range of
countries that are subject to sanctions. Like so, for instance,
in Iran; it restricts a whole number of religious communities.
We have lifted one set of sanctions. But all the human
rights and religious freedom sanctions remain in place and
nothing under this agreement stops us from imposing more if the
situation deteriorates even further than it does.
There is a whole range of countries in which we do apply
both human rights in general and religious freedom,
particularly. Restraint sometimes in trade, other financial
restraints and access to banking here and other things that
affect either the government or organizations that are involved
in this violation of human rights or individuals who are
involved in these rights.
They are fairly robust and over a long period of time we
think they are part of the picture of what we can do to change
the pattern of some of these repressive policies and practices
that countries have.
Mr. Clawson. I thank you. I think a lot of us have
ancestors that were religious freedom migrants.
Ambassador Saperstein. I can assure you that is true.
Mr. Clawson. And so it means something to us and therefore
it means something to folks in other countries that lose one of
the most cherished rights of all.
So we appreciate what you are doing. I am frustrated
sometimes by our lack of economic will. But I certainly have
nothing but respect and admiration for what you are doing, and
I yield back.
Ambassador Saperstein. I really appreciate that. As
somebody who is part of a religious group that has known this
kind of oppression time and again century after century.
We know the price of what happens when good people stand
idly by and this nation is committed not to repeat that mistake
that has been made so many times before.
So thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Clawson. Mark Meadows.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to say this as delicately as I possibly can, Mr.
Ambassador. But listening to your testimony, reconciling it
with reality or perceived reality is very difficult to do.
You are saying we are doing extraordinary things. I think
that was a quote--extraordinary things and making extraordinary
progress. And yet, when you talk to people on the ground, when
you talk to others they believe that the State Department
doesn't make this a priority.
How would you respond to that criticism?
Ambassador Saperstein. Yes. I truly don't believe I said
anything about extraordinary progress. These are daunting----
Mr. Meadows. To me--to Mr. Cicilline you did. But that is
okay. I listen very carefully. But go ahead. I will let you
retract.
Ambassador Saperstein. So if I said that then, Mr. Meadows,
I do retract it.
Human rights is a very daunting agenda today. Everywhere
across the globe religious freedom is a daunting agenda today
everywhere across the globe. It is very hard to get traction
and to change long-ingrained practices and policies----
Mr. Meadows. So would you----
Ambassador Saperstein [continuing]. That these countries
have.
Mr. Meadows. Would you say that----
Ambassador Saperstein. That we are doing extraordinary
things here I am prepared to try and defend to you. I really
believe that we are.
A lot of this in countries, the countries that are worst
countries, we can't talk about openly in terms of the
programmatic stuff. We are investing large amounts of resources
to help strengthen those who share our views, those who are the
victims of these injustices here and----
Mr. Meadows. So let me--let me interrupt you. I only have a
limited amount of time. So let me maybe reclarify my question a
little bit.
You talked about the use of tools. I think the GAO report
has cited in 2013 that this was not really a priority for the
administration. Positions went unfilled. Special envoys were
not put forth.
We have heard testimony--I follow this very closely and so
that is why I am saying trying to reconcile your testimony with
the myriad of testimony that I have heard before which would
suggest that it is not a priority. Are you saying that it is?
Ambassador Saperstein. I am saying that it is. Whatever was
true up until 2013, certainly from the time that I have come
on, the administration has lived up to every commitment and
promise that it made to me and that it has made to the office.
It has strengthened our work, our ability to work across
the full range of efforts of this administration and to have
access at the highest levels with the Defense Department, the
intelligence agencies, the full range of the State Department.
It exceeds what I had hoped for.
Mr. Meadows. That all sounds good but here is my question.
Some would suggest that the position went unfilled for over a
year so how could it be a priority?
Ambassador Saperstein. I am not the one to ask about being
held accountable to what happened before I came on. You would
have to ask others.
Mr. Meadows. All right. So let me go a little bit further
then because you were talking about TPP and as we have been
involved in the negotiations with TPP, it seems like religious
liberty and human rights is a sidebar, not anything that is a--
and you would indicate that it is a priority with regards to
our negotiation with the TPP deal.
Is that--is that your testimony here today, that it is
priority? You know, it is a central focus of our trade
agreement with these other countries?
Ambassador Saperstein. Certainly in terms of Vietnam.
Mr. Meadows. All right. So let me ask you this.
What message does it send to the world when we change the
rating of Malaysia without really anything significant
happening as it relates to human trafficking? What message does
that send?
Ambassador Saperstein. Again, that is a question you would
have to ask the people in the human trafficking office or that
chain above them.
Mr. Meadows. Is that not a human rights abuse?
Ambassador Saperstein. Trafficking?
Mr. Meadows. Yes.
Ambassador Saperstein. I devoted a lot of my career to
addressing that issue. It is a very important human rights
abuse and the existence of the human trafficking office, the
existence of the report itself, whatever flaws you may see in
particular pieces that happened this year is itself testimony
to the importance that----
Mr. Meadows. All right. Let us go back to the religious
liberty aspect then out of the over 750 pages of the proposed
TPP as we were reviewing it.
What specific language in there gives you great comfort
that we are going to address this as a priority as a Nation--
specific language not----
Ambassador Saperstein. I can't answer that, not----
Mr. Meadows. Have you read the--have you----
Ambassador Saperstein. If I can get back to you.
[The information referred to follows:]
Written Response Received from the Honorable David N. Saperstein to
Question Asked During the Hearing by the Honorable Mark Meadows
The U.S. Government is fully committed to promoting religious
freedom. I have been working to build partnerships with other nations
to advance religious freedom together, traveling to engage many
governments and international groups to expand the fundamental freedom
of religion for all. My office supports many programs that counter
intolerance, train civil society and government officials on legal and
policy protections for religious freedom, strengthen the capacity of
religious leaders to promote interfaith cooperation, empower religious
minorities to participate in political life, and help combat
religiously motivated discrimination and violence.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will set high standards and
create opportunities for further progress on a range of human rights
reforms. For example, TPP will promote transparency and encourage
public participation in the rulemaking process, discourage corruption,
and establish codes of conduct to promote high ethical standards among
public officials. Increased trade throughout the region will increase
open exchanges of information on a range of issues.
In addition, Chapter 19 on labor of TPP requires all TPP Parties to
adopt and maintain in their laws and practices internationally
recognized labor rights, including prohibiting discrimination in
respect to employment and occupation on the basis of religion. The
Brunei-U.S. Labor Consistency Plan, Section II (D) and the Malaysia-
U.S. Labor Consistency Plan, Section II (A) further detail the
commitments these governments have made to ensure their law and
practice meet this obligation. These efforts will help advance human
rights, including religious freedom.
Mr. Meadows. Have you read the TPP deal?
Ambassador Saperstein. I have read the parts of it that
deal with some of the issues we are talking about. So I only
know what our face to face negotiations with the Vietnamese
Government have been like, some of the commitments they have
made that they have never made before, some of the treaties
they are signing they have never signed before.
Is it everything we would want? No. Does it feel like it is
providing traction to make a difference that will help workers,
that will help disabled people, that will help minorities
there? I think it does.
Mr. Meadows. So you mentioned Iran--and I will close with
this because I don't ever go anywhere without bringing it up--
what is happening with Pastor Saeed Abedini?
I mean, I don't know that there is any more of a poster
face of religious liberty and what it is and what it is not
other than Pastor Saeed Abedini. And yet our whole political
capital has been invested and nothing has happened.
Ambassador Saperstein. We can't control, in the end, what
countries that are bad actors are going to do in general or on
any single thing. We can try and influence it. We can use every
means at our end to try and affect the outcome of these.
You have seen the release of prisoners of conscience over
the last years in different countries that have been
problematic actors, that have been named CPCs in this area.
So it is not that we are not working on it day in and day
out to try and get the release of these prisoners of
conscience. The President has spoken publically about Saeed
Abedini and met with the family.
The Secretary has spoken publically about him, met with the
family. We know there have been reports--it is not a secret--
that on the sidelines in the negotiations on the Iran
agreement, we were raising this almost every time that there
was a meeting, every avenue that we have either directly
ourselves or through intermediaries who have closer relations
with Iran, we are using to help all of the political prisoners,
the American citizens there and others who are the prisoners of
conscience to have them released.
Mr. Meadows. Well, I will close with this one rhetorical
question: If $140 billion in sanction relief can't get one
pastor out of Iran, how much will it take?
I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Meadows.
On the whole issue of double hatting of sanctions and
indefinite waivers and USCIRF has recommended that you end the
practices.
I would add exclamation points to the recommendation to do
that. With regard to Saeed Abedini, we have had hearings in
this subcommittee, I have chaired them.
We have heard from Naghmeh who was deeply disappointed with
the State Department, not you, the State Department.
Originally, she said they told her, ``There is nothing we can
do.'' She was aghast at that, couldn't believe it.
Frank Wolf actually convened a Lantos Commission hearing.
The first one we had, and Secretary Kerry did respond and we
were all grateful for that, but I asked the Secretary again,
sitting right where you are sitting, why was it integrated into
the talks.
On the sidelines means on the sidelines and that it has no
real bearing on what I consider a catastrophic deal that was
signed with Iran.
If we are going to sign it, at least the Americans out and
they got away with it and they are continuing to grossly
mistreat them.
I had a hearing here, Mr. Ambassador, on North Korea. We
had Andrew Natsios testify. You remember Andrew. He used to be
the head of USAID. He did disaster relief.
Well, it was on North Korea and he said why didn't we learn
the lesson in North Korea that when we were talking even in the
Six-Party Talks about nuclear issues, which we failed at, we
never brought up human rights. It was always way over on the
fringes, if that.
And he said that lesson should have been learned with
regards to Saeed Abedini and the other Americans who are being
held. It should have been right there front and center and it
was not, and now our ability to obtain his and the others'
release has, regrettably, diminished.
Trent Franks, who is chairman of the Religious Freedom
Caucus for the House, has joined us.
Chairman Franks.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be
incredibly brief here.
You know that whatever the chairman has said I agree with
every syllable and so it saves me a lot of time. But I do want
to just underscore how significant your presence here is today
and, of course, the underlying cause being, in my judgment,
critical to any kind of freedom if we are going to survive.
If we don't have religious freedom all other freedoms go
with it. And there is a wonderful cadre of some of the heroes
in my heart and life behind you.
I just see so many good people there and so I am looking
forward to their testimony. One of the things I guess I would
hope that would be part of the discussion is that as we
Americans are deeply committed to this cause of religious
freedom, we want to make sure we export it to the world.
It is just one of our greatest gifts that we can give them.
We went to make sure that we don't see it undermined and
diminished in our own country and right now I think that that
is a sincere concern.
So I guess my question to you--is that appropriate, Mr.
Chairman? My question to you is how do we make sure that we
protect religious freedom in our own country and then, of
course, how do we make sure that we export it appropriately?
What do you think are the biggest threats to religious
freedom domestically and what is the answer to it, what is the
biggest way that we can then export that religious freedom to
other countries?
Ambassador Saperstein. As the chairman in introducing me
noted, I spent 35 years as a sideline of my life teaching
religion law and church state law at Georgetown Law School and
spent much of my life dealing with religious freedom
domestically.
It is an issue of great personal concern for me. But as
representing the United States Government, my sole portfolio is
dealing with international religious freedom.
I can think of many good people in the administration and
the Justice Department who can answer those questions directly.
It would not be appropriate for me--as much as I care about
that issue it would not be appropriate.
Mr. Franks. I understand perfectly and, Mr. Chairman, I am
going to yield back. But I will just express to you that I
think if we can protect religious freedom all other freedoms
will ultimately be extended. If we fail----
Ambassador Saperstein. I could not agree more.
Mr. Franks. If we fail religious freedom, I think all other
freedoms die with it.
Ambassador Saperstein. Again, on that--on that basis, Mr.
Franks, first, thank you for your leadership on this issue. It
has been extraordinary.
But on that basis, I assure you, the administration feels
as strongly as you do that our fundamental rights as depicted
in the Constitution, begin with freedom of religion. It is a
foundation stone on which other rights depend and it is one of
the reasons I have devoted my life to this cause.
Mr. Franks. I thank you for that devotion. God bless you
and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Chairman Franks.
Ambassador Saperstein, thank you very much. We do
appreciate your testimony and look forward to working with you
going forward.
Ambassador Saperstein. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. I would like to now welcome to the witness table
Dr. Robert George, Robbie George, who is chairman of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom.
He is the McCormick professor of jurisprudence and director
of the James Madison Program in American ideals and
institutions at Princeton University. He has served on the
President's Council on Bioethics and as a presidential
appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School,
Professor George also earned a Master's degree in theology from
Harvard and a doctorate in philosophy of law from Oxford
University.
I would note that I appreciate your staff being here as
well as Katrina Lantos Swett, who has served as chair of the
commission herself and remains on the commission, Annette
Lantos and, of course, we are always joined in this committee
by the great presence of Tom Lantos' wonderful portrait, who
served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Dr. George.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT P. GEORGE, PH.D., CHAIRMAN, U.S. COMMISSION
ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Mr. George. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It is a great honor to be here and I want to thank you and
the distinguished members of this subcommittee for holding the
hearing. The topic could not be more important or timely.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for everything you have done for
human rights and in particular for religious liberty in your
public life. You have been a great inspiration to me
personally.
I know I speak for other members of my commission in saying
that all of us are happy for the opportunity to be partnering
with you and with your colleagues to advance this great cause.
I want to say that I miss Congressman Frank Wolf. So often
in the past when I have been here to testify he has been here
and what a towering figure in the cause of human rights and
especially religious freedom, Frank Wolf continues to be.
Although he is no longer a Member of Congress of course he is
still out there literally doing the Lord's work on behalf of
religious freedom.
I was down at Baylor recently where, of course, he has been
installed in a new endowed chair down there. He continues, as
you know, to take great personal risks, going to the worst
places in the world to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the
comfortable, the powerful, the oppressors.
I feel his spirit in this room. I also can't help but feel
the spirit of Tom Lantos and Henry Hyde, the two great
champions of human rights who are appropriately memorialized
here in this room.
I also want to say that it is a great honor to be speaking
just after Rabbi Ambassador Saperstein. David is not only a
dear friend but he too is a great champion of the cause.
I strongly supported his confirmation as Ambassador-at-
Large and when he was confirmed I will admit to giving a cheer
because I knew we would have in the administration, in that
crucial role, someone who would be working night and day,
literally tirelessly for our cause.
Now, I am a realist. I have been around. I know that in a
bureaucracy, in an administration there are difficulties, there
are challenges. There are competing considerations.
The voice for religious liberty has to compete with voices
for many, many other things--many legitimate things.
But I knew that I would be able to sleep peacefully at
night knowing that there was someone there who would be doing
everything I would be doing if I were there. There is no--there
is not a man whom I would prefer in that position to David
Saperstein. So I am just delighted that he is there and it is
an honor to follow him at this microphone.
I thank you for recognizing my colleague and predecessor as
chairman, Katrina Lantos Swett, another great champion of
religious liberty.
I want to mention that we are here, Chairman Smith, with
our wonderful executive director, Jacklyn Woolcott, and several
members of our staff.
I would boast that we have the finest staff in the United
States Government. It is a small team but what consummate
professionals and dedicated people, people who are genuinely
dedicated to the cause of religious freedom.
And I just find it a privilege every day to be working with
them, and I am delighted to be here on International Religious
Freedom Day. This is a day to celebrate.
I know we are all, as Congressman Franks rightly mentioned,
I think Congressman Meadows mentioned, others have mentioned,
we are all at a certain level just depressed about the state of
religious freedom in the world.
I am going to go into that in a minute just how bad the
situation is. But we do have something to celebrate and that is
that this Nation in the International Religious Freedom Act, in
which you were so instrumental, which Frank Wolf was so
instrumental, many of you were so instrumental in getting us,
this Nation has committed itself not only to religious freedom
at home but also abroad. What we believe to be a universal
value is something that every human being on the face of the
earth is entitled to because as Henry Hyde taught us, every
human being is the bearer of a profound, inherent, and equal
dignity.
That is the foundation of our rights. There is no right
more central than the right to religious freedom. So we should
take a moment, even as we recharge the battery to redouble our
efforts in the face of so many adversities on the religious
freedom front, we should take a moment to celebrate today and
to thank people like the chairman who are so instrumental in
getting the act passed.
Now, of course, one of the reasons we are here today is
that religious freedom remains under serious and sustained
assault across the globe, whether we are talking about North
Korea or China or Vietnam across to Iran, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, obviously, Syria and Iraq over to Egypt, Nigeria,
Central African Republic, Cuba, problems in Russia. Almost
every where we look we see severe assaults on religious
freedom.
So we have to be the people who are standing up for it and
while I am under strictures very similar to those under which
Rabbi Saperstein is operating, I will say, Congressman Franks,
that I think we should all agree that the very best way we can
promote religious freedom abroad is to honor it vigilantly at
home. I think we should all be on the page for that one.
Now, the most recent Pew study reports that approximately
three-quarters of the world's people live in countries in which
religion is either significantly restricted, the free exercise
of religion is significantly restricted, or people are
subjected to brutality by nongovernmental actors, mobs, thugs,
terrorists, where people are living insecurely in respect to
their basic human right to religious freedom and that is quite
an indictment of our current circumstances.
We are also here today because religious freedom matters so
much, a pivotal human right central to our own history and
affirmed, of course, in international treaties and other
instruments.
It is also crucial to our security and to the security of
the world. Religious freedom issues and religious freedom
violations are central to the narratives of countries that top
the U.S. foreign policy and security agendas.
Effectively promoting religious freedom can help the U.S.
achieve crucial goals by fostering respect for human rights
while promoting stability and ultimately national security.
So what I am saying to you is we have a moral principal at
stake here which we should vie for with all our might and that
is the basic fundamental human right to religious liberty
rooted in the dignity of the human person.
We also have an additional motive, though, which is that
the security and stability that we want for ourselves and
therefore need in the world is at risk when religious freedom
is undermined abroad.
If we want peace and stability in the world and at home we
are going to need to promote religious freedom abroad. So today
I want to focus on the following.
First, how the International Religious Freedom Act has been
used and should be used; second, what the CPC process is, the
Countries of Particular Concern process is; and third,
recommendations that our commission has for promoting
international religious freedom.
Now, the IRFA law seeks to make religious freedom an
important part of U.S. policy by among other measures creating
governmental institutions to monitor and report on religious
freedom violations in the countries of the world.
Within the State Department, we have got an Ambassador-at-
Large position, of course, the position that is currently held
with great distinction by our friend, Rabbi Ambassador
Saperstein, and the Office of International Religious Freedom,
and outside the executive branch the independent nonpartisan
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
mandated to review religious violations and make
recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and
the Congress.
The law gave teeth to this effort by requiring the U.S.
Government, to designate Countries of Particular Concern
(CPCs), thereby naming, perhaps shaming, the worst foreign
government violators, those that engage in or tolerate
systematic ongoing and egregious violations. That is the
statutory standard.
That is the language, systematic ongoing and egregious
violations, and take appropriate actions in response to create
incentives for improvement in religious freedom and
disincentives for inaction or failures on the religious front
or further failures.
Now, unfortunately, neither Republican nor Democratic
administrations have fully, have adequately, utilized this
mechanism, with designations being too often infrequent and the
CPC list largely remaining the same when changes would, one
would think, indicate some changes in CPC designations.
Moreover, administrations generally have not levied new
Presidential actions but relied on preexisting sanctions which
such so-called double-hatting--the chairman introduced the
concept in his opening remarks--providing little incentive for
governments to reduce or halt egregious violations or waived
any consequences of the designations.
Designating CPC countries without additional consequences--
just making the designation, with no additional consequences--
obviously limits the value of doing the designations and the
CPC process as a result loses credibility, especially when the
designations are erratic.
The other thing we need to avoid is having a designation
never reviewed so that, to quote my dear colleague, Dr. Lantos
Swett, the designation becomes part of the wallpaper. Nobody
notices it is there anymore. Just life goes on.
So we need these designations in a timely manner. I would
like to see them made annually in connection with the report.
And I know David is working on that and I appreciate that,
David, very much the work that David is doing to make sure that
the administration and future administrations, Republican or
Democrat, as the chairman says, this is not a partisan deal--
this administration and future administrations will make those
designations in a timely manner and a regular manner.
The designation process and the possibility of punitive
actions can breathe new life into diplomatic efforts that
should both precede and follow a designation and stimulate
political will in foreign capitals.
One of USCIRF's chief responsibilities is to recommend the
CPC designations to the State Department. We have recommended
that the following eight countries be redesignated--Burma,
China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,
Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
USCIRF also recommended that eight others also be
designated--Central African Republic, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, and Vietnam.
While my written testimony, which I will submit, Mr.
Chairman, deals with three countries--Vietnam, Pakistan, and
Tajikistan, and my oral statement will focus on Vietnam in a
moment--it is important to note that Pakistan, a democratic
nation, Pakistan has the worst situation in the world for
religious freedom for countries not currently designated as
CPCs.
I also want to say that not designating Tajikistan
underscores the Religious Freedom Act's inconsistent
implementation, I just learned from our excellent expert, Cathy
Cosman, on Central Asia that the situation in Tajikistan,
horrific already, is deteriorating still further.
More abuses, tortures, people being hauled away. These are
exactly the kinds of atrocities that the act is supposed to
empower us to fight against.
All right, now, Vietnam. USCIRF's August 2015 visit
reinforces our view that Vietnam falls short of meeting
international religious freedom standards.
The Vietnamese Government controls nearly all religious
activities, restricts independent religious practice, and
represses individuals and groups challenging its authority.
Rabbi Saperstein filled you in on some of the additional
details and the nuances that one finds there today.
Vietnam provides us with a case study of the impact that a
CPC designation can have in encouraging improvements and
reinforces how such a designation does not disrupt progress in
other areas. So I am going to actually repeat some, and maybe
add a little more color and detail, to a story that the
chairman recounted in his opening remarks.
In 2006, so we are going back to the Bush administration--
Bush 43--the United States removed Vietnam's CPC designation
due to the country's progress, progress toward fulfilling a
bilateral agreement to release prisoners and expand legal
protection for religious groups.
Many attributed, I think rightly, looking back on it, this
progress to the CPC designation, at least in part, and to the
priority placed on religious freedom concerns in the U.S.-
Vietnam bilateral relations.
In other words, it worked. USCIRF's view that lifting the
designation was premature has been reinforced and confirmed by
the Vietnamese Government's actions since then and USCIRF thus
recommended in 2015, as it has since 2001, that Vietnam be
designated a CPC.
I am going to move now to my recommendations. Again, more
details are in the written submission, Mr. Chairman.
Congress has an essential role to play in promoting
religious freedom. That was part of the premise of the IRFA and
it is absolutely true.
USCIRF urges Members of Congress to undertake activities
that reflect religious freedom's vital importance to our
foreign policy including by the following means: One,
legislatively requiring the State Department to make annual CPC
designations.
I think that is something that would be very helpful. Let
us just mandate the annual designations, then it is the law,
get it done, move forward. I don't see any reason not to do
that. Number two, annually hold IRFA implementation oversight
hearings. A very good thing to do for obvious reasons.
Three, expand the CPC classification, as the chairman
already mentioned and I believe Rabbi Saperstein mentioned, to
allow for the designation of non-state actors in countries
where particularly severe violations of religious freedom are
occurring.
But what if a government does not exist or is not strong
enough or doesn't control its territory? If we look out in the
world, we see sometimes the big offenders are states that are
run by thugs and criminals who are hell-bent on violating other
people's religious freedom, persecuting minorities, oppressing
the people.
Sometimes there is nothing a government can do about it
because there is no government there. You have got a failed
state or the government is so weak that it can't actually do
anything even if it wanted to.
And then expand the CPC classification--again, the chairman
mentioned this--to allow the naming of non-state actors who
perpetrate particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
That may assist in a variety of ways including in respective
international financial transactions.
I also urge Congress to hold hearings in support of civil
society and prisoners of conscience abroad and I want all
Members of Congress--I think those who are here with us today
are already doing it, so bravo, but I would like to see all
Members of Congress participate in our Defending Freedoms
Project, our collaborative effort with the Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission and Amnesty International and USCIRF whereby
Members of Congress work in support of prisoners of conscience.
I think you shouldn't underestimate what the identification
of a particular prisoner of conscience, whether in North Korea,
Iran, Saudi Arabia, wherever it is, don't underestimate what
the identification with a particular congressman who makes it
part of his or her task, mission, vocation to make sure that
that person is not forgotten, make sure that somebody is paying
attention, perhaps in the media, perhaps in diaspora
communities.
It also is a kind of moral support not only for that
individual and for that individual's family, which is very
important, but again, often for the supporters, for the
diaspora groups, for the members of that faith.
We can and will see constructive change by improving our
use of the existing tools and creating the new tools I have
mentioned for a rapidly changing environment for religious
freedom and related rights.
If we renew our resolve, and that's what we need to do,
renew our resolve to integrate this fundamental freedom more
fully into the foreign policy of our Nation, we can bring
protection and support to many, many more people beyond our
shores who yearn for the freedom that we have and must
preserve.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. George follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Dr. George.
We have about a minute left on this vote and there are four
votes. Can I enquire what your time looks like? Can we come
back?
Mr. George. Would you like me to wait until you come back?
I would be happy to do that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. I would probably ask one question to start it
off.
Mr. George. Absolutely.
Mr. Smith. And then we will reconvene. You know, in talking
about Vietnam, I remember meeting with Ambassador-at-Large John
Hanford several times and he often talked about the
deliverables, whether it be Saudi Arabia, which was making a
great deal of suggestive noise that somehow they would clean up
their textbooks and much of their support that we found very
objectionable, particular the Wahabbis would be reined in on
but especially on the textbook issue.
With Vietnam, the deliverables were quite extensive and I
went over to Vietnam, met with a number of pastors. There was a
great deal of optimism and hope and, again, as I said, if you
want me to go to Rabbi Saperstein, almost a day after there was
a snap-back retaliatory repression against the faith believers.
The Vietnamese are doing now exactly what the Chinese
learned long ago to do and they are just parroting that and
signing the U.N. conventions and treaties or at least
suggesting that they will, which are not enforceable.
They exhort, they have no means of enforcement so it only
looks good. I lost track of the number of times that a Chinese
leader came here, and he would say now we are going to sign the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But they
didn't do it.
Then they didn't do it and then a year would go by,
somebody else would come in. They would talk about signing
another.
My question is, how do you make this durable? CPC just
means we designate. What the administration does in follow-up
is part two and ought to be done based on a calibrated response
to deeds, not words. And I am very concerned that we ought to
just get it right on CPC.
And one word about TPP. I went in a secret room and read
the agreement. I was appalled at the unenforceability of the
human rights section, so called, especially as it relates to
labor rights, which you would have thought with labor heavily
weighing in on the administration to do the right thing and to
follow true ILO standards in an enforceable fashion, it is just
not there.
It is left up to the country itself to deem what needs to
be done in any situation. It puts at risk our ability on CPC,
on trafficking, and other human rights issues to enforce it. I
am wondering now whether or not we can actually enforce some of
our current laws when it comes to human rights with regard to
the TPP signatory countries. So it could be a massive setback,
not an advancement.
This idea of designation of CPC ought to be a no-brainer
based on the facts on the ground and then let the
administration decide what to do from a simple demarche to a
whole bunch of other things that could be done.
Mr. George. Well, Congressman Smith, I am hoping to learn
more soon about why some of these offending nations will sign
on to treaties, especially human rights conventions, that they
have no intention of abiding by or sometimes decline to sign
and it is hard to know why they sometimes decline to sign,
sometimes sign but ignore.
But as it happens, my daughter, Rachel George, who is doing
her Ph.D. at the London School of Economics in international
relations is writing her dissertation on exactly this question.
So I hope to learn something and I will share it with you
when Rachel produces the goods. But it is a----
Mr. Smith. We are at zero and could you just hold that?
Mr. George. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Smith. Quick recess, and then we will come back and I
thank you for your patience.
[Recess.]
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will resume its sitting and I
apologize for that rather lengthy delay.
So Dr. George, you were in the middle of an answer, I know,
so you were done or no?
Mr. George. Yes, Mr. Chairman, you had asked about some
nations that sign on to human rights treaties and conventions
but then just flout them because there obviously is no
international human rights law enforcement mechanism.
My day job is as a legal philosopher and one of the great
questions in my field of philosophy of law is whether
international law is really law, since we don't have so many
cases, at least, formal enforcement mechanisms, international
police forces. We do have international courts but, of course,
they are limited in their jurisdiction.
So what do we do? Well, we incentivize good behavior and
disincentivize bad behavior in the construction and execution
of our foreign and diplomatic policy. That is what we do.
We can't act for the world but we can act for ourselves.
The United States really matters. It is very important. We have
a big impact on other countries. How we treat them matters to
them, especially when it comes to trade or geostrategic and
military concerns.
And that is why, Mr. Chairman, we cannot--and this was the
spirit behind IRFA, as you know, since you were so significant
in it--the spirit behind IRFA is the spirit that says trade
considerations, geostrategic and military considerations, those
are important, those do matter; it is important that there be
powerful lobbies for those interests and there will be. The
question is will there be an equally or similarly powerful
lobby for human rights and especially for religious freedom and
what the IRF law helps to do through the ambassadorship,
through the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
is to ensure that there is a voice for religious freedom, a
lobby for religious freedom at the table speaking on behalf of
the persecuted and the marginalized and the victims of
discrimination and oppression.
So all these mechanisms we have been talking about, Mr.
Chairman, the CPC designations, avoiding the double-hatting,
making sure that waivers aren't institutionalized permanently
in such a way that they undercut CPC designations, all these
tools are mechanisms for doing exactly what I said,
incentivizing good behavior and improvements, disincentivizing
the bad behavior.
Mr. Smith. You pointed out that Pakistan has a very serious
negative record when it comes to religious freedom and I wonder
if you might want to expand upon that. Without your full
statement will be made a part of the record.
When the Prime Minister was in town just a few days ago I
raised the issue, a number of them, including Ms. Bibi, who is
a Christian mother, who got a stay of execution by the Supreme
Court in July.
But, as we know, that can change and, you know, there is an
appeal going on and I did ask the Prime Minister to use his
good offices to intervene on her behalf.
I impressed upon him how all of us are deeply concerned
about the blasphemy laws, the Taliban having a tremendous
amount of ability to do terrible things with very little
pressure to stop and I wonder if you might want to expand upon
Pakistan, if you could speak to that?
Mr. George. Yes, I will, Mr. Chairman.
As I mentioned in my testimony, Pakistan, in the view of
our commission represents the worst situation in the world for
religious freedom for countries that are not currently
designated a CPC by the U.S. Government.
We have several recommendations for CPCs, for countries
that are not currently CPCs, but at the very top of the list is
Pakistan because of the scope and depth of the religious
freedom abuses there.
Since 2002, USCIRF has recommended CPC designation for
Pakistan. That is a lot of years and that is due to the
government's systematic ongoing and egregious violations of
religious freedom and violations by the Taliban and by other
non-state actors.
So if you just read the statute, apply the law, ask the
question does Pakistan meet that standard, systematic egregious
and ongoing, the answer is it does.
So in our view it really belongs on the CPC list. Now, of
course, the State Department has never designated Pakistan as a
CPC despite its own IRFA reports, despite our annual report at
USCIRF, and despite the lobbying and the support, the reports,
of nongovernmental organizations, all of which document the
severe religious freedom violations, the persecutions against a
wide variety of groups, Mr. Chairman, including Sunni, Shi'a,
and Ahmadi Muslims.
I want to especially highlight the mistreatment of Ahmadis
in Pakistan where the very constitutional law of the government
systematically discriminates against them and violates their
rights.
They are forbidden to call themselves Muslims even though
in conscience they believe themselves to be Muslims. They can
lose their right to vote. They are not allowed to greet each
other or others with the traditional Muslim greeting of peace.
And there are other groups, of course, that are victims
including Christians and Hindus. In March of this year, we sent
a commissioner-level delegation to Pakistan and what they found
is, of course, all Pakistanis are deprived of fundamental and
universal rights including the right to freedom of religion and
belief.
And on the last day that our delegation was there two
churches in Lahore were attacked, leaving 15 people dead as
well as dozens of others injured.
And, of course, you mentioned the blasphemy laws. Pakistan
detains the greatest number of individuals for blasphemy of any
country in the world.
We are aware of 38 blasphemy prisoners as of our 2015
report. The world, of course, has come to know Asia Bibi, a
Christian woman in jail since 2010, who faces the death penalty
for blasphemy. But she is probably just the most well known of
what are in fact many.
And it is for all those reasons, Mr. Chairman, that we
believe great pressure needs to be brought to bear on Pakistan
to improve its record on religious freedom and until reforms
are made, Pakistan deserves to be on the CPC list.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you, if you are concerned as I
am, about conforming human rights designations to accommodate
other political considerations.
As I mentioned earlier to Rabbi Saperstein, on the child
abduction law I was incredulous that Japan, even though it has
more than 50 cases, according to the Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, of abduction cases, was given a complete
pass.
If you even have one that goes past the Hague Convention
time of 6 weeks, one can get such a designation. But when you
have five, ten, 50 it is a no-brainer. And yet, the State
Department Office of Children's Issues that takes the lead on
this gave Japan a pass.
And Tier 3, I mentioned Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cuba, and
now on CPC, Vietnam and that seems to be driven in part by the
TPP.
The commission's view on just getting it right in the
report and then reasonable men and women can disagree on what
the sanction ought to be, although I think double hatting it
diminishes it greatly. But could you speak to that? Because,
you know, this is a serious problem, and then we get these glib
statements that somehow the TPP has human rights language in
it.
Let me just disabuse anybody who thinks that. Just read it.
It is feckless. It is ineffective. It is not going to
effectuate any kind of change because there is little or no
enforcement contained in it.
I went and I read it and I would hope more people would and
maybe it is not public yet. It ought to be. But this idea that
the different reports keep getting it wrong when the country in
question has some other strategic or geopolitical issue going
for it.
Mr. George. Well, that is it, of course. You put your
finger on the problem. I think it is very important to get the
rules and standards right.
That is why I, at the time, so strongly supported the
International Religious Freedom Act and why I continue to
support it and why I support the efforts by you and others to
update the act and reform the act, correct what needs to be
corrected, bring it up to date with our contemporary
challenges, for example, in the area of non-state actors and so
forth.
But getting the laws and the rules right is only half the
battle. Now, it is a necessary half because getting the job
done will require getting the laws and the rules and the
standards right as a necessary condition.
What is the other half? It is political will, Mr. Chairman.
It is having the will the stand up for religious freedom when,
precisely when, there are competing considerations, when there
are competing trade, economic considerations, military and
geostrategic considerations.
And I want to stress that none of us are belittling or
denigrating those considerations. They are very important. We
want prosperity for ourselves and for others. We want
functioning markets.
We want trade with all the nations in the world. We
certainly want to be in a strong position as far as our
national security is concerned.
We want a strong military that is operating in relation to
other countries properly throughout the world to ensure the
security of the United States and the world to the extent that
we have any responsibility for it or can affect it.
But that should never be permitted to be an excuse for
inaction, for the lack of political will to stand up for
religious freedom and for other basic human rights.
So we have got to muster the political will to do it and
where somebody points to language and a law or statute or
points to a standard when we have asked for action I think you
are right to say that is not enough.
The pretty language doesn't get the job done for persecuted
people and prisoners of conscience. You need the political will
to act.
But I will just conclude on this point, Mr. Chairman, by
saying that the beauty of democracy is that the people get to
influence these sorts of things.
And so I do hope that we as a people, not just our
political leaders but that we as a people will give the kind of
priority that religious freedom deserves for the persecuted
people of the world and if we get that there are going to be a
lot of people sent up here and into other offices that will
have the political will to get the job done.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you with regards to the U.N.
system and whether or not the commission interfaces with the
Human Rights Council, Prince Zeid, or the U.N. Special
Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Professor
Bielefeldt, does the commission have contact with them? How do
you find their work to be? Can you give any sense of its
quality?
Mr. George. I am not sure I heard the question. I don't
want to make----
Mr. Smith. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of
religion or belief, is there any kind of interface with the
commission and his office and him?
Mr. George. It is the U.N. Special Rapporteur----
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Mr. George [continuing]. That you are asking about? Yes,
okay. So our commission does interact not only with the U.N.
rapporteur and other U.N. offices that are concerned with
religious freedom but also with our peer institutions in other
countries, for example, in Canada and in some of the European
countries.
We also recently participated in and helped to organize an
international parliamentarians panel and we are grateful to
you, Mr. Chairman, for providing a wonderful letter of greeting
to the parliamentarians from all over the world who visited us
in New York to talk about how legislative bodies in the
democratic countries around the world could unite in the cause
of religious freedom.
So we have very good relations and our staff has really
been terrific about building relationships with others who are
committed to the same cause because it is, after all,
international religious freedom and while the United States can
do an awful lot by way of our foreign and diplomatic policy, we
are going to be able to do a lot more if we are coordinating
with other nations, especially other influential powerful
wealthy nations, but really with all nations, anybody who is
willing to join us in the fight for international human rights.
The bottom line there is that we are doing everything we
can to work with anybody who is willing to work with us to
advance this cause.
Mr. Smith. I have one final question and then I will yield
to Chairman Rohrabacher, and I will have to leave. I am opening
up a session on autism.
Sesame Street today is introducing a character who is an
autistic child to try to raise the profile among young people.
But let me just--the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom
Act--do you support it?
Mr. George. Absolutely. Now, I guess I better speak for
myself here and not for the whole commission because we haven't
had a vote of our commissioners. So let me step out of my
official role as chairman and support it.
I will note that the act includes many provisions that are
almost identical to recommendations that we have, as a
commission, made. So, like our recommendations, these
provisions would better equip our Government to support
international religious freedom.
For example, it amends IRFA to locate the Office of
International Religious Freedom in the office of the Secretary
of State.
USCIRF believes that, given the importance of the issue and
the customary placement of an Ambassador-at-Large that the IRF
office ought to be given really more prominence in the State
Department hierarchy.
I suspect we are on the same page here, Mr. Chairman,
wanting David Saperstein to have as much influence as he
possibly can. But we would want any Ambassador whose job is to
promote religious freedom to have the maximum amounts of
influence and access.
It specifies additional foreign government actions
violating religious freedom for the annual International
Religious Freedom Report including a special watch list of
countries of violent non-state actors that have engaged in or
tolerated such violations but don't yet quite meet the criteria
for designation as Countries of Particular Concern.
That really corresponds, roughly but closely, to what we
call our Tier 2 countries--countries like Russia, for example.
It amends the Foreign Service Act of 1980 to direct the
Secretary to develop a curriculum for and the director of the
George B. Schultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center to
begin mandatory training on religious freedom for all Foreign
Service Officers.
That is a very good idea. The officers who are the
diplomatic corps really need to be educated on the importance
of religious freedom as an essential human right and as a key
to stability and security.
I mean, one of the problems we have had--I am not blaming
anybody for this. If there is anybody to blame it is those of
us who are in the academic field.
Those of us in the academic field cooked up a theory called
secularization theory or the secularization thesis and this was
the widely believed thesis for which there was some evidence.
Turned out to be false but we had some--there was some
evidence for the theory that as modernity proceeded with
industrialization and mass media and global economy, as
modernization proceeded religion would recede, basically, to
the private sphere and be less and less a matter of public
interest so why did people who were training for careers in
international affairs or diplomacy need to care much about
religion. It would be just a private matter.
Well, that turned out to be spectacularly false. We now
know that religion is increasing in its public significance,
for good and for ill, which means that now that we know that
that thesis is false we also know that people who are going to
be acting on our behalf in the international sphere, whether
they are themselves devout or believers or not, need to have an
appreciation and understanding of what religion is and how it
works and of the importance of religious freedom both as a
right that we as a country are deeply committed to on our very
founding principles but also as part of the solution to
instability and insecurity.
We talked about the waivers in double-hatting and I think
your bill would be a big help in strengthening the IRFA tools
there to make sure that they are not undercut by double-hatting
and by waivers that are given indefinitely and without
conditions.
Your bill also states that it should be U.S. policy that
violent non-state actors should be eligible for designation as
Countries of Particular Concern and that specified Presidential
actions should apply to them or individual members of such
groups.
We at USCIRF strongly support that. I can speak for
everybody on that one. The world has changed. The world is not
what it was in 1998. It wasn't a mistake in 1998. It is just
that things have changed and now the act needs to be updated to
just deal with the reality in the world, a reality in which we
are facing the Islamic State, we are facing Boko Haram, non-
state actors in those and other places that are just really
wreaking devastation.
I could go on, Mr. Chairman, I know you have to go, and my
written submission will go into more detail about these
matters.
Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much.
Dr. George, thank you for your exemplary leadership on
these issues both as head of USCIRF but also in all of the
other work that you do.
I have watched it and admired it for decades. So I want to
thank you. I would like to yield to Chairman Rohrabacher, who
will take over the hearing, and I thank you.
Mr. George. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Chairman, what five nations would you
consider to be the worst abusers of religious freedom?
Mr. George. Well, there are so many good candidates, I am
afraid, Congressman Rohrabacher, that it is hard to narrow it
down to five but let me give it a first stab on some
reflection. I might alter it a bit at the edges. But North
Korea is a terrible violator.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. George. China, such a large country and so many people
from so many different religious groups, so brutally
repressed--the Buddhists in Tibet and elsewhere, the Catholics,
the house church Protestants, the Falun Gong members, the
Uyghur Muslims.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. George. The regime in Tehran, I have to say, is a
world-class religious freedom abuser. So Iran has to be
considered among the worst.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So there are not Christian churches in
Iran and they can't function or people----
Mr. George. Well, there are Christians in Iran but, of
course, they are subject to the same persecution that any
religious minority group is subject to in Iran.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Would Pakistan be on the list?
Mr. George. Pakistan is the worst offending nation of those
not currently designated as CPCs, which means that they would
be in the top ten. Whether they would be in the top five I
would want to give that a little bit of reflection.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I would suggest that if Pakistan is not on
the list, it demonstrates that for whatever reason Pakistan has
been protected for some other motives by our Government over
these last 25, 30 years. During the Cold War----
Mr. George. And we would note that whatever those reasons
are and perhaps they are good reasons--since they haven't been
shared with me I can't evaluate their strength--but I would
note that it is not partisan because----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Oh, yes. Sure.
Mr. George [continuing]. We have been recommending CPC
designation going back into the early years of the Bush
administration.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, during the Cold War the Pakistani
Government was involved with the Cold War.
Mr. George. Yes. That is right.
Mr. Rohrabacher. They were our allies and India was
basically an ally of Russia during the Cold War. The Cold War
has been over a long time now and the monstrous repression of
the people of Pakistan who have differing religious views from
the ruling clique that whoever rules there is very
demonstrable. And now, don't the Ahmadis--is that----
Mr. George. Yes. Let me say a word about that.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. Not just Christians but there
is Ahmadis, there are other Muslims that are being murdered
and----
Mr. George. Yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. This is horrendous. It is
horrendous that that is going on and yet we still provide
weapons to Pakistan, not to mention, of course, they thumb
their nose at us by putting Dr. Afridi, the man who identified
Osama bin Laden for us, he is in a dungeon right now even as we
give F-16 fighters to Pakistan and, of course, the same group
that threw Dr. Afridi in jail are the same people who gave
Osama bin Laden safe haven--the man who slaughtered 3,000
Americans.
There is something really wrong there and I hope that
people--if they won't pay attention to the strategic things
like their support of someone who was involved in the 9/11
attacks maybe they would have some heart for other people--just
ordinary people who are being murdered and slaughtered because
they just want to pray to God in a different way.
Mr. George. Chairman Smith mentioned Bhatti earlier. There
have been some great heroes who have tried to stand up against
the persecution there at the cost of their very lives or their
liberty.
And it is not just the regime when it comes to Pakistan
which is, after all, a democratic nation. If you look at the
persecution of the Ahmadis and of other minorities including
Christians we have a cultural problem there as well.
It is similar to, I think, what you yourself pointed to in
Burma or one of the congressmen pointed to in Burma earlier
where the cultural prejudice against minorities, and
particularly in this case the Ahmadis, is very powerful.
It is not just the government. The anti-Ahmadi provisions
of the very constitution of the nation are there because of
public attitudes, really, and sometimes when, you know, we are
in touch with officials and we are trying to bring pressure to
bear on officials they will say to us, well, you don't know
what you are asking because we have got a civil society to deal
with here and we can't just put into place policies that would
be easier on our minorities because the people won't tolerate
it. We hear this from the Saudis, by the way. We talk about the
need----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Oh, sure. Of course.
Mr. George [continuing]. You know, for respect for--there
are a lot of Christian guest workers, Filipinos and others, in
Saudi Arabia who would like to be able to carry their Bibles or
have a church. On the whole Saudi Arabian peninsula there is no
church--there is no Christian church, right. Why can't they?
Well, we confront Saudi officials and they say well, you--
maybe we would like to make some reforms here and make it a
little easier for these people to practice their faith but, you
know, our civil society wouldn't permit it.
I mean, it just--it just couldn't fly, given the sociology
of our people here. And I think we just can't accept that. We
cannot accept that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Correct.
Mr. George. These regimes are responsible for making the
reforms that protect the human rights, including the
fundamental right of religious freedom of all the people within
their jurisdictions including their minority citizens and
guests.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I remember during the Cold War having to
sit down with people who were representing Communist
governments who always had these excuses and----
Mr. George. Yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. And were never willing to
admit just how oppressive they really were. I think it is time
that we insisted that they face this reality of what Marxism/
Leninism is all about.
I think it is time that--there are many millions of Muslims
around the world, many if not most who could be friends and be
open to these kind of ideas of accepting people and not
oppressing somebody simply because they worship God in a
different way.
We need to call to task the Saudis and the Pakistanis and
these other people who have supposedly been on our side and
quit trying to treat them with kid gloves because it ain't
going to work.
These regimes are basically gangster regimes in terms of
the way they treat their people and it shouldn't be tolerated
and the United States has done that. Shame on us.
Thank God for you and Chris Smith and other people who have
committed their lives to exposing those people who are stepping
on the religious freedom of other human beings.
Thank you very much for being with us today, and I think I
am supposed to gavel this down.
This hearing is now adjourned.
Mr. George. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Whereupon, the committee adjourned at 3:09 p.m.]
A P P E N D I X
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