[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 20 (Thursday, February 16, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1407-S1409]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, Thomas Jefferson called religious 
freedom the ``first freedom.'' As founder and leader over the last 3 
years of the Congressional Working Group on Religious Freedom, I wanted 
to take this opportunity to pay tribute to this pivotal liberty. Last 
month, President Bush also recognized this important freedom by 
declaring ``Religious Freedom Day,'' observed on January 16.
  Americans are among the most religious peoples on Earth and are of 
many faith traditions. Nearly 80 percent of Americans state they pray 
regularly. Within a few blocks of this Capitol, there are churches, 
meeting houses, synagogues, mosques, temples, and house of worship of 
every variety.
  The free exercise of religion is a hallmark of our Nation. It is the 
reason many of our ancestors came here. It is the reason we are able to 
live peacefully together as a religiously diverse people. Cherished by 
the American people as the most precious of those rights given by God, 
religious freedom has been given the pride of place in our 
Constitution, in the first clause of the first amendment of the Bill of 
Rights.
  Freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief, as Jefferson 
and the American Founders recognized, is the prerequisite for the 
exercise of other basic human rights. Freedom of speech, press, and 
assembly depend on a free conscience. No basic freedom can be secure 
where religious freedom is denied.
  But these rights do not just belong to Americans. They are universal; 
they belong to every person in this world. No one, from the worst 
dictator to the most powerful government, can take away the right for a 
person to believe as he or she wishes. However, the expression of this 
belief is too often repressed through the imposition of persecution and 
death.
  Since the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people, the principle of 
religious freedom has gained recognition in foreign policy. The right 
to religious freedom found worldwide acceptance in the 1948 Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights, to which many nations have agreed. 
``Everyone,'' the declaration asserts, ``has the right to freedom of 
thought, conscience and religion.'' As the declaration makes explicit, 
``this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and 
freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or 
private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, 
worship and observance.''
  The declaration's article 18 thus provides for the acceptance of 
religious pluralism; the freedom to convert to another faith; the right 
to express unorthodox beliefs in one's individual capacity; the right, 
not only to worship in private or behind the walls of a building but to 
express one's faith in society. These are powerful concepts that 
challenge many societies, including at times our own.
  For example, I have introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, a

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bill which would restore a balanced approach to religious freedom in 
the workplace. It would clarify current law, which requires employers 
to accommodate the religious beliefs of their employees, unless doing 
so would cause significant difficulty or financial hardship for the 
employer. While most employers recognize the value of respecting 
religion in the workplace, sometimes employees are forced to choose 
between dedication to the principles of their faith and losing their 
job because their employers refuse to reasonably accommodate certain 
needs. It is supported by a broad spectrum of groups, liberal and 
conservative, who share this Nation's commitment to the freedom of 
conscience.
  The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which I supported, 
institutionalized religious freedom as a guiding doctrine in America's 
foreign relations. The act established within the State Department an 
office, headed by an Ambassador-at-Large, to monitor and report 
annually on the status of religious freedom in every country; and it 
created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as an 
independent Government agency to study and propose new policies to 
advance religious freedom abroad.
  Because of this legislation, regular reports are being issued by the 
State Department on the status of religious freedom in every country. 
Citizens now have access to information not easily available 
previously. The U.S. Government is now designating countries as being 
of particular concern solely because of their records on religious 
freedom. While more actions can be taken, our Government is making this 
freedom a priority.
  The founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, and many others fled to 
this land seeking religious freedom. Centuries later, the United States 
remains a beacon for the religiously repressed around the world. Our 
Congressional Working Group on Religious Freedom includes persons from 
diverse countries and faith backgrounds who have found religious 
freedom in America and who now dedicate their lives to speaking out for 
the persecuted around the world.
  A regular participant in our Working Group is Ali Alyami. Dr. Alyami 
is a Muslim from Saudi Arabia, but he is not a follower of Wahhabism, 
the extremist, state-sanctioned brand of Islam in Saudi Arabia, and so 
he faces marginalization and repression in his homeland.
  Another is Bob Fu, an evangelical Christian leader who was arrested 
in his native China for praying in an unauthorized house-church before 
finding refuge in the United States and moving to Philadelphia.
  Eden Naby, an Assyrian Christian, spoke at our ``Christmas under 
Siege'' meeting last month about the accelerating attrition rate of 
religious minorities fleeing ethnic cleansing and extremism in Iraq,
  Seung-Woo Kahng attested to the cruelties suffered by an underground 
church-leader in North Korea.
  Michael Muenir, a Copt originally from Egypt, reported to our group 
about the failure of Egyptian justice when Copts are murdered by 
Islamic fanatics, discrimination against the Copts in the upper 
echelons of government and military, and the obstacles to getting 
government permission to build or even repair churches in Egypt.
  Bat Ye'or, a Jewish author originally from Egypt, spoke of the rising 
tide of anti-Semitism throughout Europe.
  These and many more like them are grateful to have the freedom in the 
United States to speak out about the need for religious freedom in many 
countries throughout the world.
  When we look at the overall state of religious freedom in the world, 
state-sponsored religious persecution of the harshest severity--
torture, imprisonment, and even death--occurs today under three types 
of regimes: the remnant communist regimes; repressive Islamist states; 
and nationalist authoritarian states. Many of the countries represented 
in these categories are those that have been officially designated by 
the U.S. State Department as ``countries of particular concern,'' or 
``CPCs,'' for their ``egregious, systematic, and continuing'' 
violations of religious freedom.
  The first type of regime is that of the remnant communist states, 
such as China, North Korea, and Vietnam. For example:
  North Korea systematically crushes public expressions of religion and 
puts in harsh concentration camps those accused of being religious, 
along with up to three generations of their family members.
  China seeks to control all religion and punishes religious leaders 
who worship without authorization with fines, ``reeducation'' camp, and 
other forms of incarceration. It also harshly treats Falun Gong 
practitioners, who have reported to us about torture and murder at the 
hands of authorities.
  Vietnam beats and tortures its Hmong and tribal Christians until they 
recant their faith.
  A second main type of regime fostering state-sponsored persecution is 
that of repressive Islamic states. For example:
  In recent years, the Sudanese Government prosecuted a genocidal war 
in its south in which over 2 million Christians and followers of 
traditional African religions were killed and thousands enslaved for 
resisting the forcible imposition of Islamic law. Khartoum is now 
employing the genocidal tactics honed in the religious conflict with 
the south in a race-based conflict in its western Darfur region.
  Iran's fanatical regime has tortured and killed many thousands of its 
own nationals for religious reasons. One Iranian political dissident, a 
Muslim professor named Hashem Aghajari, aptly protested at his July 
2004 blasphemy trial that he was being punished for ``the sin of 
thinking.''
  Saudi Arabia continues to indoctrinate its students in an ideology of 
religious hatred and exports such propaganda to other Muslims 
communities throughout the world, including here in the United States; 
Saudi researchers themselves found that the state's curriculum 
``misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their 
own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate 
the `other.' ''
  The third type of regime where religious persecution is prevalent is 
that of nationalist authoritarian states, such as Burma and Eritrea. 
For example:
  In Burma, the government subjects all publications, including 
religious publications, to control and censorship. The government 
generally prohibits outdoor meetings of more than five persons, 
including religious meetings.
  In Eritrea there are reports that police have tortured those detained 
for their religious beliefs, including using bondage, heat exposure, 
and beatings. Also, some detainees were required to sign statements 
repudiating their faith or agreeing not to practice it as a condition 
for release.
  Lastly, we have unfortunately seen a global trend of growing anti-
Semitism which has also been brought before our working group. It has 
been seen in Iran where the President has notoriously denied the 
Holocaust and threatened the existence of Israel, in the streets of 
Russia, in the capitals of Europe, and even on the campuses of American 
universities. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an abominable anti-
Semitic forgery of a Russian czar, is resurfacing at Iranian 
government-sponsored book fairs, on Egyptian-controlled television 
broadcasts and in Saudi-published textbooks. This precise work was used 
by Hitler to indoctrinate Nazi youths. We must take this threat 
seriously.
  Natan Sharansky, himself once a Soviet religious prisoner, a ``Jewish 
refusenik,'' states that a test of a free society is whether ``people 
have a right to express their views without fear of arrest, 
imprisonment, or physical harm.'' None of the CPCs cited above are free 
societies. It is no coincidence that regimes that pose the gravest 
threats to our national security--Iran and North Korea today--are also 
ones that tyrannically crush freedom of belief. The protection and 
promotion of religious freedom is as fundamental to our national 
interest, as it is to our ideals.
  When we promote religious freedom for these countries and others, 
when we as members of the Senate speak publicly on religious freedom, 
when we raise the issue on our trips abroad and in our meetings with 
foreign officials, when we make sure that members of

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the administration and embassy officials around the world raise these 
values regularly with foreign governments, when we speak on behalf of 
persecuted dissidents, and when we act consistently in our own country, 
we will not only be working to ensure every person can worship as they 
see fit. We will also be ensuring a safer, peaceful, more secure world 
where the rights of all--the freedoms of all--are respected and 
celebrated.

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