[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 16, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1755-E1756]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE FREEDOM FROM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION ACT OF 1997

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 16, 1997

  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, the Committee on International Relations 
met earlier this week to hear testimony on H.R. 2431, formerly H.R. 
1685, the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act of 1997.
  For those of my colleagues who have not yet had an opportunity to 
study this legislation, I am placing in the Record an excerpt from the 
statement of the Hon. John Shattuck, Assistant Secretary of State for 
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Secretary Shattuck came before the 
committee on September 9 to share the administration's views on the 
bill.
  I hope my colleagues will find the Secretary's comments useful in 
their consideration of this important legislation:

Statement of the Honorable John Shattuck, Assistant Secretary of State 
    Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on H.R. 1685 the Freedom From 
                   Religious Persecution Act of 1997

       We are treating religious liberty as a foreign policy 
     priority and we seek to respond to the call for action by 
     Americans of every faith and belief.
       With that important background, let me now turn to the 
     ``Freedom From Religious Persecution Act of 1997.''
       In summary, the Administration strongly supports the 
     objectives of eliminating religious persecution, but we do 
     not believe that the bill in its current form would 
     accomplish this goal. In fact, we believe that the current 
     draft would frustrate these and other objectives, and, for 
     this reason, we oppose the legislation in its current form.
       In particular, we fear that the legislation:
       is a blunt instrument that is more likely to harm, rather 
     than aid, victims of religious persecution;
       runs the risk of harming vital bilateral relations with key 
     allies and regional powers, and undercutting U.S. Government 
     efforts to promote the very regional peace and reconciliation 
     that can foster religious tolerance and understanding from 
     Europe to the Middle East to South Asia.
       creates a confusing bureaucratic structure for dealing with 
     religious persecution at the very time the Department of 
     State is consolidating its authority and expending its 
     effectiveness on these issues; and
       establishes a de facto hierarchy of human rights violations 
     that would severely damage US efforts--long supported by the 
     religious community--to ensure that all aspects of civil and 
     political rights are protected.
       Before I detail these and other serious concerns, let me 
     again emphasize our willingness to work with members in 
     fashioning workable responses--legislative and otherwise--to 
     religious persecution, wherever it occurs.
       In particular, we are committed to strengthening and 
     improving our new structures for addressing religious freedom 
     and persecution in our foreign policy. We are prepared for 
     serious discussions with the Committee about ways to 
     reinforce these structures, including by the development of 
     legislation to further enhance our efforts to promote 
     religious freedom, such as by:
       further increasing the visibility of this issue in the U.S. 
     Government, undertaking official fact-finding and monitoring 
     missions, and dedicating additional agency personnel to 
     address religious persecution and complement the efforts of 
     the Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad;
       acting to insure that U.S. laws that involve human rights 
     take explicit account of religious persecution;
       initiating periodic public reporting on religious freedom 
     issues in general, and increasing U.S. Embassy reporting and 
     action on cases and situations involving religious 
     persecution; and
       supporting measures to improve immigration and refugee 
     processing consideration of applicants fleeing religious 
     persecution.
       Let me set forth in more detail the basis for our concerns 
     about H.R. 1685. First, and most importantly from our 
     perspective, the bill could seriously harm the very people it 
     seeks to help--those facing religious persecution. It runs 
     the risk of strengthening the hands of governments and 
     extremists who seek to incite religious intolerance. In 
     particular, we fear reprisals by repressive governments 
     against victims, as well as an end to any dialogue on 
     religious freedom, in retaliation for the sanctions that the 
     bill would automatically impose.
       The provision that sanctions governments for failure to 
     take adequate action against private acts of persecution is 
     also troubling. Many governments that fail to combat societal 
     religious persecution are simply too unstable or too weak to 
     control extremists, insurgents, terrorists and those inciting 
     societal religious persecution. Imposing punitive sanctions 
     on weak governments, would only play into the hands of those 
     elements in society that are perpetrating religious 
     persecution. To deal effectively with societal religious 
     persecution, our laws must allow us to help these weak 
     transitional governments check extremist forces and protect 
     victims from further persecution.
       The bill would mandate a wide variety of sanctions against 
     governments that engage in officially-sponsored religious 
     persecution or that fail to combat societal religious 
     persecution. Because our laws and policies already give 
     significant eight to human rights, the United States provides 
     little direct assistance to such governments. The imposition 
     of automatic sanctions, therefore, would have little effect 
     on government-sponsored religious persecution in most 
     countries, but would make a productive human rights dialogue 
     with sanctioned governments far more difficult or even 
     impossible. The bill also runs the risk of harming vital 
     bilateral relations with key allies and regional powers.
       Second, the bill would create a de facto hierarchy of human 
     rights violations under U.S. law that would severely damage 
     our efforts to ensure that all aspects of basic civil and 
     political rights, including religious freedom, are protected. 
     It would differentiate between acts motivated by religious 
     discrimination and similar acts based on other forms of 
     repression or bias, such as denial of political freedom, or 
     racial or ethnic hatred. In doing so, the bill would 
     legislate a hierarchy of human rights into our laws. Certain 
     deplorable acts would result in automatic sanctions when 
     connected to religion, but not in other cases. As a 
     consequence, our ability to promote the full range of basic 
     rights and fundamental freedoms would be compromised.
       Some governments and their apologists are now engaged 
     themselves in an insidious campaign to devalue human rights 
     by creating their own hierarchy, arguing that respect for 
     economic rights should be preeminent. Those advancing this 
     argument have often sought to justify a government's failure 
     to respect civil and political rights (such as freedom of 
     expression, assembly and association) by claiming that 
     economic development must precede respect for civil 
     and political rights. The United States has long resisted 
     these attempts to create a hierarchy of basic human rights 
     and fundamental freedoms. We should not yield to the 
     temptation to do so now.
       Third, the bill would provide no flexibility to tailor our 
     religious freedom policies to differing circumstances in 
     different countries. Following a finding of persecution by 
     the Director of Religious Persecution Monitoring, sanctions 
     would be automatic. The mechanics of imposition appear 
     designed to make sanctions more likely to be imposed, 
     cumbersome to waive and difficult to terminate. Their 
     effectiveness as a means of influencing policy would be 
     sharply limited as a consequence. The provisions of the bill, 
     that authorize the President to waive sanctions for periods 
     up to one year, require the President to determine that such 
     a waiver is in the ``national security interests of the 
     United States.'' This stringent standard would appear to shut 
     the door on any consideration

[[Page E1756]]

     of U.S. foreign and domestic policy interests that do not 
     rise to the level of a direct threat to our national security 
     (e.g. regional peacemaking and stability, environmental 
     protection, there have been security interest in the past, on 
     occasion). Under the bill, in addition, a presidential waiver 
     would not take effect for forty-five days, absent emergency 
     conditions. Affording the President such limited discretion 
     in the area of foreign affairs is contrary to the national 
     interest and is constitutionally suspect.
       Fourth, the bill would create a new and unnecessary 
     bureaucracy which would duplicate, and possibly undercut, the 
     functions of the Secretary of State by the creation of an 
     ``Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring'' within the 
     Executive Office of the President. Creating the position of 
     Director of this office, who would be subject to Senate 
     confirmation, would duplicate existing State Department 
     functions including, promoting religious freedom. The 
     Secretary of State is best situated to report and advise the 
     President on religious persecution abroad. The State 
     Department's reporting channels and annual Country Reports on 
     Human Rights Practices represent the most accurate, cost-
     effective and appropriate method for the U.S. Government to 
     obtain and report information on religious persecution. 
     Determinations that affect fundamental aspects of our foreign 
     policy, including those regarding sanctions, should be made 
     by the President with the assistance of the Secretary of 
     State and other relevant Department heads, not by the 
     Director of a new specialized office on religious freedom 
     which has no other foreign affairs expertise or 
     responsibility.
       Fifth, the proposed administrative structure in the bill in 
     reality would marginalize religious freedom rather than 
     ``mainstreaming'' religious freedom and other human right 
     issues in our foreign policy. The Secretary of State's 
     Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad represents a 
     significant example of mainstreaming. The Advisory Committee 
     reports to the Secretary of State, and through her to the 
     President and other parts of our government. Enhancing 
     existing structures would represent the most effective way to 
     ensure the prominence of religious freedom in our foreign 
     policy. We would be pleased to work with the Congress to 
     accomplish that.
       Sixth, the bill would impose several new obligations that 
     would have significant financial implications, without 
     providing any indication of how these mandates would be 
     carried out without new resources. These requirements affect 
     not only the State Department, but also Commerce and the INS. 
     Speaking for my own bureau, I can tell you that additional 
     unfunded mandates require diversions of resources from what 
     we are doing in other areas to promote human rights.
       Seventh, the bill would pose the risk of challenge as being 
     inconsistent without international legal obligations, 
     including through the WTO agreement and under other trade 
     laws. The bill poses a similar risk with respect to 
     international obligating contained in the Articles of 
     Agreement of most international financial institutions in 
     which the U.S. participates.
       Eighth, while we welcome and share the sponsors' concerns 
     about fairness in asylum adjudications, the bill's proposed 
     changes to asylum procedures would create troubling 
     disparities and threaten to unravel many recent improvements. 
     For example, for persons making asylum claims based on 
     religious persecution in the context of expedited procedures 
     at ports of entry, the bill would create effective 
     presumptions that ease evidentiary burdens and that are 
     not available to others fleeing persecution. Let me be 
     clear: we support procedural protections for all 
     applicants at ports of entry. In fact, before passage of 
     last year's immigration bill, we urged that expedited 
     procedures apply only in exceptional, emergency-like 
     circumstances, but Congress determined that such 
     procedures should be applied more broadly. While we are 
     prepared to readdress this issue, we hope that Members can 
     appreciate our desire to do so with respect to all classes 
     of applicants. Furthermore, we are deeply concerned that 
     changes the bill would make to regular, affirmative asylum 
     procedures (claims made by those already in the country) 
     would recreate unnecessary burdens and inefficiencies that 
     made asylum vulnerable to abuse in the past. We fear that 
     such changes would hurt all legitimate asylum seekers, 
     including those making claims based on religious 
     persecution.
       Ninth, the bill contains numerous sanctions specific to 
     Sudan. The United States, of course, already has in place 
     sanctions against the Sundanese government as a result of its 
     support for international terrorism. The Administration 
     nevertheless remains willing to consider a reasonable and 
     workable expansion of our Sundan sanctions to reflect the 
     lack of Sudanese government actions on issues of concern: 
     state sponsorship of terrorism; support for aggressive 
     actions against its neighbors; failure to come to terms with 
     the opposition in the longstanding civil war; and an abysmal 
     human rights record, including violations of religious 
     freedom. We value the opportunity to continue discussions on 
     this subject with Members in connection with the State 
     Department authorization bill. For that reason, continued 
     inclusion of Sudan sanctions in this bill would seem both 
     unnecessary and counterproductive.
       Having highlighted our concerns with some of the provisions 
     of this bill, let me conclude by repeating that we welcome 
     the opportunity to work with this committee and the rest of 
     the Congress to fashion appropriate legislation that will 
     underscore and strengthen the commitment of the United States 
     to promote religious freedom. The President and the Secretary 
     of State have made it crystal clear that this issue is now a 
     foreign policy priority. In the endless battle for freedom, 
     we do not claim that we have all the answers. Nor can we 
     assert that the United States alone has the power to bring 
     about an end to all religious persecution abroad. What we can 
     and must proclaim, however, is that we are committed to 
     making the effort, and to working in the most effective way 
     to combat the persecution now victimizing so many people of 
     faith around the world.

     

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