[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 16, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1757-E1759]
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 last week to

[[Page E1758]]

hear testimony on H.R. 2431--formerly H.R. 1685--the Freedom From 
Religious Persecution Act of 1997.
  The long list of witnesses heard by the committee is a reflection of 
the strong interest generated by this legislation among human rights 
groups and religious and public policy organizations nationwide.
  For those of my colleagues who have not yet had an opportunity to 
study this bill, I want to share a letter submitted to the committee 
for inclusion in the hearing record from representatives of six 
prominent human rights organizations.
  I hope my colleagues will find this thoughtful statement useful as 
the debate on this legislation moves forward.

     Hon. Ben Gilman,
     Chairman, International Relations Committee.
       Dear Chairman Gilman: We in the human rights community 
     strongly support the goals of the `Freedom From Religious 
     Persecution Act'' of bringing the spotlight of attention on 
     governments that persecute persons for their religious 
     beliefs, putting pressure on the authorities to end religious 
     repression, and assisting victims of religious repression who 
     seek to come to the U.S. as asylum applicants or refugees. We 
     have worked for many years on ending religious intolerance 
     and persecution, as well as improving U.S. immigration and 
     refugee policy. We believe that the proposed `Freedom From 
     Religious Persecution Act'' could better achieve these shared 
     goals if the following changes were made.
       Findings: The Findings section is largely limited to 
     persecuted Christians and religious minorities in communist 
     countries. We believe that the section should be enlarged to 
     include other vulnerable religious communities so that the 
     bill will have more universal resonance and be more effective 
     in combating religious persecution. We understand that the 
     sponsors of the bill have indicated a strong desire to insure 
     that the bill is applicable to all persons facing religious 
     persecution and we welcome that commitment. Naming certain 
     Muslim groups could help insure that the bill is not 
     perceived as having an anti-Muslim tone.
       Application and Scope: The bill includes two separate 
     standards for triggering an investigation of persecuted 
     groups. One standard is that those named in the bill will 
     automatically be investigated by the Office of Religious 
     Persecution Monitoring. All other groups may be taken up at 
     the discretion of the director of the Office. This dual 
     standard might be take to mean that the bill creates a 
     preference for certain religious groups. Because the 
     automatic imposition of sanction and the creation of new 
     refugee and asylum protocols are so central to the bill's 
     structure we believe that having a single standard that is 
     applicable to all those vulnerable to religious persecution 
     is more appropriate. Such an approach will actually be better 
     for beleaguered Christians than a more specific standard. 
     Frequently Christians (as well as Baha'is, Jews, and other) 
     are wrongly accused of being foreigners or in league with 
     Western powers. In these circumstances, singling them out for 
     special treatment above all other religious minorities might 
     actually embolden those who desire to harm them.
       Sanctions: Our organizations \1\ favor the imposition of 
     certain sanctions against governments found to be engaged in 
     gross abuses of human rights, including the persecution 
     of religious believers. We strongly support existing human 
     rights law that prohibits bilateral aid (Section 502B of 
     the Foreign Assistance Act) and U.S. support for 
     multilateral aid (Section 701 of the International 
     Financial Institutions Act) to countries engaged in a 
     consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights. 
     The ``Freedom From Religious Persecution Act'' provides 
     less rather than more protection than existing human 
     rights law. While the list of abuses it targets (such acts 
     as rape, crucifixion, slavery and imprisonment) would be 
     embraced by the ``gross violations'' standard of existing 
     law the ``Freedom From Religious Persecution Act'' would 
     impose sanctions only if such acts were ``widespread and 
     ongoing.'' That standard is tougher to demonstrate than 
     the finding of a ``consistent pattern'' required under 
     current law. We urge that the bill's standard be eased. In 
     addition, we believe that the definition of persecution 
     should be broadened to include forms of discrimination and 
     intolerance that do not reach the extreme measures 
     outlined in the bill but are forms of persecution faced 
     regularly by religious communities around the world, 
     including government restrictions on worship, 
     proselytizing, religious education, freedom of the press 
     and expression, and freedom of movement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\ As a matter of Amnesty International policy applicable to 
     all types of human rights violations, Amnesty International 
     does not take a position for or against economic sanctions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       We are also concerned that the trade sanctions against 
     abusers have been so narrowly drawn that even if a government 
     meets the bill's current narrow standard and is found to have 
     engaged in religious persecution, there is little likelihood 
     that exports of persecution-related products will be limited. 
     In particular, the bill requires that the identification of 
     persons involved in religious persecution be drawn as 
     narrowly as possible. If implemented in this way, the Office 
     of Persecution Monitoring will have difficulty in stopping 
     sales of police and military equipment to governments, heads 
     of state, institutions like the police, military, 
     intelligence services, or even officers who may have ordered 
     but not directly participated in abuse.
       The sanctions section, in summary, is not strong enough to 
     insure that it will have a serious impact on abusive 
     governments. We urge that it be strengthened so that it is 
     applicable to the widest possible number of regimes, 
     institutions, and individuals that abuse in any way the right 
     of religious freedom.
       Creation of a New Bureaucracy: The bill sets up a separate 
     structure in the White House to engage in investigation and 
     reporting and conduct U.S. policy towards those found to be 
     engaged in religious persecution. The desire to have an 
     office which focuses exclusively on religious persecution and 
     which is, at least on the organizational chart, closer to 
     senior level decision makers, is understandable. On the 
     entire range of human rights issues, the Bureau of Democracy, 
     Labor and Human Rights (DRL) must contend with the 
     traditionally powerful regional bureaus, the growing 
     influence of agencies promoting trade, combating narcotics 
     trafficking, and pursuing other priorities. A White House 
     office could come to bolster and add diplomatic weight to the 
     Human Rights Bureau and other quarters in the executive 
     branch engaged in promotion of human rights if its work is 
     integrated into that of others.
       On the other hand the record of such separate 
     ``coordinators,'' (such as the Ambassador at Large for 
     Refugee Affairs) has not necessarily been positive. In some 
     past instances, such offices have largely stood outside the 
     policy apparatus and far from elevating, actually 
     served, unwittingly, to downgrade attention to an issue. A 
     separate White House office of Religious Persecution 
     Monitoring would be apart from the information-gathering 
     capacity of the State Department and its formal diplomatic 
     apparatus. Moreover, many proponents of the bill rightly 
     argue that religious persecution rarely operates in 
     isolation from the repression of other basic rights and 
     freedoms. Yet the bill might handicap the defense of 
     religious freedom by isolating it from information about 
     other forms of repression undertaken by abusive regimes. 
     We believe an office of religious persecution monitoring 
     might be more effectively placed within existing human 
     rights machinery in the State Department Bureau of 
     Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and the National 
     Security Council. Existing human rights machinery, if 
     bolstered by staff specially tasked to work on religious 
     persecution, would be able to draw on extensive 
     information about a government's human rights record and 
     build a stronger case for sanctions against those who 
     violate religious freedom than would a stand-alone office 
     of religious persecution operating in isolation. 
     Additional staff and resources for DRL would permit the 
     office to conduct field missions, press U.S. embassy 
     officials to be more attentive to religious persecution, 
     issue reports, and integrate the religious persecution 
     issue into all multilateral and bilateral relations.
       Asylum provisions: Human rights groups have strongly 
     opposed the changes enacted by Congress in asylum law last 
     year, namely the adoption of summary exclusion procedures 
     which we believe make it much more difficult for those 
     fleeing persecution of any type to make their case and 
     receive asylum. We question whether the beneficial treatment 
     for asylum seekers fleeing religious persecution, as intended 
     by this bill, will actually be realized under the current, 
     flawed summary exclusion procedures, which rely upon low-
     level, secondary inspectors to decide the fate of asylum 
     seekers. This crucial deliberation by inspectors will apply 
     to even those fleeing religious persecution, who will be 
     required to prove that they are members of the named groups. 
     This process will be conducted without any public scrutiny 
     and without any counsel of any kind allowed for the asylum-
     seeker. Moreover, it is not clear what will happen to 
     individuals who are permitted to bypass the credible fear 
     determination process. For example, will such individuals be 
     detained pending an asylum hearing, as is currently the case 
     with most asylum seekers, or will they be released into the 
     community?
       The bill's exemption of persons whose religions are named 
     by the Office of Persecution Monitoring is a clear and very 
     welcome indication that Congress knows that the summary 
     exclusion provision is a problem for those fleeing 
     persecution. We appeal to the Congress to act on that 
     assumption, which we share, and eliminate this unjust 
     requirement for all who flee persecution of any type.
       Failing that, however, the Congress should at a minimum 
     enlarge the definition of religious persecution so that the 
     broadest number of victims might take advantage of the asylum 
     protections in the bill, and the maximum number of vulnerable 
     religious believers might be spared the summary exclusion 
     process and the possibility of forced return to persecution. 
     A definition of religious persecution that is restricted to 
     the most severe forms of persecution or to adherents of 
     faiths that happen to be named in the bill risks sending many 
     persecuted believers back to their persecutors.
       Refugee Preference: We strongly support the granting of 
     refugee status to members of persecuted religious groups, who 
     should certainly fall within existing refugee law. However, 
     we fear that granting special preference for the religiously 
     persecuted over other victims of persecution and reserving 
     slots for

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     them out of existing numbers may result in one persecuted 
     group being pitted against another. A preferable approach to 
     the proposed legislation would be simply to expand the number 
     of slots available for refugees so that no one currently 
     eligible will be denied entry because of preferences created 
     by this act.
           Sincerely,
         Kenneth Roth, Executive Director Human Rights Watch; 
           Leonard S. Rubenstein, Executive Director Physicians 
           for Human Rights; Jack Rendler, Executive Director 
           Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights; William Schulz, 
           Executive Director Amnesty International/USA; James 
           Silk, Executive Director Robert F. Kennedy Center; 
           Felice Gaer, Director Jacob Blaustein Institute for the 
           Advancement of Human Rights.

           

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