[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12642-S12643]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                THE INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for some months now, pressure has been 
building for the enactment of legislation that would address the long-
neglected but widespread problem of religious persecution in a number 
of countries, notably persecution of Christians. This legislation, 
which has been approved by both Houses of Congress and has been sent to 
the White House, addresses that problem in a manner that will allow the 
flexibility to protect U.S. interests. Because there was no Committee 
Report for this legislation, it is important that appropriate guidance 
be given as to the intent behind the legislation, for the benefit both 
of the Executive Branch and, in particular, the Commission established 
by the Act. As an original cosponsor of the legislation, I wish to 
supplement the Statement of Managers submitted by Mr. Nickles to draw 
particular attention to two provisions in the Act that address what is 
the fundamental duty of any government: to protect the rights of its 
own citizens.
  The primary purpose of this bill is to address the rampant 
persecution in many foreign countries by the governments of those 
countries against their own people. But however repugnant we find 
persecution of citizens of foreign countries--and properly so--it is 
even worse when we find that the U.S. government has too often turned a 
blind eye to violations of Americans' religious freedom by persecuting 
regimes. For example, the State Department has collaborated with the 
denial of religious freedom by shutting down Christian services on the 
premises of the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and punished a 
whistle-blowing State Department official who protested. Similarly, the 
State Department has refused to take any meaningful action to secure 
the release of an unknown number of minor U.S. citizens who have been 
kept from leaving Saudi Arabia and who have been forcibly converted to 
Islam. This is an especially acute problem in the case of girls, who 
will not be able to leave Saudi Arabia even after reaching the age of 
majority--in effect, theirs is a life sentence.
  This bill addresses both of these issues, and the intent of Congress 
is clear. First, the bill requires the State Department to report on 
both practices as they affect the rights of American citizens (section 
102(b)(1)(B) (i) and (ii)). This report should be detailed and specific 
both as to the nature of the violations and the remedial actions that 
have been applied. Second, because forced religious conversion is among 
the violations that mandate presidential action under this bill, 
documentation of the victimization of minor U.S. citizens in this 
manner by any foreign government should be of particular note in the 
President's decision to take action. Third, section 107 mandates access 
for U.S. citizens to diplomatic missions and consular posts for the 
purpose of religious services on the same basis as the many other 
nongovernmental activities unrelated to the diplomatic mission that 
frequently are permitted access. Fourth, the Commission should take 
particular note of Congress' intent in the provisions relating to 
violations of Americans' rights in making its recommendations and 
should be strict in reviewing U.S. government policies in this area. 
And fifth, notice of these violations of U.S. citizens' rights should 
prompt a thorough review of the Department of State's too-often 
dismissive attitude toward these concerns in comparison to its desire 
to cultivate good relations with foreign governments.


                     access to u.s. missions abroad

  It is important to note that these concerns were not invented in the 
abstract but are drawn from real problems of real people. On the 
question of the State Department's negative attitude toward the desire 
of American citizens to be afforded the opportunity for worship in 
countries where this is forbidden, the following is relevant (from The 
American Spectator, ``Saving Faith: Why won't the State Dept. stand up 
for Christians?'' By Tom Bethell, April 1997):

       The Saudi dictatorship forbids all non-Muslim religious 
     activity, but services were for years held on embassy and 
     consular grounds in Riyadh and Jeddah. In the 1970's, 
     hundreds of Catholics attended Mass within the U.S. mission 
     each week; Protestant services were equally well attended, 
     and Mormons had their own service. (No American diplomats 
     thought to be Jewish are stationed in Saudi Arabia.) Within 
     the British mission, such religious services continue today. 
     But the U.S. mission has now phased them out. In contrast, 
     the U.S. consulate in Jeddah sets aside special facilities 
     for Islamic worship, five times a day, whether by Americans, 
     Saudis, or embassy employees from other countries.
       I met with Tim Hunter at a restaurant near his home in 
     Arlington, Virginia. Before joining the Foreign Service, he 
     told me, he had worked for the U.S. Army in 
     counterintelligence and as a political appointee to various 
     federal agencies. When he arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1993 he 
     was told by the Consul General that his ``informal duties'' 
     would include monitoring the ``Tuesday lecture,'' a euphemism 
     for the Catholic Mass held on consulate grounds. By then, the 
     number of attendees had dwindled to fifteen. The reason was 
     not hard to find. Hunter's job was to tell any inquiring U.S. 
     citizens that the embassy knew nothing about any such service 
     or ``Tuesday meeting.'' Only if callers were extremely 
     persistent was he to meet with them and gauge their 
     trustworthiness.
       Since this was entirely irregular and contrary to U.S. law, 
     Hunter decided to blow the whistle. He even told the FBI what 
     was going on. Within days of telling visiting officials from 
     the Inspector General's office he was ordered to return to 
     the U.S. A State Department review panel observed that Hunter 
     had not ``absorbed the Foreign Service culture''--an 
     understatement. In April 1995, Hunter recalled, ``two 
     uniformed officers of the State Department's Diplomatic 
     Security Service, displaying brightly polished 9mm caliber 
     pistols, appeared at the office of my supervisor [James 
     Byrnes] and advised him that I was being removed from further 
     employment.'' Today Hunter calls the U.S. mission in Saudi 
     Arabia a ``rogue part of the U.S. diplomatic establishment.'' 
     Thomas Friedman provided an oblique corroboration in the New 
     York Times, noting in December 1995 that the U.S. has 
     ``withdrawn diplomats from Riyadh whom the Saudis felt became 
     too knowledgeable and frank about problems in the kingdom.''

  Section 107 of this bill will remedy this problem. The State 
Department may not adopt a cavalier attitude toward the requests of 
U.S. citizens for access for the purpose of religious worship or 
suggest that such requests are uniquely unrelated to the conduct of the 
diplomatic mission in comparison to other permitted activities, for 
example, the dispensing and social consumption of alcoholic beverages 
and the serving of pork products, that are also contrary to Saudi law. 
Many other social and American community activities without any 
discernable diplomatic purpose will no doubt continue, and in most 
cases should continue, but religious service access requests under 
section 107 may receive no less consideration. The fact that several 
other foreign consulates afford access to worship for their citizens 
disproves any

[[Page S12643]]

suggestion that diplomatic interests preclude similar provisions for 
Americans by the State Department. The annual report required under the 
bill must make this clear, and the Commission should give strict 
scrutiny to enforcement of this provision according to its clear 
intention. Finally, the victimization of Mr. Hunter for blowing the 
whistle on this matter is unconscionable, and the Commission should 
recommend and monitor speedy redress of his status by the State 
Department.


                forced conversion of minor u.s. citizens

  If the neglect of the worship needs of Americans abroad is 
deplorable, inaction in the cases of the victimization of minors who 
have been taken to a foreign land, subjected to forced religious 
conversion, and prevented from returning to the United States where 
they would enjoy religious freedom is intolerable. One particular case 
illustrates the severity of this problem, that of Alia and Aisha Al 
Gheshiyan. In Chicago, Illinois, on January 25th, 1986, Alia, aged 
seven, and Aisha, aged three and a half, visited the apartment of their 
father, Khalid Bin Hamad Al Gheshiyan, a citizen and Saudi Arabia. The 
girl's mother, Patricia Roush had been awarded custody of the children 
by a U.S. court but had agreed to permit their father to have the 
children for an overnight visit. He promised to return them to their 
mother the next day. However, instead of returning the girls to their 
mother, Al Gheshiyan abducted the two girls and took them to Saudi 
Arabia. On January 28th 1986, an Illinois court issued a warrant for Al 
Gheshiyan's arrest on charges of child abduction.
  Having been removed from the United States and placed under the law 
of Saudi Arabia, where no non-Islamic region may be practiced, the 
girls (who had been baptized as Christians) were obliged to give up 
their previous Christian identity. According to their mother, who has 
secured documentation of her daughters' mandatory conversion to Islam:

       My daughters Alia and Aisha Gheshiyan were raised in a 
     Christian home by a Christian mother and were not familiar 
     with Islam or their father's family, culture or religion. 
     (Which he stated he was disobeying when he was in the United 
     States for twelve years). My daughters are now young women 
     who are nineteen and sixteen years of age with no possible 
     choices of religious freedom. If they do not practice Islam, 
     they could be killed--quite possibly by their own father. 
     This is not uncommon in Saudi Arabia. If a child, especially 
     a daughter, does not submit to her father's commands, he has 
     the right to put her to death.

  It is important to remember that in cases like that of Alia and 
Aisha, their plight amounts to a life sentence, because under Saudi 
law, even after attaining majority (as Alia already has) they may not 
travel abroad without their father's permission (in the case of 
unmarried girls and woman) or their husband's permission (in the case 
of married women).
  As if the total denial of rights to these Americans were not bad 
enough, even more deplorable has been the response of the Department of 
State, which has simply dismissed the matter as a ``child custody'' 
case and has advised Ms. Roush to hire a lawyer for proceedings in a 
Shari's religious court--a court in which she, as a non-Muslim and a 
woman, has virtually no standing. There is no evidence that the State 
Department has ever dealt with this (and other such forced conversions) 
as not just a private dispute or a routine consular access case but as 
a state-to-state matter involving not only the solemn obligation of the 
government of the United States to secure the rights of its citizens 
but of the indefensible hostility of the Saudi government toward 
religious freedom. If the United States could make the fate of 
prominent Soviet Jewish ``refuse-niks'' Natan Scharansky and Ida Nudel 
a matter of national policy in American relations with the Soviet 
Union--as we should have--the fate of Alia and Aisha must be seen as a 
litmus test of the willingness of the State Department to give proper 
weight to the requirements of this statue in its relations with the 
Riyadh government. The Commission should recommend specific action as 
the highest level to ensure that the United States no longer gives the 
impression that such treatment of its citizens is acceptable or is only 
a routine ``private'' or ``family'' matter.

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