[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 72 (Thursday, May 13, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3466-H3468]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CALLING ON MOROCCO TO RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues the precarious situation of Christians and other religious 
minorities in Morocco. In March, Moroccan authorities deported 
approximately 40 U.S. citizens and scores of our foreign nationals. The 
individuals deported

[[Page H3467]]

were charged with proselytism, which is against the law in Morocco. 
However, Moroccan authorities have refused to turn over any evidence or 
offer any explanation of the charges.
  Among the individuals who were deported or denied reentry were 
businessmen, educators, humanitarian and social workers, many of whom 
had resided in Morocco for over a decade in full compliance with the 
law. Those deported were reportedly forced to leave the country within 
2 hours of being questioned by authorities, leaving all of their 
belongings behind.
  As a result, a number of organizations which were run by foreign 
nationals and provided vital community services have been shuttered. 
One organization which has been adversely affected is the Village of 
Hope orphanage in Morocco's Atlas Mountains. Time Magazine reported 
that: ``The Village of Hope deportations are part of what appears to be 
a widespread crackdown on Christian workers in Morocco.''
  A New Zealand native and staff of the orphanage, Chris Broadbent, 
told Time that ``most of the couples were there as foster parents and 
had raised these children since infancy.''
  Colorado couple Eddie and Lynn Padilla were amongst those expelled 
from the Village of Hope, forced to leave their two Moroccan sons 
behind. Mr. Padilla told 9 News Colorado that his 2-year-old son, 
Samir, ``didn't understand what was happening but knew it wasn't 
good.'' He went on to describe the heart-wrenching story of their 
sudden separation and how Samir jumped into his father's arms and 
cried, ``I want to go with you, Daddy.''
  The harsh nature of these expulsions call into question the 
longstanding friendship and mutual cooperation between the United 
States and Morocco dating back to the letter the Sultan of Morocco sent 
to George Washington at Valley Forge declaring that American vessels 
were permitted to enter Moroccan ports to ``take refreshments and enjoy 
in them the same privileges and immunities as those of the other 
nations.'' This letter signified the first official recognition of our 
fledgling Nation.
  I have worked with Moroccan and U.S. officials over the last 2 months 
in an attempt to find a satisfactory solution to this matter. 
Unfortunately, the Moroccan Government seems to be unwilling to 
compromise, as evidenced by a recent letter I received from a 
representative of the King.
  Earlier this week, 10 additional foreign nationals were asked to 
leave the country. It is our responsibility to speak out on behalf of 
human rights abuses which have been perpetrated by the Moroccan 
Government.
  President Reagan modeled this approach by consistently speaking out 
on behalf of the persecuted and tirelessly defending human rights and 
religious freedom.
  Today I sent Secretary of State Clinton a letter asking her to issue 
a travel advisory for Morocco so all U.S. citizens are aware of the 
potential risks. Additionally, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, 
which I cochair, will hold a hearing on June 17 to further explore the 
issues of human rights and religious freedom in Morocco.
  I call on the Government of Morocco again to uphold its commitment to 
the principles of religious tolerance and freedom that for so long made 
it a model of tolerance and modernity in the Arab world.
  Again, I call on our Embassy, and I think our ambassador should be 
speaking out, the State Department should be speaking out, and the 
White House should be speaking out to raise this issue with Moroccan 
authorities at the highest levels in defending the rights and interests 
of these American citizens whose lives have been shattered by these 
events.

                       [From Time, Mar. 21, 2010]

            In Morocco, a Crackdown on Christian Aid Workers

                            (By Lisa Abend)

       March 8 is not a day that Chris Broadbent will soon forget. 
     The preceding weekend, gendarmes entered the Village of Hope, 
     a Christian-run orphanage in Morocco's Atlas Mountains where 
     Broadbent, a New Zealand native, worked as a human resources 
     manager, and began questioning children and staff. At first, 
     he and the other foreign workers were assured that the 
     interrogation was routine. But as it dragged on, the 
     questions turned to subjects like `How do you pray?' and the 
     police began searching homes on the compound for children's 
     Bibles. On Monday morning, after being held in a separate 
     room from the orphanage's 33 children, Broadbent and his 15 
     colleagues were summarily deported from Morocco, accused of 
     illegally proselytizing for their faith.
       ``Most of the couples were there as foster parents and had 
     raised these children since infancy,'' Broadbent says. ``When 
     they were told that their parents had to leave, it was 
     chaos--the kids were running after any adult they could find, 
     and just holding on. It was the most devastating thing I've 
     ever seen.''
       The Village of Hope deportations are part of what appears 
     to be a widespread crackdown on Christian aid workers in 
     Morocco. An estimated 40 foreigners--including Dutch, 
     British, American and Korean citizens--have been deported 
     this month, including Broadbent and his colleagues. Among 
     them were an Egyptian Catholic priest in the northern city of 
     Larache and a Korean-born Protestant pastor in Marrakesh who 
     was arrested as he led services in his church. And this past 
     week, authorities searched an orphanage founded by American 
     missionaries in the town of Azrou called The Children's 
     Haven. Salim Sefiane, a Moroccan who was raised at the 
     orphanage and is still in touch with workers there, said the 
     officials interrogated the orphanage staff and asked children 
     as young as 8 years old to demonstrate how they pray. No 
     action has been taken yet against the orphanage's workers, 
     Sefiane said.
       The large-scale deportations came as a surprise in a nation 
     that is among the most liberal of Muslim countries. Although 
     trying to convert Muslims to other faiths is illegal, Morocco 
     tolerates the presence of other religions and is home to a 
     number of churches and synagogues. ``There are several things 
     about this that are really striking,'' says Spanish 
     journalist Ignacio Cembrero, who has written several books 
     about the country. ``There have been occasional deportations 
     of people accused of proselytizing before, but never so many 
     at once, and they've never expelled a Catholic before. And 
     for the police to enter a church on Sunday, during services, 
     to arrest people? Absolutely unprecedented.''
       According to the Moroccan government, the deportees all 
     broke the law, using their status as aid workers to cover 
     their proselytizing. ``They are guilty of trying to undermine 
     the faith of Muslims,'' Interior Minister Tayeb Cherkaoui 
     said in a press release.
       But were they? Broadbent denies the charges. Part of his 
     job at the Village of Hope was to ensure that staff members 
     understood the rules prohibiting proselytizing, and he notes 
     that all the orphanage's children received instruction in 
     Islam. ``We weren't teaching Christianity in any formal 
     way,'' he says. But asked if reading the Bible to Muslim 
     children constitutes proselytizing, he said, ``We understood 
     that it wasn't. And in any case, the authorities have always 
     known that these children were being raised in Christian 
     families.'' In fact, Village of Hope had been operating for 
     10 years and had received ``institutional'' status from the 
     Moroccan government this year--a designation meaning it meets 
     government standards. Many of the other deported Christians 
     had also been in Morocco for extended periods of time. So why 
     were they evicted now?
       Christopher Martin, a pastor since 2004 at the Casablanca 
     International Protestant Church, says he's talked to three 
     different people with connections ``high up in the Moroccan 
     government'' and heard three different explanations for the 
     action. But one common thread, he points out, is that the 
     officials leading the crackdown--the Justice and Interior 
     ministers--were both appointed in January. That suggests to 
     many Christians in Morocco that the officials were eager to 
     quickly make a mark on the political landscape with an 
     initiative likely to have broad popular support.
       Although the Moroccan government has in recent years 
     dramatically reformed its family law to better protect the 
     rights of women and has even sponsored programs to train 
     women as Muslim preachers, it has also proven responsive to 
     an increasingly religious public. In recent years, alcohol 
     licenses have become much more difficult to obtain, and last 
     September, for the first time, police in various cities 
     arrested Moroccans who were eating in public during the fast 
     period of Ramadan. The action prompted a formal complaint 
     from the international organization Human Rights Watch.
       Aaron Schwoebel, the information officer at the U.S. 
     embassy in Rabat, says that the Moroccan government has told 
     the embassy there will be more deportations, including other 
     Americans. He said the government did not indicate when. ``We 
     urge the Moroccan government to act in accordance with its 
     highest traditions of tolerance,'' Schwoebel says, ``and 
     respect the human rights of the members of these religious 
     minority communities, including those of our own citizens.''
       Now living in Spain after the gendarmes escorted him and 
     his family to a departing ferry in Tangier, Broadbent hopes 
     for the same thing. The last he heard, the Village of Hope 
     children were still living at the orphanage, but he suspects 
     they may soon be sent to other homes. ``We'd like to open a 
     dialogue that would lead to reuniting these families,'' he 
     says. But in the meantime, he can only wonder about the 
     meaning of it all. ``Is this an isolated incident?'' he asks. 
     ``Or is Morocco steering away from its tolerant past?''

[[Page H3468]]

     
                                  ____
         Royaume du Maroc, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres et de 
           la Cooperation,
     Congressman Frank R. Wolf,
     Washington, DC.
       Honorable Representative, His Majesty King Mohammed VI 
     acknowledges receipt of your letter regarding the 
     repatriation measures taken against American citizens by the 
     Government of the Kingdom of Morocco.
       In answer to your request, I have been instructed by His 
     Majesty the King, Commander of the Faithful, to share with 
     you certain remarks and clarifications in the hope they may 
     alleviate your concerns regarding this issue.
       Firstly, I would like to assure you that the Kingdom of 
     Morocco attaches great importance to its historic ties of 
     friendship with the United States of America, with which it 
     shares a unique and longstanding relationship which His 
     Majesty the King seeks to preserve and deepen in all areas of 
     exchange and cooperation.
       The values of freedom, democracy and tolerance which 
     brought us together in the past are still, today, the solid 
     foundation on which we have erected an exemplary bilateral 
     partnership characterized in particular, by an open, honest 
     and candid dialogue. It is precisely this dialogue, pursued 
     at all levels of society, which has always allowed us to 
     bridge any temporal divides which may come between us by 
     working, together, past them on the basis of our shared 
     values and enduring interests.
       In this spirit, I would like to expose to you my country's 
     perspective regarding the issue presently at hand:
       The repatriation measures which concerned, amongst others, 
     a number of American citizens, solely and exclusively 
     targeted proselytism activities which are clearly and 
     categorically forbidden by both the precepts of Islam and 
     Moroccan legislation, equally vouched for by His Majesty the 
     King as Commander of the Faithful and Head of State.
       The repatriation measures were not taken against the 
     concerned parties in relation to their Christian faith, but 
     because they had committed criminal offences, as proven by an 
     investigation conducted by the relevant legal authority, 
     namely the Crown Prosecution Office, following formal 
     complaints, namely by parents and close relatives of the 
     children concerned.
       These measures should, thus, be construed as logical, legal 
     and legitimate decisions resulting from a thorough 
     investigation which established, on the basis of verifiable 
     and substantial evidence that foreign nationals, under the 
     pretence of conducting charitable actions, had engaged in 
     proselytizing.
       Under such circumstances, Moroccan authorities were 
     obligated to fulfill their responsibilities by duly enforcing 
     the Law, in full respect of the rights and dignity of the 
     concerned parties.
       Indeed, the choice of an administrative procedure of 
     repatriation--as provided for by national legislation--
     instead of a legal procedure, was made to spare concerned 
     parties the unavoidable ordeal which would result from a 
     trial, no matter how fair it may be. In addition, were the 
     concerned parties to feel they had been unjustly treated, 
     Moroccan law provides them with the right to petition for 
     nullity of the measures taken against them if these are found 
     to be an abuse of power.
       Moroccan Islam, founded upon values of openness, tolerance 
     and moderation, is the fruit of long years of peaceful 
     coexistence between the varied and rich strata of Moroccan 
     society. It constitutes a central pillar upholding Moroccan 
     society which needs to be preserved against any undermining 
     or perversions.
       Whenever this serene Islam has been targeted by 
     proselytizing or heretical activities, Moroccan authorities 
     were obliged to act, in all legality, to protect the faith of 
     Moroccan society.
       On this basis, it should be noted that repatriation 
     procedures were regularly undertaken, these past years, 
     against some of ``our brothers in Islam'' both from Shiite or 
     Wahhabi rites. In all these cases, the same type of 
     administrative procedure was followed.
       Therefore, taking into account all these considerations, 
     there can be no mistake about the intent and attitude of the 
     Moroccan authorities in this issue. I can assure you that in 
     no way whatsoever are these isolated cases in breach freedom 
     of worship, which is guaranteed by the Moroccan Constitution. 
     Nor can they be perceived as having any political or 
     religious connotations.
       The Kingdom of Morocco has always been a land of dialogue 
     and exchange, as well as a crossroads where different 
     civilizations, cultures and religions can meet. His Majesty 
     the King, Commander of the Faithful, warrants the exercise of 
     this freedom across the Moroccan territory as a whole and in 
     an equal manner, for Muslims, Jews and Christians of all 
     persuasions.
       While remaining at your disposal should you wish any 
     further explanations, please accept the assurances of my 
     highest regards,
           Yours Sincerely,
                                                 Taib Fassi Fihri,
     Le ministre.

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