[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
115th Congress Printed for the use of the
1st Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
________________________________________________________________________
Religious Freedom Violations
in the OSCE Region
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
NOVEMBER 15, 2017
Briefing of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
________________________________________________________________________
Washington: 2018
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
234 Ford House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-1901
[email protected]
http://www.csce.gov
@HelsinkiComm
Legislative Branch Commissioners
HOUSE SENATE
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ROGER WICKER, Mississippi,
Co-Chairman Chairman
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. Maryland
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas CORY GARDNER, Colorado
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARCO RUBIO, Florida
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas TOM UDALL, New Mexico
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
Executive Branch Commissioners
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DEPARTMENT OF DEFNESE
DEPARTMENT OF COMERCE
[II]
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as
the Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to
monitor and encourage compliance by the participating States with their
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[III]
Religious Freedom Violations
in the OSCE Region
November 15, 2017
Page
PARTICIPANTS
Nathaniel Hurd, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe .......... 1
Ambassador Michael Kozak, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Depart-
ment of State ............................................................................ 3
Dr. Kathleen Collins, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota .... 9
Philip Brumley, General Counsel, Jehovah�s Witnesses ....................................... 10
Dr. Daniel Mark, Chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom .............. 10
Stacy L. Hope, Director of Communications and CSCE Liaison to the Chairman�s Commu-
nications Staff, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe ....................... 15
APPENDIX
Prepared Statement of Philip Brumley ........................................................ 33
[IV]
Religious Freedom Violations
in the OSCE Region
----------
November 15, 2017
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The briefing was held at 2 p.m. in Room 385, Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC, Nathaniel Hurd, Policy Advisor, Commission
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, presiding.
Panelists present: Nathaniel Hurd, Policy Advisor, Commission for
Security and Cooperation in Europe; Ambassador Michael Kozak, Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State; Dr.
Kathleen Collins, Associate Professor of Political Science, University
of Minnesota; Dr. Daniel Mark, Chairman, U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom; Philip Brumley, General Counsel,
Jehovah's Witnesses; and Stacy L. Hope, Director of Communications and
CSCE Liaison to the Chairman's Communications Staff, Commission for
Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Mr. Hurd. Good afternoon, and welcome. On behalf of the chairman of
the Helsinki Commission, Senator Wicker, and the co-chairman,
Congressman Smith, I want to extend a very warm welcome to those of you
that have braved the cold to make it here in person, and also to those
of you watching online.
My name is Nathaniel Hurd. I'm a policy adviser at the Helsinki
Commission. I want to say just a quick word about format. Our first
panelist, Ambassador Michael Kozak, has a hard stop at 3:00, so after
introducing our panelists, I'm going to turn it over to him for opening
remarks. I will then ask him a series of questions. He'll answer them.
I'll then open it up to questions for him from our fellow panelists, as
well as to those of you in the audience and those of you watching
online.
It is a delight to begin with Ambassador Kozak. He is a longtime
friend and colleague of the Helsinki Commission. He actually led the
delegation to the Human Dimension Implementation Meetings (HDIM) this
past fall, and by all accounts did a fantastic job. So it's good to
have you here.
Ambassador Kozak is a charter member of the Career Senior Executive
Service in the U.S. Government. He has served in a number of senior
positions in the U.S. executive branch, including as senior director on
the National Security Staff from 2005 to 2009, in Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State level positions in three different
bureaus, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for extended periods of
time, Ambassador in Belarus, and Chief of Mission in Havana, Cuba.
Ambassador Kozak was a U.S. negotiator with Cuba to secure the return
of criminals sent to the United States during the Mariel boat crisis.
He also helped implement the Camp David Accords and negotiate the
withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon. Ambassador Kozak has been awarded
the State Department Superior Honor Award, Younger Federal Lawyer
Award, Presidential Ranks of Distinguished and Meritorious Executive,
and the Order of Balboa presented by the president of Panama. He
received his A.B. in political science and law degree from the
University of California at Berkeley. Welcome.
Dr. Daniel Mark is the Chairman of the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom. He is an Assistant Professor of
political science at Villanova University. There he teaches political
theory and philosophy of law, politics and religion. At Villanova, he
is a faculty associate of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of
Free Institutions and the Public Good, and he holds the rank of
battalion professor in Villanova's Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps
unit. For the 2017 through 2018 academic year, Dr. Mark is on leave
from Villanova as a visiting fellow in the Tocqueville Program for
Inquiry Into Religion and Public Life at the University of Notre Dame.
Dr. Mark is a fellow of the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New
Jersey, and works with the Tikvah Fund in New York. He is also a member
of the advisory council of CanaVox. He has served as an assistant
editor of the journal Interpretation, and is a contributor to the Arc
of the Universe blog. In addition to his academic writing, Dr. Mark has
published on topics related to international religious freedom in U.S.
News and World Report and other outlets and publications. He holds a
B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at Princeton
University. Before graduate school, he was a high school history
teacher for four years in New York City. Welcome.
Next, we'll hear from Dr. Kathleen Collins. Dr. Collins is an
Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the
University of Minnesota. She is the researcher for Central Asia for the
Under Caesar's Sword Project, pioneered by the University of Notre Dame
and the Religious Freedom Research Project at the Berkeley Center at
Georgetown University, which focuses on the repression and persecution
of Christians globally. The project's book, edited by Daniel Philpott
and Tim Shah, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Dr.
Collins is the author of ``Clan Politics and Regime Transition in
Central Asia,'' which won the Central Asia Studies Society Book Award
for Social Sciences. She has published articles in various journals and
edited volumes, including Comparative Politics, World Politics, the
Journal of Democracy, Europe-Eurasia Studies, Political Research
Quarterly, the Brown Journal of International Affairs, and Asia Policy.
She is currently writing two new books tentatively titled ``The Rise of
Islamist Movements: Islam and State in Central Asia and the Caucasus''
and ``Muslim Politics: Islam, Politics, and Public Opinion in Post-
Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan.'' Dr. Collins has received grants
from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the MacArthur Foundation,
the Kellogg Institute, the United States Institute of Peace, IREX, and
the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, among
others.
Finally, we'll hear from Philip Brumley. Mr. Brumley is the General
Counsel for Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. He
received his law degree in 1988 from Brooklyn Law School, in New York.
He has represented Jehovah's Witnesses in the U.S. Supreme Court and
the European Court of Human Rights. Additionally, he supervised the
filing of complaints to the U.N. Human Rights Committee that resulted
in 15 favorable decisions. In addition to his work on behalf of
religious freedom, he is an instructor at the Watchtower Bible School
of Gilead and the School for Branch Committee Members, in Patterson,
New York.
Ambassador Kozak.
Amb. Kozak. Thank you, Nathaniel, and thanks to the commission for
holding this briefing on religious freedom in the OSCE region.
Religious freedom is a cherished American value, universal human
right, and a Trump administration foreign policy priority. I'd like to
open by saying that the Department is hopeful that the Senate will soon
confirm Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas to be Ambassador-at-Large for
International Religious Freedom. Governor Brownback, former Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe chairman and commissioner, is the
highest-ranking government official ever nominated for this important
post. He brings great commitment and experience, including having been
a key sponsor of the International Religious Freedom Act. We could not
ask for a more distinguished nominee.
Now turning to the conditions for religious freedom among the OSCE
participating States, as head of the U.S. delegation to HDIM in Warsaw
in September, it was my privilege to present the statement on freedom
of thought, conscience, religion, or belief. I made the point that
freedom of religion is an animating foundational principle of the
United States and that the right to believe or not to believe is
embedded in our Constitution and integrated throughout our national and
state laws. At HDIM we were also very clear about our concerns in the
region. In the OSCE region, the State Department has designated
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as Countries of Particular
Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act for
engaging in or tolerating systematic, ongoing and egregious violations
of religious freedom. The other countries so designated are Eritrea,
Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, and Vietnam at one time. We
have active dialogues with these countries to encourage them to take
concrete steps to ensure that freedom of thought, conscience, religion
and belief is fully enjoyed by all. We anticipate that the latest
rounds of Country of Particular Concern designations will be finalized
in the near future.
In Turkmenistan, members of religious minorities reportedly have
been beaten and imprisoned for beliefs the government considers
unacceptable, particularly unregistered Protestants, Jehovah's
Witnesses, and Muslims the government views as extremists or
Wahhabists. We are aware of one Jehovah's Witness prisoner of
conscience, Bahram Hemdemov, and there is an unknown number of Muslims
imprisoned for their religious beliefs. Religious groups there
encounter significant obstacles to legal registration.
In Uzbekistan, we've welcomed the government's public expression of
interest to work with us to be removed from the CPC list. We view it as
positive that the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or
Belief recently visited Tashkent and enjoyed high-level meetings.
Concerns about religious freedom conditions in Uzbekistan include how
people may be detained, questioned and fined for gathering to discuss
their religious belief outside of government-authorized locations.
In Tajikistan, over a hundred people have been detained for
membership in banned religious groups, and a number of individuals were
subjected to long-term imprisonment for so-called extremist views. The
government restricts children under 18 from attending public religious
service. Tajikistan is the only country to enforce such a restriction
nationwide.
In Kazakhstan, a country that previously had a well-deserved
reputation for religious tolerance, we've seen continued negative
steps, with proposed legislation that would severely restrict religious
education, discussions, and literature. We urge the government of
Kazakhstan to bring existing and proposed laws into conformity with
Kazakhstan's international commitments on human rights.
We're closely monitoring proposed amendments on the religion law in
the Kyrgyz Republic. As currently drafted, the amendments would give
the government more control over religious groups and place further
restrictions on proselyting and registration.
We have pointed out in HDIM and elsewhere that Russia is misusing
anti-terrorism and anti-extremism laws to suppress religious freedom in
unprecedented ways, raiding houses of worship and homes, and harassing,
fining, jailing and deporting members of religious minorities. NGOs
have identified at least 111 persons as of 2016 imprisoned for their
exercise of religious freedom, many of them on, again, so-called
extremism charges. The Russian Supreme Court banned the Jehovah's
Witnesses as an ``extremist organization'' on April 20, 2017, and
upheld this decision again in July. A Danish member of Jehovah's
Witnesses arrested in Russia and charged with so-called extremism
remains in detention for holding a religious meeting.
The government of Azerbaijan continues to detain religious
activists who local human rights groups deem political prisoners and
the government considers as nontraditional groups, such as Jehovah's
Witnesses and Muslim minority groups, and they face difficulties in
legally registering. Adherents cannot freely practice their religions
without risking police raids, fines, detention, arrest, or prosecution.
In Turkey, authorities continue to limit the human rights of some
religious groups and some communities continue to experience protracted
property disputes. Non-Sunni Muslims, such as Alevi Muslims, do not
receive the same government protections as those enjoyed by recognized
non-Muslim minorities and have faced discrimination and violence. Some
foreign citizens, including several individuals with ties to Christian
groups, faced detention, problems with residency permissions and visas,
and so on under the state of emergency following the 2016 coup. The
United States continues to advocate for the immediate release of Pastor
Andrew Brunson, a U.S. citizen who's been wrongfully imprisoned in
Turkey since October 2016.
Today religiously motivated manifestations of hate are persisting,
evolving, and erupting in unprecedented ways around the OSCE region.
Anti-Semitic violence continues to rise, giving new urgency to the need
for participating States to respond with immediate, definitive action.
Both age-old and contemporary forms of anti-Semitism are afforded
unprecedented reach by the use of mass media, including online
technologies. At HDIM, we urged all governments to denounce and combat
anti-Semitism and work with Jewish communities to better protect them.
The OSCE continues to benefit from the expertise of Rabbi Andrew Baker,
the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chair-in-Office on Combating
Anti-Semitism and also Director for Jewish Affairs at the American
Jewish Committee.
We're also deeply concerned about intolerance and violence towards
Muslims. There's a growing trend of the governments across the OSCE
region and elsewhere imposing restrictions on the ability of Muslims to
freely practice their faiths.
Good data is essential to developing good policies. The United
States supports the work of ODIHR's Hate Crime Unit and its efforts to
collect comprehensive data. We also encourage participating States to
work with civil society to develop strategies for addressing the
problem of under-reporting. In addition to HDIM, we work closely with
the U.S. Permanent Mission to the OSCE to combat religion intolerance
and coordinate policies and statements. At OSCE, for example, we've
raised the targeting of members of religious minorities such as
Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia and called upon Central Asian governments
to bring their laws into conformity with their obligations.
In closing, I'd like to emphasize that we appreciate the
commission's focus on international religious freedom issues. It
greatly strengthens our hand in diplomatic efforts on behalf of
religious freedom with foreign governments that this fundamental human
right enjoys such deep, broad, and steadfast and bipartisan
congressional support. We want to continue to work closely with the
commission to help protect and promote international religious freedom
in the OSCE Mission.
Thank you.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Ambassador Kozak.
I will ask a basket of questions. After you've answered them, I'll
open it up to the panelists and then to the broader audience.
Amb. Kozak. Great.
Mr. Hurd. As the U.S. Government representative, I'm sure you can
expect that you'll start off in the hot seat, but things will hopefully
get a bit cooler as we proceed.
I'll ask you three baskets of questions, several of which focus on
Countries of Particular Concern.
Amb. Kozak. OK.
Mr. Hurd. The Frank Wolf International Religious (IRF) Freedom Act
requires the State Department to issue the Annual International
Religious Freedom Report on May 1st. The Act also requires the State
Department to issue its designation of Countries of Particular Concern
no later than 90 days after issuing the IRF report. This year, the
Department released the IRF report on August 15th, more than three and
half months late. The deadline just passed for CPC designations, and no
designations have yet been issued, although you alluded that that will
be happening soon. One question would be, why have there been delays
regarding the report and the CPC designations? Do you expect to issue
these by the end of the year?
Amb. Kozak. On the delays on the reports, this is a bit of ``damned
if you do and damned if you don't.'' We were criticized this year for
issuing the Human Rights Report exactly on time but not having the
secretary participate in it. With the IRF report, we waited until the
secretary could participate because he really wanted to participate in
the rollout. But trying to get schedules aligned and so on with senior-
level officials results in a delay.
So it's always a tradeoff between which we way go. We can send the
report up, but then you lose the impact of having the secretary roll it
out, and I think as any of you who saw the secretary's rollout of the
IRF report this year, it was pretty powerful, and I guess I would say
worth waiting for. So that is what happened with respect to the report
itself.
With respect to the CPC designations, I have to take responsibility
on that myself, because it's the actions of my bureau. We have not
gotten the paperwork to the secretary at this point for decision.
People like to think this is due to some titanic bureaucratic battle
going on, but it tends to be more mundane stuff. As we were talking a
little before the hearing, when the new Frank Wolf Act was rolled out,
it included some additional categories--for example, a special watch
list, entities of particular concern. As we were moving towards getting
all of our packages together, it suddenly dawned that there were, for
example, a definitional question of what does severe violation of
religious freedom mean. In the IRF Act, particularly severe violations
are defined. It's not that.
So we had to work with lawyers to come up with what would be a
reasonable and supportable interpretation that would be consistent with
congressional intent. It also turns out that the entities of particular
concern, the way the statute was drafted, didn't modify the IRF Act. So
the existing delegations of authority don't apply to it. So now we have
to work with the White House either to get that authority delegated or
for the president to exercise it personally. Those are the kinds of
things--it's not that the secretary is incapable of doing this. We were
incapable of getting the paper to him on time. I think we're pretty
confident we're going to have it up in the near future and give him the
opportunity to consider and make the decisions. But the apologies for
being late are on us.
Mr. Hurd. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which
you alluded to, requires the president to take actions from the list
provided in the legislation, including even sanctions, for any country
where there are severe restrictions on religious freedom. However, it
only requires sanctions be taken or certain commensurate action if the
country is designated as a CPC. The Frank Wolf Religious Freedom Act
requires the U.S. Government to provide fuller and more frequent
responses when waivers have been exercised. The U.S. Government also
has a range of authorities, including the Global Magnitsky Human Rights
Accountability Act, for imposing sanctions on individuals for religious
freedom violations.
Generally speaking, has the State Department found any particular
sanction or action more or less effective in addressing global
religious freedom restrictions? That's one question. A second question
would be, is there a good model for judging the success of religious
freedom diplomacy? Finally, does the administration intend to use the
full range or authorities available to it to sanction foreign persons--
individuals--suspected of particularly severe religious freedom
violations regardless of whether they are in the list required by the
Frank Wolf Act and regardless of the time of year, recognizing this can
be done at any point during the year?
Amb. Kozak. Let me try--and I may have forgotten part of the
question, so please remind me.
Mr. Hurd. Sure.
Amb. Kozak. I'll try to start with the last first. The Global
Magnitsky authority is something that's really important. That's
relatively new. We're in the process now of gathering up names and
identities of persons who would qualify under the terms of that act,
including some who have engaged in religious freedom violations. Some
are for other forms of human rights violations. I think, in my own
experience anyway, sanctions that target individuals--senior-level
individuals, their families, their cronies who provide support--tend to
give us the most leverage effect that you can get. Broader, national-
level trade sanctions and so on become part of the scenery. But when
you bring it down to somebody has their assets blocked in the United
States or their family can't go to college in the United States or
can't come shopping here, or whatever it might be, it becomes a source
of concern for them.
To me, the metric is, are we able to use these to actually leverage
improvements in human rights conditions, or in this case, specifically
in religious freedom conditions in other countries, and trying to make
that linkage and get people off the list is sometimes difficult. This
is something that our Office of Religious Freedom really has worked
hard to do. It's not just to put people on the list for a punitive
sake, but instead going to them and saying if you want to get off the
list, which most of them do--just as a reputational thing, it's not
good to be on a list of CPCs; that probably has as much leverage as any
specific pain we inflict on them--but it's saying to them, OK, here is
a menu of the kinds of things you would need to do in order for us to
consider taking you off the list. So it's trying to keep that linkage
between the punishment and the crime and what kind of improvements
would get you from where you are to not being on the list.
The waiver issue is another matter. I think as you were mentioning,
in the Act there are two types of waivers. One is when we feel that
waiving the sanction would actually be in the interest of the purposes
of the Act. So I say the time you would use that is a country has done
a bunch of really bad things but they have a change of regime and
they're negotiating a bunch of reforms. You don't want to hit them with
a sanction right now. You want to encourage them to do the reforms that
we're looking for. That we have not used--at least not very much. I
don't think ever, actually.
The other one is the national interest waiver, and it's the much
more mundane thing that you have a country that's engaged in egregious
religious freedom violations, but we're also depending on them to allow
us to transit military supplies through their territory to a theater of
war, or something. In that case, the waiver is simply a tradeoff, and
usually explained as such. I think that's perhaps what has happened
with some of the acts. It just says the secretary determined it was in
the national interest not to apply the waiver. Obviously, we'd be happy
to come up and give a more in-depth briefing. That determination he
makes is like a one-sentence type thing. But the reason behind it is
something that people in our regional bureaus as well as us would be
happy to go into.
I think it's fairly obvious where you see the ones that we've made
waivers, all three of the Central Asians, it was Northern Defense
Network of where we were supplying our troops in Afghanistan through
their territory, and that was the tradeoff. It's not a way of saying or
lessening the condemnation of their religious freedom violations. It's
saying they did it, they deserve to be sanctioned, but we're going to
forgo that because of these other considerations. Those do not rule out
going after somebody individually or using Magnitsky or one of our visa
authorities.
Mr. Hurd. Of course one of the advantages of the Global Magnitsky
Act is that it is a law that other countries can model in their own
right. To the extent that they see the United States implementing it
faithfully, hopefully it will inspire them to do likewise, which means
that these individuals not only are denied access to the United States
and to our financial systems and markets, but also in other countries
as well.
Amb. Kozak. Yes. Canada has been adopting a similar law. And
there's actually another one. You asked about effectiveness of
sanctions. The more allies you can get, the better on these, because
denial of access to the U.S. financial system is a big deal. But if
you're also nailed from travel to the EU countries and into Canada, you
just start restricting the scope of activity for one of these
evildoers. It amplifies what we're trying to do tremendously and so is
something we always encourage.
Mr. Hurd. One more set of questions before opening it up to our
panelists to ask you questions, and then to the audience.
Governments, some of which you mentioned already--Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia,
and Turkey--regularly invoke security to justify violating the
religious freedom of groups and individuals. In your view--and in the
broader view of the U.S. Government--does protecting and promoting
religious freedom generally enhance security, including to combat
terrorism and violent extremism? If religious freedom violations
perpetrated by these governments have undermined security in their
countries, how so? Are religious freedom violations in these countries
isolated, or are they part of a broader pattern of infringement,
restriction, violation of fundamental freedoms like freedom of assembly
and freedom of expression--part of sort of a pattern of attempting to
control the citizenry?
Amb. Kozak. Last first. I can't think of a single case where the
violation has just been against religious freedom and they allow
freedom of assembly and speech and political openness and all of that.
It all goes together. It's all governments that are trying to suppress
legitimate political opposition to them, and they're afraid of anything
that's not under their control, basically.
Our view is very much that respect for human rights, including
religious freedom, is fundamental to securing peace and prosperity in a
country and not creating a breeding ground for terrorists and so on. My
own experience: I got into human rights work not because I was a human
rights activist but because in the 1980s I was trying to figure out how
to counter Soviet-backed insurgencies in Central America. A lot of us
were saying just backing these military governments that are out
slaughtering their citizens right and left isn't getting the job done.
The people hate the insurgents, but they hate the government as much or
more than they hate the insurgents, and that's not a way to win a war.
So it's not only good human rights doctrine. It's good counterterrorist
doctrine to be respectful of people's human rights.
This is something that's not just the IRF office or the Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) out there promoting it. Our
colleagues in the Counterterrorism Bureau and in the Political-Military
Bureau and so on are making the same message, our colleagues in the
U.S. military, because that's the way you win wars.
What you've got in this case is a bunch of governments that are
charitably, you would say, misguided into thinking that by suppressing
what they view as extremist thought--which is anything that deviates
from the government-approved line--that that somehow is countering
terrorism. I think in most cases the less charitable view is that
they're just very afraid of any grouping of people or any independent
thought that could possibly turn against them, so they justify it in
terms of fighting terrorism.
It's not that they don't have terrorist threats. Most of these
governments do. But they're treating entire swaths of their population
as if they were terrorists when there are people who want to do nothing
more than just practice their faith and associate with their
colleagues. So that's our doctrine that we're pushing very, very hard,
sometimes with some success, sometimes with less than we'd like.
Mr. Hurd. It seems particularly counterproductive in this instance
where you have individuals who are imprisoned, tortured or otherwise
abused. We hear, whether it's in the OSCE region or in other places,
they become especially susceptible to recruiting from terrorist groups,
violent extremists.
Amb. Kozak. Absolutely.
Mr. Hurd. Especially when they entered prison they had no thought
of these kind of activities.
Amb. Kozak. The prisons are a great recruiting ground. It's also a
broader recruiting thing that when people see their co-religionists
imprisoned, supposedly for terrorist acts just because they didn't go
along with the government-approved version of religion, or where,
likewise, if they won't let peaceful political opponents express
themselves freely and all of that, people start to say the only way I
have of trying to defend my community or advance my views is to join
the terrorists, because they're at least doing something about the
problem I perceive. If the government shuts off all other ways for
people to try to modify their situation, it ends up making terrorists a
lot more popular than they would otherwise be.
This is something that is not philosophical. Empirically you can
show that over and over and over again. And yet, we still have a lot of
governments that adhere to the opposite view. It's something that not
just the human rights folks are saying. It's our military and
counterterrorism people because it's absolutely in our interest that
governments learn to open up a little bit.
Mr. Hurd. Before opening up the questions to the audience, do any
of the panelists have questions for Ambassador Kozak?
Dr. Collins. Ambassador Kozak, thank you very much for your
remarks.
I wonder if you could maybe speak a little bit more specifically
about the situation in Uzbekistan and what constitutes the dialogue
you're having with the new Uzbek Government about what they would need
to do to get off of the CPC list.
Thank you.
Amb. Kozak. No, thank you, Doctor.
I had the interesting experience not this last year at HDIM but the
year before. President Karimov died like the day before HDIM started or
something--I don't know, it was a very short time. The senior
representative that they had sent there wanted to talk and was bringing
messages from the new government about how they wanted to change their
ways and get out of from not just CPC designation but the whole aspect
that they have of being bad on human rights. We gave them some initial
thoughts--be more open with NGOs--and they, to their credit invited
some of the American NGOs there, giving them high-level access so that
they could hear from them on release of prisoners. They've released a
number of long-term political prisoners. Our IRF colleagues have been
trying to give them things that they could do on that front.
Our concerns are pretty well known. We try not to say, do these
five things and we'll let you off the hook, because we can't judge how
difficult some of those things are. It's like, here are 15 things, and
if you did enough of them it would really start to change the
perception of what you're doing.
I think we're kind of at an early stage of this. They had this
Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief come and visit
them. We're basically promoting those things, because other people can
give them good ideas, too. It's not just exclusively the U.S.
Government.
We're hoping as soon as we get Governor Brownback on board, Senate
willing, that we'll make a real effort at that one, because there seems
to be at least some receptivity to not just maintaining the status quo.
Our thought is, the more engagement, the better. We don't have a bright
line test for what it would be. There are so many problems there that
if they did five or six significant steps, that would be helpful to
people in the society, I think.
Thank you.
Mr. Brumley. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
I just had a question regarding the situation of Jehovah's
Witnesses in Kazakhstan. We seem to be caught between two forces within
the government. There's one force that seems to be leaning towards
applying the rule of law, protecting our rights, and opposing forces
that are seeking to imitate what's going on in Russia. I appreciate so
much that you mentioned the situation of Teimur Akhmedov, who's in
prison right now, basically on trumped-up charges. Do you have a
comment on whether the rule of law is strengthening, or whether the
legal status that we have right now is even more in danger?
Amb. Kozak. In Kazakhstan?
Mr. Brumley. Kazakhstan.
Amb. Kozak. It's hard trying to predict these different forces.
Particularly when a lot of these states in that region have had the
same leader since they became independent. President Karimov dying
shows that nobody is immortal and so I think people are thinking about
somewhere down the line. Unfortunately, Jehovah's Witnesses and other
groups get caught up in all of that.
Mr. Brumley. Yes.
Amb. Kozak. So it's kind of hard to predict what they will do. What
I can say more is what we're urging them to do is follow the rule of
law.
Mr. Brumley. Right.
Amb. Kozak. Don't persecute groups as they've tried to do it a la
Russia, where they say any religious thought that isn't approved by the
government is ``extremism.''
Mr. Brumley. Right.
Amb. Kozak. When was the last time that a band of Jehovah's
Witnesses took up arms and attacked somebody? It's----
Dr. Mark. Never.
Amb. Kozak. Exactly. [Laughter.] So it's just manifestly absurd
what they're worrying about. That's what we're trying to get across to
them: don't do it. But as you say, it's a struggle to try to figure it
out. You become sort of a surrogate or something for other struggles
that are going on.
Mr. Brumley. It's true.
Amb. Kozak. I think the best we can do is to push back and say,
look, neither one of you have an interest in picking a big fight over
this, and what does it get you? So we need to increase the cost and
then also increase the reward of doing the right thing.
Mr. Brumley. Thank you. Good.
Amb. Kozak. We'll keep trying, as I know you will.
Mr. Brumley. Yes.
Dr. Mark. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador.
I was actually just very recently back from Uzbekistan, which was
an interesting trip. But last night we hosted with Senator Lankford a
briefing on the Hill on Turkey. We had different other members of the
commission there very recently. They were actually the first Americans
who are not from the embassy and not his family to see Pastor Brunson
since his detention, and that was obviously a very affecting experience
for them.
Amb. Kozak. Yes.
Dr. Mark. In the little picture--not that it's insignificant, but
just that there's a focus on one person--it seems like they're holding
this man hostage. They want Gulen, other things. Then the big picture,
of course, is everyone's aware of the extreme exacerbation of the
situation there for human rights in general in the last year and a half
and the rising authoritarianism of Erdogan. My question is--it's
sensitive, I guess--what's next for U.S. policy? What should we expect
or what could we expect in terms of a response on these issues? Or are
political and economic and military considerations with the situation
in the Middle East too great that we're just going to have to look the
other way on these things?
Amb. Kozak. I don't think anybody is arguing for just looking the
other way. But you're right that there is a tension in there. This all
started with the attempted coup in 2016, which we condemned and believe
that the Turkish Government was absolutely entitled to go after, and
through a transparent legal process, bring to justice the people who
had perpetrated that.
Instead, they've extended over and over beyond all reason the state
of emergency, used it then to go after this whole cacophony of groups.
It's hard to even figure out why they're going after somebody, on
grounds that they're Gulenists or something. That remains a matter of
big concern.
We talk about it privately. We talk about it publicly. We're urging
the Turks, as Secretary Tillerson did publicly, to not just to release
Pastor Brunson. As he said there's absolutely no justification for
holding this man. But for all of the similar actions that they've taken
against other people, tens and hundreds of thousands of people now that
have been removed from their jobs, and so on, on sort of vague
allegations of association with Gulenists.
On the other side of it though, Turkey remains a valued NATO ally,
a very important partner in a number of activities there, and we have
to pursue those as well. I think it's not an either/or deal, but it's a
how do we walk and chew gum and try to deal with both sets of issues at
the same time--and not always easy.
We saw, unfortunately, the Turkish representative at HDIM walked
out on the first day on grounds that the OSCE had registered an
American NGO that the Turks accused of being Gulenist. Obviously we
said no, we ought to apply the rules--if an organization is on the U.N.
terror list or something, yes, but you can't just declare somebody a
terrorist in order to keep them from attending a meeting. So there have
been a lot of difficult conversations with the Turkish authorities. But
at the same time we are also trying to find those areas where we have
common interests and work with them on that. Stay tuned is, I guess,
all I can say.
Dr. Mark. Thank you.
Amb. Kozak. Thanks.
Mr. Hurd. We'll now open up the discussion to those of you that are
here in the audience. If you could please state your name, and if you
have an affiliation, state that as well. We do have probably quite a
few questions as well as our subsequent panelists. So if you could keep
your comments and your questions brief, that would be much appreciated.
And if you could step to the microphone, please. Thank you.
Questioner. Thank you very much.
Ambassador, great to see you outside of HDIM, where we met last
time, in Warsaw. My name is Alex. I'm a journalist from Azerbaijan.
I want to ask about the country where almost half of political
prisoners are actually religious prisoners, and the odd thing is that
they get less attention from the U.S. than others. If that's the case,
I wonder why.
My second question--I do see your point about the Magnitsky Act and
waiving the act towards the countries which tend to be our best
supporters when it comes to Afghanistan and others, let's say, on
national security-related issues. But what contradicts that opinion is
about repression. Let's say radicalization is through repression in
countries like Azerbaijan, and that that is a challenge too. So which
one is harder? Should we talk about Afghanistan or the new Afghanistan
if this continues to be the case?
Thank you very much.
Amb. Kozak. No, thank you. On political prisoners versus religious
prisoners, we tend to deal with them together. Often it's difficult to
get into the heads of the persecutor to figure out, were they
persecuting this person because of their faith or were they persecuting
them because their faith group is suspected of being politically
opposed to the government, or something like that? We don't tend to
prioritize one over the other. Obviously if it's our Ambassador-at-
Large for Religious Freedom who's out talking to another government,
they tend to focus on people where it's very apparent that they're in
for religious reasons. The rest of us tend to run the two together and
pick.
Oftentimes, too, what you try to do is start to get a chink in the
armor of the other side. So if they've got thousands of political
prisoners, you go in and say we ought to release all thousands of them,
and they say we heard you, we're not going to do that. They're
terrorists. And that's the end of the conversation.
But when you're able to say, OK, here are four people or something
that you've got in, and we've really studied their cases, and there's
no justification, you have a better shot at it. When you do that, you
can then multiply on that and say, OK, you let those four go and you
actually got some good press out of it, and here are 10 more people
that are very similar to the ones you just released. So it's a tactical
deal how you approach that.
On the national security stuff and whether you care about
Afghanistan or Iran, we care about all of them, the threats posed by
all. These are judgment calls. Is it better to keep some sanction on
somebody to make our point, and can we forgo their cooperation on
something we care about? Sometimes the answer is yes, that the
cooperation isn't that valuable and making the point is. Other times
we've got an immediate problem here we have to deal with. We need their
cooperation on that, so we'll waive the sanction.
It's not like we're not doing anything. We're also calling them to
task and making comments about them in the U.N. system and the OSCE and
so on. So it's how do you get the sweet spot between all of those.
That's always the dilemma.
Mr. Hurd. There are additional questions from the audience. If you
could please come to the microphone if you're able to. Also, just a
reminder that those of you that are watching online, you can actually
pose questions on Facebook as well.
Questioner. I have a pretty good voice, but I'll use this.
Ambassador Kozak, I am retired State Department and worked in DRL
for a number of years. So recently, when our president began to
emphasize sovereignty, it gave me some pause, because, as most of us
know very well, in many countries individual freedoms, including
religious freedom, simply do not play a part in the rights that are
recognized for people.
Amb. Kozak. Yes.
Questioner. That's a determination of the government in the
exercise of their sovereignty. If we are emphasizing recognition of
sovereignty, have we diminished our grounds for speaking to these
countries about their violations of what we consider the rights of
their citizens or residents of their territory? And if so, how are you
working around that?
Amb. Kozak. Good question, and good DRL colleague.
I think when the president has emphasized sovereignty and so on, it
was more in the sense that we're not going to be constrained by
constructs of groupings of countries. This has been largely in the
trade area and so on, that we should be able to go out and state our
own point of view and be able to deal with other countries as we see
fits our own interests, which includes promotion of human rights. I
think he and the secretary have both been clear on that.
It's not saying that sovereignty means that you can ignore God-
given human rights. I think that they've come across pretty strongly on
that as well. I think when the secretary rolled out the religious
freedom report, he said, I don't want to just call out our enemies. I
want to call out our friends too. And he did. He expressed concern
about a number of countries that we have very close relationships with.
I think what you see, as you go kind of issue by issue, what are we
doing about it, the administration has been very clear that, for
example, people should not have violence committed against them or be
discriminated against because of their religion, because of their
political view, because of their status as LGBT, because of
disabilities. It's all the things we've always been concerned about.
But they're coming at it from the standpoint of the individual. No
individual should be subjected to that, regardless of what the supposed
motivation is.
I think the thing I would mention that maybe will make you a little
more hopeful is internationally, at the HDIM, I was really taken by how
thoroughly we won the battle of ideas on individual rights versus state
sovereignty during the Cold War. As each of those countries got up and
talked, you either had countries like Uzbekistan, who were earnestly
trying to explain the reforms they were undertaking to comply with OSCE
commitments and so on, or you had the Russias of the world standing up
and saying, well, the Americans and the Western Europeans violate all
these things too, so nobody should blame us.
But they weren't questioning that these were the standards that you
should live up to, that it was either, ``You're just as bad as I am,''
or ``I'm really trying to be better,'' was sort of the thing. I think
that was good. It's a strength that we have and that we can work with,
the fact that that is widely accepted now, is that universal human
rights really are universal.
Even the Russians tried their old trick of saying, we have to spend
a day on economic, social and cultural rights, because those are just
as important as civil and political rights. Our people, to get the
agenda agreed, agreed to that. So when it came time to do it, I led off
and read our statement about what we do to protect economic, social and
cultural rights in the U.S. The Russians gave a speech about how
disgraceful it was that the U.S. wouldn't speak to this issue. It was
like, were you listening? It was a tactic from their standpoint, from
the old Soviet playbook. But then they didn't bother themselves to talk
about economic, social and cultural rights in Russia.
So it's really a strength that we've got, that the values that we
hold dear have been so well internalized internationally. You really
don't get that pushback--we don't have to follow these values because
we have sovereignty. That's why the Russians and the others, the Turks
and everybody, go to these great lengths to create these antiterrorism
laws and all, because they're trying to find some way to justify what
they're doing rather than just saying it's OK for us to be doing this.
So this is something we can work with, and we can keep holding people
to account. I think it's a strength we forget we have, and we ought to
use it more often.
Questioner. Hello. Thank you for being here today. My name is
Nathan Wineinger. I'm the director of policy relations with the 21st
Century Wilberforce Initiative.
My question: As an advocacy organization, we interact with all
sorts of different organizations around the world on international
religious freedom. As you work with foreign governments or talk to
foreign officials or travel abroad--and this question can be for anyone
on the panel--what are the particular policy mechanisms that you see,
such as the Global Magnitsky Act, that people within foreign
governments are starting to look at and pay attention to as potential
areas where we can begin to advocate more effectively on?
Amb. Kozak. I think some of the mechanisms we have that are most
effective are sometimes the ones that are least dramatic. You mentioned
working with civil society groups. One of the things that our embassies
do all over the world and that we do when we travel abroad, also our
colleagues from the regional bureaus, the secretary himself, the
president, is meet with civil society.
When somebody is being repressed in a country, the fact that a
senior foreign official will meet with the repressed people, it's a
real dig at the government. The government usually is trying to say we
can repress you and we can make the Americans stand by and ignore it,
and so don't think you'll ever be able to get out from this. Just by
having a meeting with them, we destroy that narrative and say, look, we
value our engagement with the people in civil society or in the
religious community that we're meeting with as much as we do that with
the government. That tends to equalize them up.
That's a huge thing. It doesn't cost very much. You don't have to
have legal sanctions and have the treasury and everything else doing
it. I think that is effective. The calling people out--we use the U.N.
mechanisms a lot. We use OSCE a lot to say what about this, what about
that.
During HDIM, we had, and still have going on, the oppression of gay
men in Chechnya. And we were every day asking the Russians, what are
you doing about this? They didn't have their story down straight, and
they would tell a different story every day and then contradict
themselves in the press. We had a good time. That put pressure on them.
We weren't doing it to embarrass the Russian Government. We were doing
it to get them to do serious investigation and put a stop to this. I
think that can be effective too.
Then we have a variety of tools. One that often gets done and
nobody knows about is, in the Immigration and Nationality Act, there
are exclusions for people who've committed torture or extrajudicial
killings and so on. Our consular officers just apply that and deny your
visa. It doesn't necessarily involve a big policy action, but it means
something to the person who had it denied.
Then we have the more policy-oriented exclusions as well, either
under Section 212(a)(c)(3) or 214(b)--or not--214(b) is exclusion for--
212(f) is what I'm thinking of; 214(b) is what happens to you when you
don't have visible means of support. You get denied.
But anyway, the upshot is those kinds of things can have a real
effect on people. I've been dealing with Venezuela of late, and, you
know, there we denied and revoked the visas of a number of people who
were involved in repression, including top generals and judges,
prosecutors who were persecuting people. The impact is pretty sizable.
You get other ones coming saying, please, please, what do I have to do
to stay off your bad list? The answer is, don't repress people. But
they make me do that. Well, no, you could actually resign, or refuse to
do it, or something.
There are a lot of tools like that that are very effective. The big
sanctions can be effective. But they're kind of a blunderbuss weapon.
You sometimes hit more than you intend. It's finding the right
combination of rhetorical--we do programmatic things to try to
strengthen oppressed groups in other countries and give them support.
Financial stuff, visa stuff, solidarity. All of those things in the
right mix can have a real impact. But it's a constantly moving game,
too. You can't just do something and then sit back and watch it. You
have to keep working it.
Mr. Hurd. We have a question from one of our viewers on Facebook.
Ms. Hope. We do, from James on Facebook. He says: ``Your genuine
interest in the treatment of religious minorities, such as the
Jehovah's Witnesses, is commendable. Have you seen any movement on the
part of decisionmaking bodies in Russia that provides any basis for
change?''
Amb. Kozak. I guess my answer, as of today, would be no,
unfortunately. But we don't give up easy, so we'll keep trying to bring
this to their attention and see if we can get them to change their
ways.
Mr. Hurd. Are there any more questions from the audience?
Well, thank you very much----
Amb. Kozak. Thank you.
Mr. Hurd. As you can see, you have the rare diplomat who's
transparent and candid, which is always much appreciated.
Thank you for your remarks and your insights.
Amb. Kozak. No, thank you very much. And thanks to the commission
for keeping the focus on these issues. It really makes a difference.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you.
Amb. Kozak. That's another thing you can do when I'm adding to the
list of measures is exactly this kind of thing. It does help.
Mr. Hurd. Now we'll return to the rest of our panel, starting with
Chairman Mark.
Amb. Kozak. Excuse me for bailing like this.
Dr. Mark. Thank you very much to my friend Mr. Hurd, and thank you
to the Helsinki Commission, particularly the chairman and co-chairman,
Senator Wicker and Representative Smith, for holding a briefing on this
very important topic.
As you heard, my name is Daniel Mark, and I am chairman of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, as we are
affectionately known.
A quick word about USCIRF. USCIRF was created in 1998 by the
International Religious Freedom Act. You heard a bunch about that just
before, commonly known as IRFA. IRFA also created the State
Department's Office of International Religious Freedom, as well as the
position of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. We
are very pleased that President Trump has nominated Governor Brownback
to that position. It's a position that ought to be filled. We do hope
that the Senate will end its delays and swiftly confirm him to this
critical position, as Ambassador Kozak said.
We at USCIRF are tasked by Congress to monitor and review religious
freedom abroad and to make policy recommendations to the president,
secretary of state and Congress. To that end, Nathan's question was
very germane in thinking about what are the things that actually work.
If I could just digress for one moment on that and say that another
thing, especially just coming from this Uzbekistan trip that's been
very much on my mind, not just thinking about which are the big
policies that are most effective, but what are the very specific things
you can ask them to do that are doable, that you can really get.
Just to finish that thought with a specific example on Uzbekistan.
In Uzbekistan, the government recently approved 3,000 more copies of
the Christian Bible to be printed in that country and distributed. But
that's not enough. Can they do more? You can ask them, can we have
3,000 more? Can they register--not just open up registration? That'll
take time. But can they register one church in an area that has no
churches? It's a very large country.
Typically Christian preachers are not allowed to preach in the
Uzbek language, and not even allowed to have somebody doing
simultaneous translation next to them. Can they allow perhaps
preaching? And they do that, of course, to prevent the religion from
spreading. These are things that are very specific, very concrete, and
relatively small compared to the big things that we also need them to
accomplish.
So that helps. I say that in the context of talking about our
mandate to make recommendations, which include the kinds of things that
Nathan was asking about, but also thinking about recommendations for
the U.S. Government to ask for very specific and concrete things that
are doable. In any case, that's part of our mandate.
The other thing we do that you heard about is, we make the
recommendations to the State Department for CPC designations, Countries
of Particular Concern. In April, along with our release of our annual
report, which is out every year on time by the legislatively mandated
deadline, we recommend 16 countries for designation as CPC because we
believe they meet the legal standard of perpetrating or tolerating,
quote, ``systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of international
religious freedom.''
Religious freedom in the OSCE region is always a concern for
USCIRF. Of course, as I just said, it's at the forefront of my mind,
because I just returned a little more than a week ago from Uzbekistan.
My fellow commissioner, John Ruskay, was there, as well as USCIRF
policy analyst Andrew Kornbluth, who was with us as well. We had a very
productive week. I'll say more about that soon.
USCIRF monitors a number of OSCE countries that were formerly part
of the Soviet Union, as well as some others that weren't. My remarks
today will be limited to just some of those, and especially the ones
that we recommend for CPC designation, including Turkmenistan,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and, for the first time in this year's report,
Russia.
The State Department agrees with us on those other three. On the
last, on Russia, it remains to be seen, because there hasn't been, as
you just heard, a new round of CPC designations since our report came
out this past April. We certainly encourage the State Department to
make CPC designations in line with our recommendations, which are based
on a careful and thorough review of all the available information on
religious freedom in those countries. I must add, to emphasize, that
the State Department did miss on Monday its legislatively mandated
deadline for designating CPCs. I'm glad to hear that Ambassador Kozak
is on top of it, has an explanation for it, and hopes to see it done
soon.
I want to echo what he said about the excellent statement that
Secretary Tillerson made when they released the International Religious
Freedom Report three months ago. It was a bold and thorough statement.
We hope that that rhetoric will be followed up with timely designations
and action.
It sounds like, from what we heard from Ambassador Kozak, that
these should be one-time delays. They didn't know about the EPC
delegation of authority. So if next year we're hearing the same story,
we know there's a problem. But it sounds like all the things that he
accounted for are things that could be settled this year and not recur
next year.
USCIRF also has a Tier Two that includes countries that have severe
violations and that meet with at least one element of the systematic,
ongoing and egregious standard. Within the OSCE region of the former
Soviet Union, our tier two includes Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. I asked
about Turkey, but I'm not going to talk about that today.
Unfortunately, we at USCIRF are not optimistic with regard to the
outlook for religious freedom in the OSCE countries we monitor.
Generally speaking, the trend has been toward authoritarian governments
imposing more and unwritten restrictions on expressions of religion.
These restrictions are arbitrarily and capriciously enforced by courts
that are not independent from the executive branch in their respective
countries. Punishments range from police harassment and fines in the
mildest cases to effective life imprisonment and death in prison by
torture, starvation, in the most severe.
Uzbekistan, which has long been designated as a CPC by the State
Department, and long recommended by us, is the one OSCE country
reported on by USCIRF that currently seems to offer hope for
improvement, although, as I will explain, USCIRF is still waiting for
more evidence on much-needed reforms.
The religious freedom conditions in the OSCE countries monitored by
USCIRF are similar in part because of their shared legacy of Soviet
communist government. In the Soviet Union, all social and political
movements not affiliated with or endorsed by the state were subject to
constant scrutiny and repression by the omnipresent security services.
Moreover, the state was officially atheist. I have to say, being in a
country like Uzbekistan, you are reminded of how awful the legacy of
communism. Everywhere communism went, it's just left devastation.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, elements from the security
services became the ruling elites in many of the newly independent
countries, and they remain deeply hostile to independent social
mobilization. At the same time, the immediate aftermath of the Soviet
Union's collapse from the early to mid-1990s was a time when the
restraints on civil society imposed during the Soviet Union were
temporarily relaxed as new regimes worked to consolidate their power.
In this early period, about a quarter of a century ago, many
citizens of the new republics began to renew or re-examine their
traditional faiths. Proselytizing movements, both Islamic and
Christian, were able to operate relatively freely, connecting adherents
to global religious trends and movements. By the late 1990s, the former
Soviet countries viewed the wave of renewed religiosity with growing
alarm. The authoritarian regimes, guided by the security services, were
also more confident of their strength and ready to re-establish full
control over civil society.
It was at this time that the legal architecture underpinning the
repression of religious belief first began to be formulated. The
linchpin was religion laws, which consisted of three restrictions--the
requirement that religious communities register with the government,
effectively requiring all religious groups to obtain government
sanction for their legal existence; restrictions on the possession and
distribution of religious literature; and restrictions on where and how
proselytizing could occur--mostly it can't--with the aim of stopping
and controlling the spread of religious ideas that were not officially
approved.
Within a few years, laws on extremism, as we just heard, became
another widely used tool for suppressing religious expression. While
OSCE member countries monitored by USCIRF do have legitimate security
concerns, their laws define extremism extremely vaguely to permit the
suppression of virtually any kind of expression, religious or secular.
With the rise of international terrorism, the need to combat radicalism
became an even more convenient pretext for shutting down all forms of
expression not approved by the government.
One of the surest proofs that extremism laws are often less about
fighting terrorism than about repressing peaceful expression is the
fact that Christian minorities in all of these countries, who pose no
security threat whatsoever, are persecuted under these same statutes.
Indeed, legitimate security concerns notwithstanding, these laws are
often little more than legal excuses for the governments to take
whatever actions they want against any individual or group they want.
It is these religion laws and the misuse of extremism laws that
most concern USCIRF in the OSCE member countries that we report on,
along with the corresponding arrests, torture and imprisonments. Our
view of these countries shows that, for the most part, religious
freedom conditions are only getting worse. The Russian Federation,
which in many ways inspired or pioneered the use of religion and
extremism laws to suppress religious freedom, has doubled down on
religious repression. As everyone here is likely aware, this year saw
the banning by the Russian supreme court of the Witnesses as a
supposedly extremist organization.
While many observers wondered why Russia would target the 175,000-
strong community of Witnesses, it fits a pattern of suspicion of the
community dating back to the Soviet period--unwarranted suspicion. In
addition, it is consistent with the effort on the part of the Russian
security services to prove their success against extremism by going
after a minority incapable of resisting.
The year before, in the name of combating proselytism, Russia also
passed a law that effectively criminalized all forms of religious
speech. Currently, one member of the Witnesses and five Scientologists
are being held in pretrial detention, while dozens of Muslims are
serving prison terms for peaceful expression of religion, or in some
cases fabricated terrorism charges.
In the occupied Crimean Peninsula, Russia continues to persecute
the native Crimean Tatar population, which it distrusts because of its
Muslim identity and loyalty to the Ukrainian state.
Turkmenistan is perhaps the most egregious offender among the OSCE
countries on our roster. Religious prisoners disappear in the notorious
desert prison of Ovadan Depe, where they are held incommunicado under
horrific conditions. One religious prisoner who died in the prison in
2016 is said to have weighed 55 pounds at the time of his death. No
wonder, then, that another observant Muslim is believed to have
committed suicide in December of last year rather than face arrest and
imprisonment there.
In Tajikistan, the government's persecution of Muslims and
Christians alike has become more zealous and shows no sign of relaxing.
This year a Christian pastor was sentenced to three years for
extremism. A teenage Witness conscientious objector received six months
in jail. And Buzurgmehr Yorov, the lawyer for the banned Islamic
Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, was sentenced to more than 20 years in
prison, where reportedly he is tortured regularly. In addition, the
government has launched new campaigns interfering in everything from
the wearing of hijabs to the food served at wedding banquets.
With regard to Kazakhstan, USCIRF was deeply disappointed by the
decision of that government to raid Witness Kingdom Halls only days
after a meeting between government representatives and our commission,
USCIRF. Kazakhstan's parliament is currently considering a number of
changes to the laws, which may lead to further tightening of controls
over religious life. This year the government also gave Witnesses a
three-month ban on religious activity, and a member of their community
who was ill with cancer was sentenced to five years in prison,
allegedly for proselytism. In Kazakhstan, USCIRF is also concerned that
campaigns against Salafism mask attempts to repress political unrest
more generally.
I emphasize that USCIRF understands that many of the countries we
follow have legitimate security concerns. Security and religious
freedom are not mutually exclusive.
USCIRF is guardedly optimistic about the situation for religious
freedom in Uzbekistan, particularly since our trip there. Although
Uzbekistan has long been regarded as a severe violator of religious
freedom, the new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has relaxed
longstanding restrictions on the majority Sunni Muslim population. In
many circles there is real optimism, and we heard that as a consistent
theme in our week.
That being said, the continuing atmosphere of fear and intimidation
among Uzbek Christians and others is palpable. Registration of
religious groups and the possession of religious literature are tightly
controlled, and policies such as registration are used as tools to
surveil and harass believers. Intimidation, arrests and torture remain
a constant fear for both proselytizing Christian groups and those who,
for whatever reason, fall afoul of the police.
Moreover, thousands of Uzbek Muslims continue to serve long prison
sentences on trumped-up charges or fabricated charges. While we are
hopeful about the future, USCIRF also wishes for the Uzbek Government
to be more forthcoming and transparent about the substantive reforms to
the architecture of religious control in their country.
In conclusion--and thank you for bearing with me a little bit
long--USCIRF calls on all OSCE countries to adhere to international
standards of religious freedom. Although the bright spots are few and
far between, we remain hopeful that even the most egregious violators
will change their practices for the better, and we are ready to engage
in dialogue with any OSCE member ready to do so.
Thank you.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Chairman Mark.
Dr. Collins.
Dr. Collins. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for
coming today, and thank you especially to Mr. Hurd and the Helsinki
Commission for organizing this panel to bring attention to the timely
issue of religious repression in the OSCE region.
In the interest of time, I will focus on the evolving situation in
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and highlight in particular my findings with
the Under Caesar's Sword project, which focuses in particular on
Christian and other religious minorities across that region.
I agree with Dr. Mark. I'm quite skeptical about the prospects for
the improvement of the religious situation across the region. The
regional trend has been to adopt steadily more restrictive laws on
religion together with changes in the administrative and criminal
codes, and broad laws and programs that blend and merge religious
practice with extremism and terrorism. The governments in the region
look to each other and Russia as justification for these changes.
Russia is the trendsetter, as you mentioned.
Across the region, with the partial exception of Kyrgyzstan, the
legal framework for religion and the de facto implementation of these
laws have in fact created a situation little better than during the
later Soviet era. Thank you for mentioning that because the parallels
are really quite striking. This is true in particular for the minority
Christians and for any Muslims acting independently of the state-
controlled Muslim hierarchies.
Kazakhstan, before its 2011 religion law, was in fact one of the
most liberal religious environments in the region. Following the law,
and especially since the adoption of new amendments in 2016--December
2016--Kazakhstan has increasingly curtailed religious freedom and
engaged in continual violations of religious and human rights. The
legal framework now includes broad provisions banning extremism,
including the incitement of ethnic, religious or social discord, which
is used very broadly.
Censorship of religious literature is also quite broad, banning
already over 700 works. Crippling fines are imposed without recourse to
court hearings. This year police raided several Protestant churches
during Easter Sunday services, and scores of Christians were harassed
and intimidated. There are multiple reports of churches being closed
for several months at a time for alleged legal violations.
The new Kazakh Ministry for Religion in Civil Society, the state
media, the Muslim Board, and the Russian Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan
all collaborate in using intolerant rhetoric about groups they deem
nontraditional. They foment societal animosity towards those groups,
and the state has created anti-sect centers which are eerily
reminiscent of Soviet policy. Under its new program to counter
religious extremism and terrorism, even children are encouraged to
report on those praying at home.
The recent turn to much harsher treatment of converts in Kazakhstan
is particularly notable. For example, in late 2015, Seventh Day
Adventist Yklas Kabduakasov, a recent convert to Christianity, was
sentenced to two years imprisonment in a penal camp. The secret police
had used extensive surveillance to trap and video record Mr.
Kabduakasov discussing his faith in the Bible with other Kazakhs. He
was charged as an extremist with inciting religious hatred against
Islam.
This past year, multiple others, both Muslim and Christian
minorities, have faced similar charges and prison terms. Jehovah's
Witness Teimur Akhmedov, who I am sure you will discuss, was arrested,
tortured in detention, and given a sentence of five years in a penal
camp under very similar circumstances and charges.
In another case targeting converts, a pastor has been charged with
allowing a child to attend a religious service with his father but
without his mother's express permission. Followers of Tablighi Jamaat,
another minority Muslim organization banned in Kazakhstan, are also
regularly harassed, fined, and given prison sentences.
The Kazakh Government has recently proposed multiple new amendments
in addition to those passed just last December. If adopted, these
changes would further move Kazakhstan in the direction of its most
repressive neighbors. Among other things, new provisions would ban
teaching religion outside approved religious organizations of which
there are very few. They would further restrict sharing religious
beliefs and task local government with monitoring places of worship and
religious practice. Penalties for violators would be significantly
higher.
Kyrgyzstan likewise remains a country to watch. By comparison with
its neighbors it generally looks relatively good--de facto religious
practice has been considerably more free--but legal and societal trends
raise alarm. Although previously known for religious tolerance and
greater civic space, the 2009 law on religion and 2012 amendments are
much more repressive. The law criminalizes unregistered religious
activity while it has made registration far more difficult. The law
still stands, despite religious groups' appeals to reverse it, despite
international recommendations, and despite a supposed democratization
process that has been going on since 2010.
This past spring, the State Committee on Religious Affairs in
Kyrgyzstan proposed draft amendments that would make registration even
more difficult, requiring now 500, not 200, signatures. All religious
literature would be subject to mandatory censorship. The changes would
effectively ban any dissemination of religious views by those not
registered as missionaries, and they would restrict the private
teaching of religion.
The proposed amendments have the support of many in government, the
Muslim Board, and the Russian Orthodox Church. Minority religious
organizations have been afraid to voice opposition. This is a moment
when pressure from the international community and from the U.S.
Government, I think, is absolutely critical to preserving some
religious freedom for minorities in Kyrgyzstan.
Finally, societal discrimination against converts across the region
continues to be high and is worth noting. In Kyrgyzstan, for example,
local government and police foment societal mistreatment of converts,
especially in conflicts over burial places.
The Under Caesar's Sword research project has been studying the
response of Christians where they face repression and persecution.
Christians' responses clearly vary with the level of repression and the
realm that they have to operate in civic and public space. Their
predominant strategies in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan
reflect decades of Soviet-era experience. They hide, they avoid
confrontation with the state, they pray in private or in-house
churches, and they focus on mere survival. Others just simply emigrate.
They occasionally disseminate Bibles or religious literature to friends
and family, but most avoid any public sign of their faith. Yet even in
these contexts, some Christians are more proactive and engage in
proselytism, but they do so at enormous risk, as we've seen with the
case of Jehovah's Witnesses.
By contrast, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where the situation has
been somewhat better since independence, Christians have found paths
yielding some limited success since 1991. For example, some churches
have built ties with local government to pursue their religious calling
through charity and social work. Church members provide care for
orphans and the disabled, and care for the sick and hungry. They
minister to prison inmates. This is all the basic charitable work of
faith-based groups anywhere.
Multiple churches have established rehab centers for drug and
alcohol addiction, a huge problem in the region, and they provide
assistance to victims of domestic abuse. This is the work that the
Central Asian regimes generally do not prioritize and often have
limited funding and skills to do. Hence, local governments occasionally
have allowed Christians to fill this important role.
In Kazakhstan, Christians have also engaged in interfaith dialogues
with each other and the state in attempts to facilitate mutual respect.
In Kyrgyzstan, an interfaith council, organized after the 2010
revolution, has organized civic projects and charitable work together
with Muslims to bridge differences. Much more such work is needed to
reduce interfaith hostility, especially against converts.
Churches have also--albeit rarely--banded together to protest
unlawful arrests and torture. In the case of the arrest and psychiatric
detention of Pastor Kashkumbayev in Kazakhstan, Christian churches
protested. The Association of Religious Organizations of Kazakhstan,
which includes about 600 churches, has often used its position and
numbers to pressure the parliament to respect religious freedom.
The changes in the Kazakh legislation over the past year and the
pending draft amendments in Kyrgyzstan pose such a threat to such civic
work. Not long ago, for example, Christian women ministering to hospice
patients in Kazakhstan were given crippling fines for reading the Bible
and sharing the New Testament with the dying in their hospice centers.
The Kazakh police have raided Baptist and other church youth camps,
accusing them of violating religious laws and intimidating the children
who were in attendance. Churches that engage in similar activities live
in fear of closure and prosecution. One church in Kazakhstan has
already closed five rehabilitation centers.
To conclude, the religious situation across the region is extremely
poor and, I would argue, declining. Negative trends in Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan are particularly worrying, especially for religious
minorities. Both society and state will suffer if the faith-based civic
and humanitarian organizations that have worked there for the past 25
years are further restricted and ultimately shut down.
Thank you.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you.
Before turning it over to General Counsel Brumley, just a note. The
fact that he is last is not an indication that his is the least
important presentation. It's actually an indication that it is the most
important. Whether it's at a congressional briefing, a congressional
hearing, other events on these issues, the voice of the individuals and
groups that are being persecuted, whether it's for religious freedom or
other human rights violations is actually most important for us to
hear. I wanted to make sure that before we had our final question and
answer period that his was the last voice that you heard.
General Counsel Brumley.
Mr. Brumley. Thank you for those kind words, Mr. Hurd. And we want
to thank the U.S. Helsinki Commission--Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman
Smith, and you particularly, Mr. Hurd--for hosting this briefing.
It has been also very illuminating and encouraging to hear the
words of Ambassador Kozak, Dr. Mark, and Dr. Collins. Their insightful
comments confirm our own concerns about the situation of Jehovah's
Witnesses in the OSCE region.
There are over 8\1/2\ million Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide. Over 3
million live in the OSCE region. We enjoy religious freedom in 51 of
the 57 participating States. The exceptions include Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and, since last April as we know, the Russian
Federation.
When domestic courts have failed to protect our fundamental rights,
we have resorted to seeking relief from international tribunals. Since
1993, we have obtained 64 favorable rulings from the European Court of
Human Rights and 11 favorable decisions from the U.N. Human Rights
Committee. But, Mr. Hurd, by far the worst problems we are facing in
the OSCE region--by far--have to do with Russia, so I'll be
concentrating on Russia in my presentation.
In 2006, the government amended its law on counteracting extremist
activity. It removed incitement to violence as a component of what
constitutes extremism. The U.N. Human Rights Committee, the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the Venice
Commission have all strongly criticized the amended law because it
gives the Russian Government carte blanche to prosecute anyone it deems
to be out of step with its version of what is acceptable. So, based on
this law as it's been amended, the authorities concocted a three-step
process to mis-categorize Jehovah's Witnesses as extremists and to use
this as the foundation to strip us of our fundamental rights of speech,
press and religion.
The first thing the government did was to criminalize our religious
literature. And it did this through bogus expert studies, and then
backed up by baseless court decisions. They even banned our website,
JW.org. It's worthy to point out, gentlemen and gentleladies, that
JW.org is available worldwide with the singular exception of Russia.
Second, Russia criminalized local congregations who had been using
our literature even before it was declared extremist. Once literature
that we had formally been using was on the extremist list, we removed
it and stopped using it, but the authorities went so far as to plant
banned literature in our places of worship so that they could later
discover it and bring charges. And we have this on video.
Then, third, it criminalized our religious activity at our national
offices and in our local places of worship. So since this amended law
on extremism was enacted, Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia have been
subjected to the following: searches of their homes, places of worship,
loss of employment, having their bank accounts frozen, mistreatment of
their children by school authorities, detentions, secret video
surveillance of their homes, monitoring of their mail, and intimidation
to abandon their faith. This decade-long campaign culminated, as you've
mentioned astutely, on April the 20th with the Supreme Court decision.
The court ruled that the administrative center and all of the 395 local
legal entities are guilty of carrying on extremist activity and that
their property should be confiscated and their activity terminated. Due
to a risk of criminal prosecution, we have ceased using our places of
worship and our national offices. Our branches in Europe, Canada and
here in the United States inform us that there is an escalation in the
number of Witnesses from Russia seeking asylum. We're tracking three
developments with particular interest, and you've mentioned them.
The first is the criminal prosecution of Dennis Christensen; he's a
citizen of Denmark. If convicted, he faces 10 years' imprisonment. He's
been denied bail and held in pre-trial detention since last May, and
his offense, singularly: he was worshiping along with a local
congregation.
Secondly, we're giving close attention to the proceeding by the
government to take possession of our national offices. And this is in
complete disregard for the fact that our administrative center, or our
national offices, are owned by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
of Pennsylvania, a U.S.-based corporation, and that the national
offices are worth millions. The government is nevertheless seeking to
confiscate it.
Third, whether an appellate court will confirm a decision by a
lower court to declare our Bible--the New World Translation--to be
extremist. The New World Translation is available in over 150 languages
and has been printed over 20 million copies. The very same translation
in Russia is deemed to be an extremist publication. For just having
this in one's possession, one risks criminal prosecution.
These relentless and coordinated efforts confirm that Russia is
bent on a minimum of driving Jehovah's Witnesses underground. Now, that
said, to date, we are not witnessing mass arrests of Jehovah's
Witnesses, but as you brought up, Dr. Mark, there are 175,000 Jehovah's
Witnesses in Russia. The government seems to be taking the position
that someone can be one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but you have to be one
of Jehovah's Witnesses and keep it to yourself. Anyone who, in any way,
engages in any activity related to our worship risks criminal
prosecution. So the government is saying, in essence, you can be one of
Jehovah's Witnesses, but don't associate with other Witnesses. Don't
read your Bible or any of your literature, don't gather for worship,
and whatever you do, don't talk to anybody about your faith.
So we thank the many governments and their agencies, such as the
U.S. Helsinki Commission, for your diplomatic efforts and statements.
When we were at the hearing earlier this year--the Supreme Court
hearing--the strong presence of the diplomatic community sent a clear
message to the Russian authorities that the international community is
well aware of what Russia is doing, and they're not deceived, either.
They realized that these proceedings are nothing more than a thinly-
disguised effort to legitimize the government's goal of stripping us of
our fundamental right to worship.
And just, very, very briefly, I'm going to hit on the situation
with Jehovah's Witnesses in Central Asia and in Azerbaijan. We
mentioned that in Kazakhstan, we're caught between two camps within the
government: one that seems to be leaning towards application of the
rule of law and maintaining our legal status, and another component of
government that is mimicking what's going on in Russia. We were banned
in Tajikistan in 2007, and we continue to worship in secret. Uzbekistan
is the second-worst offender of our fundamental rights in the OSCE
region. Just to give you a capsule, since last September--September
2016--there have been 185 police raids on religious meetings, 153
convictions for religious activities, 148 fines. And by the way, these
fines amount to 100 times the monthly minimum wage. They're not small.
Seven Witnesses were jailed for religious activity, and there have been
15 documented accounts of severe beatings by the police of men and
women who are Jehovah's Witnesses. Witnesses are fined for even having
a copy of the Bible in their home.
With regard to Turkmenistan, we have the same situation. Bahram
Hemdemov, a 52-year-old Witness, has begun serving a four-year sentence
that he began in March of 2015. And his only offense, again, was
worshiping with fellow believers. There have been some small
improvements in Azerbaijan, but although we number less than 2,000
Witnesses in that country, we have 18 applications pending with the
European Court of Human Rights, and we have filed 11 complaints with
the U.N. Human Rights Committee.
So, in conclusion, we are gravely concerned about the welfare of
our community in Russia. We are going to submit, for the record, a copy
of my briefing and also a copy of a short video from Professor Heiner
Bielefeldt--that's the former U.N. Special Rapporteur of Freedom of
Religion or Belief, who commented on the state of religious freedom in
Russia and gave particular emphasis to the situation Jehovah's
Witnesses are facing in that land. His point was, or is, that as the
space for one religion diminishes, civil society and religious freedom,
in general, diminishes.
Thank you, once again, for allowing us to comment on the situation
with Jehovah's Witnesses in the OSCE region.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you. Just a quick reminder about the Q&A. I'll ask
each one of our panelists two questions. If you could hold your answers
until I finish asking all of my questions, and then we'll eventually
turn it over to the audience. We'll start with Chairman Mark.
Taking advantage of your recent trip to Uzbekistan, in the full
range of steps that they can and should take to improve their record
when it comes to religious freedom, and, in particular--let's assume,
for the sake of argument, that they're re-designated as a CPC--what are
the most important actions the government needs to take in order to
change that designation and improve the situation for religious freedom
in Uzbekistan?
Secondly, was there an acknowledgment, when you were there, from
the authorities that their crackdown on religious freedom over the
years might actually be undermining their efforts to counter terrorist
groups and counter violent extremists?
For Dr. Collins, going back to Kazakhstan for a moment, you've
noted that prior to their 2011 religion law, at least in the region,
they had one of the most permissive environments for religion and for
religious freedom. Why the shift? Why the change?
Secondly, I was particularly intrigued at your comments that in
your research of Christian groups in the region, they rarely band
together in response to persecution. I'm wondering what your best
hypothesis is, or evidence is, about the ``why.''
General Counsel Brumley, you noted that this persecution of
Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia has been unfolding over many years. Why
do you think it is that they've taken so long rather than just doing it
immediately--rather than immediately banning you and taking the kind of
measures and actions that you've outlined?
Secondly, this is not the first time that Witnesses have been
persecuted in Russia. It's not the first time they've been persecuted
in some of these other countries that you've mentioned, as well as in
other parts of the world. Historically, how have they responded to a
situation like the one in which they find themselves now in Russia? How
have they compensated? Has there been, sort of, a change of practice,
et cetera?
We'll start with you, Chairman Mark.
Dr. Mark. Thank you for the excellent questions and for the
opportunity to talk more about the trip to Uzbekistan. I can't capture
in a few minutes what we experienced in a week, but there are the big
items. They told us in a meeting with government officials and some
others that they're working on a new religion law. Now, that's
worrying, because in experience from other places, even Vietnam, this
new religion law has been dragging on for years. The drafting actually
did take some American comments and then the implementation is yet
another year, and so on. But you've got to worry what's going to be in
that law.
Now, of course, in principle, it's a good thing. Oh, there's a new
religion law; they're going to revise, they're going to reform. The new
president does seem to be better than the last one, and so maybe will
be helpful. So I would say that there's a giant question mark hanging
over the thing that depends on what happens, and again, based on what
we know so far and the general trend, not overly optimistic, but it's
an opportunity. It's an opening, and I think, with the right kind of
pressure, we could see some improvements.
What would some of those look like? Well, the biggest thing that
hangs over everything about religious freedom in the country is
registration. Nothing can happen without registration. The group can't
have property, it can't have services, it can't have literature.
Everything depends, everything starts with registration. Of course, as
we've said, registration is a problem because that's how the government
starts its control and surveillance. Nobody wants to register.
So we sat in front of a government official who said nobody has
applied for registration in 10 years, to register a church. Well, why
is that? Is it because Christians don't want to open churches? It's not
just Christians, by the way, because Christians don't want to open
churches. No, it's because, when they say registration involves
providing us a list of 100 names and addresses of people affiliated
with your church, everybody says no thank you. That's just giving them
a list of people to pick on. That's what they're going to do, and
everybody knows this.
As I've been saying a lot post-trip, even insofar as the government
does begin to implement reforms, they're going to have to work overtime
to actually convince people that it's true and that they're sincere. So
reforming registration--We at USCIRF and the human rights community in
general probably would rather see this registration be done away with.
You shouldn't have to register, but if you do have to register, there
should be rule of law, there should be transparency, there should be
protections and so on.
A second thing is education. To go to another part of the world,
you travel a long way, and so maybe it feels like it should be as
different as it is--where children are not allowed to attend religious
services. Ninety-five-plus percent of the country is Sunni. If you're
under the age of 16, or 18, depending on the circumstances, you just
can't go to weekly services at the mosque, because you're just not
allowed. Police will stand outside and keep children out. Government
obviously controls all the education in the country, and the number of
religious educational institutions are extremely limited, and the
opportunities for religious education for children outside the home are
almost non-existent. The most basic things that we take for granted
here.
The third thing that I'll say, and just to give you a big three--I
could go on of course--is prisoners. Until we are convinced that there
are not many thousands of people being held in prison for their
innocent religious beliefs, then Uzbekistan will not have an easy time
getting off the CPC list. Our policy analyst, Andrew Kornbluth, who was
with us on the trip--God bless him, he's sitting here too--was so
diligent about asking at every opportunity, how many religious
prisoners are there? How many have been released? Can you give us the
name of one person who was in prison for his religious beliefs and now
has been released? They basically ignored us. Until they want to get
serious, at least, about it. Even one laughed and said, oh, well, all
the information's publicly available. Well, we can't find it. So until
they get serious about that, they're just not going to be a normal
place.
On the second question, is the crackdown undermining CVE efforts to
counter violent extremism? Sure. I'll just say that the first or second
day we were there was the day that the Uzbek terrorist perpetrated his
attack in New York City, and that certainly gave a certain color to our
trip. Where does that come from? How does that happen? Even if that
person was radicalized outside of Uzbekistan, why was that person
susceptible to the radicalization? We know that the crackdown drives
movements underground, which is counterproductive. We know that the
lack of education, proper religious education, leaves people
susceptible to more radical and violent views.
We heard an amazing story from a person--he had just been out--
three weeks out of prison after what was maybe an 11-year sentence, and
he was just out sitting with us in a coffee shop. He said, people come
to prison--this is the story from ``Shawshank Redemption,'' where he
had to go to prison to become a criminal. He said that people who are
too Muslim for the government's liking get sent to prison. Having been
sent to prison, they see not only their own abuse, but then, the
torture and other abuse of people and say, this is all being done in
the name of the newfound Uzbek independence, in the name of the
newfound Uzbek democracy. If this is what's being done in the name of
Uzbek democracy, we want no part of it. So they come out of prison more
radicalized than when they went in.
Now, that's not everyone, but it was such a striking example of the
way the persecution exacerbates the problems they have and is
counterproductive for their totally legitimate efforts to fight radical
Islam. It's a pretext in the first case, and then an exacerbation of
their own problem in the second case. Certainly, it is our line that
all around the world, countries that truly want to commit themselves to
countering violent extremism have to also commit themselves to
religious freedom.
Mr. Hurd. Before turning over to Dr. Collins, I just want to
commend the project Under Caesar's Sword, of which she is a scholar.
Not just as something interesting and important in and of itself, but
also as a model. There are many groups and institutions that document
the persecution of religious groups. What makes Under Caesar's Sword
different is that it primarily focuses on how particular communities
are responding to the persecution itself. It's certainly a model that I
think can and should be replicated in looking at how other religious
groups are responding to persecution. Dr. Collins.
Dr. Collins. Thank you very much. I would actually point you to
Notre Dame's website, where there is extensive information about how
different Christian communities are responding to persecution around
the world. The focus is not just on Central Asia or Russia, but in many
areas of the world where the situation is, sadly, even more egregious
than what we're talking about right now.
On your first question, Mr. Hurd, why the shift in 2011? Well, I
think that there has been a sort of gradual move towards this across
the region, but in particular, I think, a couple of events triggered
the Kazakh Government's crackdown on religious groups. There was the
Kyrgyz Revolution--regime change in 2010, which created this sense of
vulnerability and instability in the region. The Arab Spring in 2011,
perhaps even more so, created this sense that we're not quite
invincible. In Azerbaijan, for example, there was a statue of Mubarak
and Aliyev which, at the time of the revolution, was something that
gave the Aliyev regime some pause.
Not just Kazakhstan, but again, Kazakhstan in collaboration with
Russia and other members of the SCO--the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization--discuss these issues on a regular basis. They blend
together issues of religious independence with issues of extremism and
terrorism within the framework of their general security discussions
and focus on security. I think these various events help, sort of,
shift their thinking towards a mentality that we need to crack down on
religion to a greater extent than we have in the past.
There's also this understanding that, even though Christians aren't
the main target, we have to engage in this kind of equal-opportunity
repression. We're primarily worried about independent Muslim opposition
growing in the country. But they decided, in order to justify and
legitimize their crackdown on independent Islam, they need to more
broadly crack down on various forms of independent religions. I think
that's driving much of this.
Then we see, of course, that there has been an escalation of the
actual implementation of these regulations, post, about, 2014, when the
growth of ISIS has made them more conscious of the security threat to
the region. But again, it's this crackdown on both Christians and
Muslims--as Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses are rolled into the
crackdown on supposed supporters of ISIS. So that's on the issue of why
this shift over the past few years.
The second question about why Christians rarely band together is an
interesting one and a frustrating one, I think, as somebody studying
this region. Why don't they engage in greater collaboration? The few
instances where they have collaborated, as I mentioned with the example
of the AROC in Kazakhstan, with the protests about Pastor Kashkumbaev,
have sometimes garnered some success. This has been relatively rare; my
sense is that there are a couple of reasons for this. Probably most
importantly is a deep culture of distrust of sharing information,
opening up to others, even opening up to other Christian organizations.
I think that dates well back to the Soviet period, as Dr. Mark talked
about so eloquently. Many of these groups have been around--despite
being labeled by the governments as new groups or new Christians--many
of them have been around since before the Soviet period. They endured
repression under the Russian Czarist regime; they endured serious
repression under the Soviet era when there was liberalization, finally,
for the Russian Orthodox. They have still continued to endure
repression.
So there is this sense of distrust of each other, not knowing who
might be an informer, and that has undercut opportunities to work
across different church lines. Together with that, there is a distrust
of foreign groups or churches that have foreign and missionary ties
internationally. So local groups have a sense of skepticism about the
commitment of many internationally based or foreign religious groups
and missionaries that have come into the countries in recent years. I
think this culture of distrust hasn't broken down yet.
They also differ in their ideas about strategies, how to deal with
the current situation. Many of those that have been in the region the
longest and endured the Soviet repression would prefer to sort of stay
underground, continue to hide, continue to worship in their house
churches, whereas some of the newer groups--or some of the groups that
have more international connections--have moved more towards these
open, charitable opportunities and working with local-level
governments. I do think that greater opportunity for collaboration and
discussion of these strategies--which is something that the Under
Caesar's Sword project hopes to facilitate--would help them to realize
that, by adopting some of the more successful strategies, such as
engaging with local government and collaborating on social work, is
something that might advance their cause and their religious freedom
over the longer term.
I think those are probably some of the major reasons. The last
thing I would note is that the governments in the region, as well as
civil society actors in general, have undercut some of these efforts.
Civil society, surprisingly, perhaps, because it is so deeply secular
across much of the Central Asian, former Soviet regions, they tend to
distrust religious actors. There is not a tradition of secular civil
society working with religious actors and considering them also part of
the religious and part of the civic sphere. Then the government, I
think, to some extent, plays the same role with religious organizations
that it does with political opposition, attempting to plant distrust
and fear within that community to undercut any sort of collaborative
efforts.
Thank you.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you. General Counsel Brumley?
Mr. Brumley. Thank you. Your first question had to do with, why is
Russia proceeding the way it has and taking so long in its relentless
pursuit or attack on Jehovah's Witnesses? Essentially, to give a veneer
of giving Jehovah's Witnesses due process of law. That would be my
answer. The concept is, we were registered--again, we gained legal
status in 1992. Almost immediately, the General Prosecutor Office in
Moscow began proceedings against the Moscow congregation. They
instituted five different cases; they lost all five. The sixth one they
won; that went all the way up to the Supreme Court in Russia. We
appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. In 2010, the European
Court handed down its decision, Jehovah's Witnesses of Moscow and
Others v. Russia. It's a wonderfully written decision. It meticulously
goes through the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses and whether any of
these beliefs or practices pose any threat to the Russian people. The
decision categorically rebuts every single argument raised.
Now, an objective reader of that recent decision would have said,
OK, case closed. Jehovah's Witnesses are no threat, we can leave them
alone. But even before the decision was handed down, Russia had already
amended its laws, such as the law on counteracting religious extremism,
essentially, to look for a new way of attacking Jehovah's Witnesses. If
plan A didn't work, then we'll go to plan B. So it was illuminating
earlier this year, in April, at the hearing before the Supreme Court,
as the lawyers for Jehovah's Witnesses would raise procedural
objections that were very cogently raised, the prosecutor would stand
up and literally say two or three sentences, and the judge would look
at the prosecutor, look at the lawyers for the Witnesses, saying,
having heard from the defendants and having heard from the general
prosecutor, I concur with the general prosecutor.
To give you two quick examples: In one motion, the attorneys
representing Jehovah's Witnesses said, you are threatening to
criminalize 395 local religious organizations. They have a right to be
here in court if you're going to criminalize them. And the prosecutor
stood up and said, they all make the same arguments, so when we hear
from one or two, we've heard from all of them. And the judge says, yes,
you're right, and so they don't need to be here. With the second
motion--or a different motion that was raised was, as local religious
organizations were being criminalized, the administrative center
affirmatively sought to intervene in the case. The judges in each case
said no, you're not a defendant; you're not concerned or a party to
this. The administrative center then said, why should evidence adduced
at those hearings now be introduced against us, when we did not even
have the opportunity to defend ourselves? And again, the judge listened
to the prosecutor say, essentially, two or three sentences, and
overruled the motion.
So, Mr. Hurd, there is an effort to create a veneer of due process
of law that Jehovah's Witnesses have had their day in court, where
really, the determination is a foregone conclusion. Essentially, we're
thinking, as well, that Russia is hoping that no one will notice. So
the fact that the international community was present at trial and at
the Supreme Court, and the fact that human rights organizations are
talking about this, is helpful. It shows that what Russia is doing is
not going to happen unnoticed.
Your second question is quite interesting as well, Mr. Hurd, about
how this isn't the first time. It's interesting, in this decision of
2010--from the European Court--it brought out that Jehovah's Witnesses
have been present in Russia since 1891. We were banned under communism,
under the Soviet regime, gained our legal status again in 1992. So
we're not an unknown community within Russia. In fact, many Russians
are fourth-,
fifth-, even sixth-generation Jehovah's Witnesses. What did we do when
we were under ban during the Soviet era? It's the same principles we
apply now and that we've applied where this situation, unfortunately,
presents itself anywhere in the world.
In Apostle Paul's first letter to Timothy, he said something that
we follow, that we pray--concerning kings and all those in high
positions--that we may go on leading a calm and quiet life with
complete Godly devotion and seriousness. The point there is that
Jehovah's Witnesses just seek to worship in peace. As Mr. Bielefeldt
said, we are the most peaceful people in the world in that we are
doctrinally opposed to violence. So, the farthest thing from extremism.
Our effort is to peacefully worship, but then, when a government says,
no, you can't peacefully worship, then we go back to what the apostles
said: We must obey God as ruler rather than men.
So regardless of whatever steps Russia takes, Jehovah's Witnesses
are not going to disappear. We will continue worshiping and continue
doing what we have done. History bears out that we actually grow when
persecuted, sometimes faster than where we have legal status. So the
efforts by the government to dissuade us from worshiping aren't going
to stop us from doing so, as that's what history bears out.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you.
I'm wondering if we have any questions from the audience. Yes,
Cathy, and if you wouldn't mind using the microphone, please.
Questioner. Thank you, Nate, for organizing this really great and
informative hearing. I wanted to call quick attention to two aspects
which haven't been discussed--well, they have been discussed, but I'd
like to raise some new aspects. One is, the new minister in Kazakhstan
of religion and civil society, I was recently told, is a 25-year
veteran of the Kazakh state security services. Some of you obviously
know this, but I just think it's worth highlighting publicly.
Also, in Uzbekistan, I was told that the government is taking steps
to assess the degree to which various religious prisoners--I suppose
mainly Muslim--have been, in fact, radicalized in prison. However, this
is a highly corrupt process. In addition, of course, to the very
dubious criteria I assume they will be using. So perhaps it would be
useful to call on the Uzbek Government to follow international good
principles that have been followed in other countries.
Finally, also, on corruption, I have been told by a Kyrgyz lawyer
that there's widespread corruption in southern Kyrgyzstan, especially
vis-a-vis the large Uzbek minority--that if Uzbeks want to avoid being
arrested on arbitrary charges of being religious extremists, you have
to pay bribes. There are some 200 people--this is as of several years
ago--who were too poor to pay bribes, and hence, they're in prison.
Thanks.
Mr. Hurd. Cathy Cosman was a long-time staffer as USCIRF, and one
of the world's leading experts on religious freedom, in particular in
Central Asia and Russia, as you can tell from the granularity of her
question, but thank you. Any of the panelists should feel free to
answer.
Dr. Collins. Yes, thank you for pointing that out. That's also the
information that I have about the director of the new ministry. Again,
hearkening back to Soviet-era policies, creating a ministry, which,
allegedly, is about religion and civil society, in fact appears, by all
accounts, starting with his leadership, to be actually about monitoring
religion and undercutting its independence. So yes, I would agree with
that.
On the other point about the role of corruption, it's interesting,
because I think it cuts both ways. On the one hand, in Kyrgyzstan, the
prevalence of corruption in the police force is something that in part,
I think, accounts for the fact that there are fewer religious prisoners
in Kyrgyzstan over the past few years, because people tend to bribe
their way out. Rather than being readily imprisoned, they can bribe the
police to pay lower fines or to avoid being imprisoned. But as you
point out, that of course means that those who can't afford to pay the
bribes are the ones who do, in fact, end up in prison on various
charges.
Dr. Mark. I apologize. I have a plane to catch; I'm already cutting
it pretty close. I didn't even get to plug our annual report yet, but
I've got to excuse myself. But thank you, everyone, for being here, and
I know you'll continue to learn a lot from the others.
Mr. Hurd. Are there any other questions from the audience? Do we
have any questions from our viewers on Facebook? No. Well, again, I'm
grateful to all of you who are here in person, to those of you that are
watching online, for being here on a wintry day, and in particular, to
our panelists for, I think, what was a very rich, important and
engaging discussion. I hope you'll join me in thanking our panelists.
Actually, before we do that, I do want to thank both the chairmen
of the Helsinki Commission, Senator Wicker, and Co-Chairman Smith, for
their support for this briefing and religious freedom more broadly, as
well as to my colleagues Stacy, Jordan, and Olivia, who were
instrumental in organizing this.
Please join me in thanking the panelists. [Applause.]
[Whereupon, at 3:59 p.m., the briefing ended.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
PREPARED STATEMENT OF PHILIP BRUMLEY
I thank the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman
Smith and Nathaniel Hurd for hosting this hearing and for allowing me
to brief you on the situation of Jehovah's Witnesses in the OSCE
region.
There are over 8\1/2\ million Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide, with
over 3 million in the OSCE region, including the United States.
We enjoy national registration and are free to practice our faith
in 51 of the 57 participating States of the OSCE. The exceptions
include Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and, since April, the
Russian Federation.
When domestic courts fail to protect our fundamental rights, we
seek relief from international tribunals.
Since 1993 we have obtained 64 favorable rulings from the European
Court of Human Rights and 11 favorable decisions from the UN Human
Rights Committee. But, the main challenge we are facing is, by far,
Russia's state-sponsored persecution.
Russia:
I. In 2006 the Russian government amended its Law on Counteracting
Extremist Activity. It removed incitement to violence as a component of
what constitutes ``extremism.''
A. The UN Human Rights Committee, PACE, and the Venice Commission have
all strongly criticized the amended law because it gives the
Russian government carte blanch to prosecute anyone it deems to be
but of step with its version of what is acceptable.
II. Based on this law, as amended, the authorities concocted a three-
step process to categorize Jehovah's Witnesses as extremists and to
strip us of our fundamental freedoms of speech, press, and religion.
A. First, the government criminalized our religious literature through
bogus ``expert studies'' and baseless court decisions. They even
banned our web site, jw.org.
B. Second, it criminalized local congregations who had been using this
literature before it was declared extremist.
The authorities went so far as to plant the banned literature
in our places of worship so that they could later ``discover''
it and bring charges.
C. Third, it criminalized the religious activity carried on at our
national offices and in our local places of worship.
D. Since the amended law on extremism was enacted, Jehovah's Witnesses
have been subjected to:
searches of their homes and places of worship,
loss of employment,
having their bank accounts frozen,
mistreatment of their children by school authorities,
detentions, secret video surveillance of their homes,
monitoring of their mail, and
intimidation to abandon their faith.
III. This decade long campaign culminated with the April 20, 2017,
Supreme Court decision.
A. The Court ruled that the Administrative Center and all of the 395
local legal entities are guilty of carrying on
extremist activity, that their properties should be
confiscated and that their activity terminated.
B. Due to the risk of criminal prosecution, we have ceased using our
places of worship, and our national offices--worth
millions of dollars.
C. Our branch offices in Europe, Canada and here in the United States
inform us that there is an escalation in the number
of Witnesses from Russia seeking asylum.
IV. We are tracking 3 developments with particular interest:
1. The criminal prosecution of Dennis Christensen, a citizen of
Denmark, who if convicted faces up to 10 years
imprisonment.
Mr. Christensen has been denied bail and held in pre-
trial detention since May.
His offense? Worshipping along with a local congregation.
2. The legal proceedings by the government to take possession of our
National Offices, in complete disregard for the
fact that these offices are owned by the Watch
Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.
3. Whether an appellate court will confirm the decision of a lower
court to declare our Bible the New World
Translation of the Holy Scriptures to be extremist.
V. These relentless and coordinated efforts confirm that Russia is bent
on, at a minimum, driving Jehovah's Witnesses underground. That said,
as we speak, Jehovah's Witnesses are not being arrested en masse.
VI. The government seems to be taking the position that someone can be
one of Jehovah's Witnesses--in private. But anyone who in the least way
engages in any activity related to our worship risks criminal
prosecution.
In other words, ``You can be one of Jehovah's Witnesses,
but
Don't associate with other Jehovah's Witnesses,
Don't read your Bible or any of your literature,
Don't gather for worship with others of like faith, and
Don't talk to anyone about your faith.''
VII. We thank the many governments and their agencies, such as the US
Helsinki Commission, for your diplomatic efforts and statements.
A. The strong presence of the diplomatic community during the Supreme
Court hearings sent a clear message that the
international community is also well aware of
Russia's persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses.
B. They realize that these proceedings are nothing more than a thinly
disguised effort to legitimize the government's
goal of stripping us of our fundamental right to
worship.
Central Asia:
I. Beyond Russia, we are contending with systemic violations of our
rights in Central Asiaand Azerbaijan.
II. The governments of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are considering
amending their religion laws. If adopted, we could lose our right to
worship in these lands.
Kazakhstan:
I. In Kazakhstan, we seem to be caught between opposing elements of the
government; one that leans toward applying the rule of law, and the
other that leans toward imitating Russia's methods of suppressing
religious minorities.
II. In May, Teymur Akhmedov, a 61-year-old Witness in poor health, was
sentenced to five years in prison under the charge of ``inciting
religious discord.''
In reality, he was merely sharing his religious beliefs
with others.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention condemned
Kazakhstan for imprisoning Mr. Akhmedov and called for his immediate
release.
Sadly, the government has yet to comply.
Tajikistan:
I. The Ministry of Culture in Tajikistan banned our worship in 2007.
Uzbekistan:
I. Uzbekistan is the second worst offender of our fundamental rights in
the OSCE region.
II. Just since September of 2016, there were:
185 police raids on religious meetings and searches of
private homes,
153 convictions for religious activity,
148 fines-up to 100 times the monthly minimum wage,
7 Witnesses were jailed for religious activity, and there
were 15 severe beatings of men and assaults on women by police.
III. Witnesses are fined even for having a copy of the Bible in their
home.
IV. The authorities continue to deny legal registration to all
congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses, except for one in Chirchik.
Turkmenistan:
I. We face similar issues in Turkmenistan. Bahram Hemdemov, a 52-year-
old Witness, began serving a four-year sentence in March 2015 just for
worshiping with fellow Witnesses in his home.
Azerbaijan:
I. Although there are some small improvements in Azerbaijan, we have 18
applications pending with the ECHR and 11 complaints filed with the
CCPR.
Conclusion:
We are gravely concerned about the welfare of our community in
Russia.
I would like to submit for the record my statement and also a video
featuring Mr. Hiener Bielefeldt, the former UN Special Rapportuer on
Freedom of Religion or Belief, who recently gave an insightful
commentary on religious freedom in Russia. If anyone else here is
interested in the video, we would be pleased to provide a link after
the briefing.
Thank you once again for the privilege of addressing you on the
issues Jehovah's Witnesses are contending with in the OSCE region.
* * *
The following links are to the videos.
https://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/by-region/russia/heiner-bielefeldt-
interview/
https://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/by-region/russia/russian-authorities-
fabricate-evidence-video/
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