[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 171 (Thursday, November 19, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8131-S8133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise to speak once again on the topic
of religious liberty. This is the sixth in a series of addresses I have
given on this critical subject. In my previous remarks, I have
discussed why religious liberty matters and why it deserves special
protection from government interference. I have also detailed the
history of religious liberty in the United States and its centrality to
our Nation's founding. Likewise, I have debunked the erroneous notion
that religion is a purely private matter that has no place in the
public domain.
Last week, I discussed the status of religious liberty in
contemporary American life. I argued that, in ways that are both
alarming and unprecedented, religious liberty is under attack here in
the United States. Today, I turn my attention beyond our borders to
examine the status of religious liberty abroad. Again, my argument is
straightforward: across the world, religious liberty is under serious
attack.
My observations are particularly relevant as we approach
Thanksgiving. Our Nation commemorates this special holiday in
remembrance of our pilgrim ancestors who fled persecution in search of
religious freedom. These brave men and women sailed unchartered waters
and settled strange lands in order to build a society where they could
practice their religion free from state interference. Their earnest
efforts precipitated not only the establishment of a new colony, but
the birth of a nation committed to the principles of religious
pluralism.
For America's earliest settlers, this land stood as a symbol of
refuge--a haven from the storm of religious oppression that lingered
over Europe. Centuries later, victims of religious persecution across
the world still look to our shores for sanctuary. They see America as
John Winthrop once described it: ``As a city upon a hill''--a light
that reaches across the oceans, giving hope to those still living in
the shadows of religious intolerance.
Today our world needs that light more than ever. Nearly four
centuries after the Pilgrims made landfall at Plymouth Rock, the state
of religious liberty across the world is increasingly precarious. From
brutal crackdowns on religious minorities in Central Asia to a growing
wave of anti-Semitism in Europe; from the violent campaigns of Boko
Haram in Africa to the nefarious specter of ISIS in the Middle East--
religious liberty is under attack like never before.
Despite the rapid advance of democracy over the last century, the
blessings of religious freedom are still inaccessible to a majority of
the world's population. In fact, a recent Pew study finds that three-
quarters of the global population ``lives in countries with high-
government restrictions and significant hostilities surrounding
religion.''
Think about that. In spite of the substantial progress our own
society has made in securing individual rights and enshrining religious
liberty in law, there are still billions of people across the world who
are unable to exercise their religion freely and fully. There are still
billions of individuals living under despotic regimes that not only
fail to protect people from persecution, but that actively constrain
the conscience of citizens through law. There are still billions of
people who understand religious liberty as little more than a
philosophical concept, much less a reality.
I wish I could offer these people hope. I wish I could say that the
gradual march of progress will part the waters of religious
intolerance, paving a clear path forward for religious liberty, but
reality restrains my optimism. Around the world, hostility to religion
is increasing.
Religious liberty abroad faces opposition from two sources: states
and nonstate actors. While I would like to relate an exhaustive account
of the war being waged on both fronts, time permits me to highlight
only the most grievous examples of persecution.
I begin with state-sponsored acts of religious oppression. Far from
being a relic of the past, government persecution of religious
minorities is alive and well. First, consider the state of religious
liberty in Asia. China is perhaps the world's leading instigator of
religious persecution. Last year, in a nearly unprecedented crackdown
on religious expression, the Chinese Government bulldozed or removed
crosses from more than 400 Protestant and Catholic Churches. According
to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom,
many experts have characterized this growing tide of oppression against
Christians in China as ``the most egregious and persistent since the
Cultural Revolution.''
And Christian denominations are not the only groups facing
oppression. Members of all faiths, including Muslims and Tibetan
Buddhists, ``face arrests, fines, denials of justice, [and] lengthy
prison sentences'' because of their religious beliefs. Practitioners of
Falun Gong experience the most intense persecution. Sixteen years ago,
the Chinese Government imposed an outright ban on the practice of Falun
Gong. Since that time, the government has imprisoned believers in
forced labor camps, subjecting them to psychiatric experiments and
other heinous forms of torture. The government has even executed
practitioners of Falun Gong, mutilating their bodies and harvesting
their organs for profit. Our Nation can no longer turn a blind eye to
these atrocities.
Nor can we ignore the plight of religious prisoners in North Korea,
where Kim Jong-un has incarcerated thousands of his own citizens for
their religious beliefs. These men and women are separated from their
families and forced to work in concentration camps. While the
government punishes followers of any faith, the country's Christians
face the greatest persecution. If caught practicing their religion,
Christians face imprisonment without trial. Many face execution.
In Southeast Asia, Myanmar is responsible for propagating religious
bigotry, not so much by what it does but by what it doesn't do. Across
the country, religious and ethnic minorities face increasing
persecution at the hands of the Buddhist majority. Rather than
intervene to protect these vulnerable groups from mistreatment, the
Myanmar Government has stood idly by as an observer to the violence. As
a result of the government's inaction, 140,000 Muslims and at least
100,000 Christians have been internally displaced.
In Africa and the Middle East, the situation is just as bleak. In
Iran, despite President Rouhani's promise to extend greater protections
to religious minorities, the number of individuals detained because of
their religious beliefs has actually increased during his term.
Baha'is, Christians, Jews, and Sunni Muslims throughout the country
face perpetual persecution, arrest, beating, and imprisonment. Some are
even executed for their beliefs. And of course, there is perhaps no
government on earth more vocal in its anti-Semitism than Iran.
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, the state prohibits all non-Muslim public
places of worship. Any citizen who dares question the government's
repressive policies is likely to face charges of apostasy, blasphemy,
and even sorcery--a crime punishable by death.
In Syria, Bashar al Assad has abandoned all appearances of religious
liberty by deliberately targeting Sunni Muslim civilians in a bloody
civil war. As he massacres his own people, he does so on the basis of
their religious affiliation.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to
finish my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HATCH. In Pakistan the government consistently fails to protect
its own citizens from religiously motivated violence, and the courts
exploit repressive anti-blasphemy laws to prosecute religious
minorities. Egypt's
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courts convict and imprison citizens under the same pretext.
In Sudan the government harasses its minority Christian population
and subjects Muslims and non-Muslims alike to the punishments of Sharia
law. The state even executes citizens who convert from Islam to another
religion.
Even in Europe, religious liberty is under attack, albeit in more
subtle ways; take, for example, Switzerland, where a constitutional
amendment placed a countrywide ban on the construction of minarets--a
widely recognized symbol of Muslim prayer and devotion.
In another blow to Europe's Islamic population, France recently
outlawed the wearing of burqas and niqabs in public. When a Muslim
woman appealed the ban to the European Court of Human Rights, the court
upheld the law.
What I have related here is only a small sampling of the manifold
abuses taking place around the world. If I were to relate every
instance of state-sponsored religious bigotry abroad, I would be
speaking here for days.
And none of this is to mention the war against freedom being waged by
non-state actors. In the past decade, we have witnessed an
unprecedented rise of terrorist groups and other criminal organizations
seeking to eradicate religious liberty altogether.
Take, for example, the rise of Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region of
Africa. This Islamic terrorist organization made headlines last year
after kidnapping over 276 Nigerian schoolgirls. According to the Human
Rights Watch, Boko Haram has since forced these young girls to convert
to Islam and undergo severe physical and psychological torture. Many of
these young women have been subject to forced labor, and others have
been raped while in captivity.
Boko Haram's central mission is to annihilate all Western social and
political activities, including any religion that isn't Islam. In its
fight against religious freedom and other Western values, the group has
conducted indiscriminate attacks on civilians and has even used
children as suicide bombers.
The brutality of Boko Haram is only surpassed by the barbarism of
ISIS. Far from being the ``jayvee team'' President Obama once
described, ISIS has proven to be perhaps the most formidable terrorist
network in operation today. I fear that too many underestimate the
threat ISIS poses to religious freedom. This is an organization whose
very raison d'etre is to establish a global Islamic caliphate and usher
in the apocalypse.
As Islamic State militants carry out their mission, religious liberty
is often the first casualty. In the barren world ISIS envisions, there
is no room for dissent: either convert or be killed. Yazidis,
Christians, and Shia Muslims throughout the Middle East have been
confronted with this impossible ultimatum. Refusal to give in to the
Islamic State's demands has resulted in mass executions, extrajudicial
killings, kidnapping of civilians, forced displacement, the killing and
maiming of children, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. The
savagery of ISIS has even gone viral as the group posts videos of
grisly beheadings on the Internet. In almost every case, captors target
their victims on the basis of religion.
As we are all too aware, the cruelty of ISIS is not confined to the
Middle East. Just last week, three teams of ISIS militants carried out
terrorist assaults throughout Paris, detonating suicide bombs at a
soccer stadium and opening fire on innocent civilians at a concert
hall. The violence injured more than 350 innocent bystanders and
claimed at least 129 lives in what is considered the worst terrorist
attack on French soil in the nation's history.
We could call these attacks ``senseless acts of violence'' because
that is exactly what they appear to be, both in the scope of their
brutality and in the scale of their indiscrimination. But I fear that
dismissing these attacks as ``senseless'' too often hides from our view
the radical rationale that motivates such violence. ISIS does not kill
merely to feed an insatiable bloodlust; it kills because it wants to
terrorize, shock, and intimidate other civilizations into submission.
It kills because it wants to impose on all people a narrow-minded,
medieval ideology of Islam--one that would rob us of our religious
freedom and other fundamental rights.
Sadly, ISIS is not alone in its animus toward religious freedom.
Nearly every terrorist organization that has vowed our destruction--be
it Al Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah--seeks to strip us not only of our
sense of security but also of the fundamental freedoms that make
religious pluralism possible.
If we are committed to defending religious liberty overseas, we must
confront the growing menace of Islamic extremism, and we must challenge
those nations that engender religious intolerance through law. Today,
by calling attention to the suffering of religious peoples throughout
the world, I have demonstrated clearly and without question that
religious liberty faces growing hostility abroad from both state and
non-state actors alike. From the heavy hand of government to the
violent campaigns of terrorist organizations around the globe, the
right to worship according to the dictates of one's own conscience is
under relentless attack.
With a fuller understanding of the threats facing religious liberty,
the question now becomes: What is to be done? If religious liberty is
under attack abroad, what can our Nation do to protect this precious
freedom now and in the future?
First, we must recognize that protecting religious freedom abroad is
not just a question of moral principle; it is a matter of national
security. Often, violations of religious liberty abroad threaten our
own safety at home. As a case in point, consider the role of religious
intolerance in the Syrian civil war. Bashar al-Assad quickly disposed
of religious freedom when he began deliberately targeting Sunni
Muslims, murdering thousands of citizens on the basis of their
religion. His brutal actions precipitated the formation of ISIS--an
organization hell-bent on destroying other religions and entire
civilizations in the name of Islam.
As ISIS gained in strength, it began to export its extreme ideology
abroad, triggering several attacks throughout the world, including last
week's coordinated assaults in Paris. Now, ISIS poses a formidable
threat to the United States and all of our allies. Assad's blatant
disregard for religious liberty not only escalated violence in the
region but also catalyzed the formation of ISIS. As a result, the world
is less safe.
Given the obvious nexus between protecting religious liberty and
strengthening global security, I agree with the following assessment
from the U.S. Commission on International Freedom:
In the long run, there is only one permanent guarantor of the safety,
security, and survival of the persecuted and the vulnerable. It is the
full recognition of religious freedom as a sacred human right which
every nation, government, and individual must fully support and no
nation, government, or individual must ever violate.
If we are committed to bolstering the security of other nations, then
we must be equally devoted to strengthening religious liberty abroad.
At the forefront of foreign policy should be a commitment to defend and
advance religious liberty in countries where it is under attack. We
should also be prepared to reevaluate our relationship with governments
that fail to make religious liberty protections a priority.
Congress took concrete steps to prioritize religious freedom as a
foreign policy objective when it passed the International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998. This law established the Ambassador-at-Large for
International Religious Freedom. The Ambassador oversees the State
Department's Office of International Religious Freedom, which monitors
discrimination against people of faith and publishes an annual country-
by-country report on the status of religious freedom abroad.
This historic legislation also created the U.S. Commission on
International Freedom--an independent, bipartisan organization that
closely follows religious persecution in other countries and offers
recommendations to the executive branch and Congress on how best to
promote religious freedom overseas.
As one of the only countries in the world to make religious liberty
an explicit foreign policy objective, our nation is unique in its
commitment to this preeminent freedom. As a legislative body, Congress
can renew that commitment by continuing to support
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the provisions of the International Religious Freedom Act. The future
of religious liberty overseas depends on our willingness to strengthen
it here in Congress.
Lastly, if we are committed to protecting religious liberty abroad,
we must be ready to defend it here at home.
At the beginning of my remarks, I recalled the imagery of John
Winthrop's ``City on a Hill.'' Throughout our Nation's history, several
public figures have invoked Winthrop's allusion to capture a simple
truth: America's special freedoms make her a light to other nations.
Through our robust exercise of religious liberty, we offer hope to
people beyond our borders--men and women suffering under the yoke of
oppression who look to our country for sanctuary. As our nation strives
to be an example of religious freedom, we can offer greater hope to
those persecuted for their religious beliefs, and by addressing threats
to freedom of conscience here at home--including the attacks on
religious liberty that I detailed in previous remarks--we can
strengthen and beautify our City on a Hill, building upon the
foundation laid for us by our Pilgrim forbears, so that the light of
our Nation might shine before all mankind.
With this call to action, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the
Senate in morning business for such time as I may consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
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