[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 80 (Wednesday, May 16, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2687-S2688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Calling for the Release of Pastor Andrew Brunson
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, this is my third occasion on a speech that
I wish that I didn't have to give on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but
I promise that I am going to give a speech on this subject every week
that the Senate is open for as long as I am a U.S. Senator and there is
a man in a Turkish prison who I don't believe should be.
This man's name is Andrew Brunson, Pastor Brunson. He is a
Presbyterian minister from Black Mountain, NC, who has been in Turkey
for about the last 20 years with his wife. He raised his family there.
He is a Presbyterian minister who at first just did ministry work. He
didn't have a church to actually open up to the community. He just did
ministry work--preached the Word and delivered the Word for the people
in Turkey who wanted to hear it. It was a small church with only about
50 full-time members. It was a church that was just outside of Izmir.
It was actually in Izmir proper, which is one of the larger cities in
Turkey.
As of today, this man has been in prison for 586 days. He was
actually taken to prison, without charges, under the emergency order
after the coup in 2016. He was put in prison on October 4, 2016. For
almost 17 months, he was held in a prison cell that was designed for 8
prisoners but had 21 in it. None of the other ones were American. None
of the other ones were English speaking. Many of them were charged on
either ISIS or terrorist charges or for plotting a coup attempt. He was
in that prison for almost 17 months. He lost 50 pounds. His health
diminished. His mental state, as anyone would expect, diminished. Yet
he is a strong man of faith, and hopefully he will continue to have the
strength to go through this horrible process.
We have been handling this. We have what we call casework. If
somebody in North Carolina needs help, whatever that may be, we
encourage them to call our office, and we open a case. We do any number
of things for veterans, for military families, for seniors--anybody. If
you need help in getting through to the Federal Government, you call
our office. So we opened a case on Pastor Brunson about a year ago, and
we have been trying to work through diplomatic channels to get him
released.
About 3 months ago or 4 months ago, we heard that the indictment was
going to be served on Pastor Brunson. I received word from some of the
family members and people in the faith-based community that they were
concerned that the American people were going to read the indictment
and really judge him as guilty and turn their backs on him and have him
languish in prison for what would be, essentially, a life sentence. He
is 50 years old, and the charges would be up to 35 years.
It was so important for me to have him know that we cared about him
that I traveled to Turkey. I got a visa to go to Turkey and made a
request to go to that Turkish prison and look Pastor Brunson eye to eye
and tell him that we were not going to forget about him and that we
were going to do everything we could to work for his release and the
release of a number of other people who I genuinely believe, in Turkey,
are subject to religious persecution.
I met with him in the prison for about an hour and a half. It turns
out
[[Page S2688]]
that we had just found out that his first court date was going to be
about 3 weeks later, so I decided to go back to Turkey 3 weeks later
and be in that courtroom to hear the testimony for myself, to hear the
62-page indictment play out. I was in that courtroom from about 9
o'clock in the morning on Monday until about 10 o'clock that night. If
you don't know what a kangaroo court is and you can't read it on this
slide, just Google it quickly, because what I saw was a kangaroo court.
First off, you should think about the setting. It is unlike any
setting you could ever imagine in the United States. It doesn't have a
trial jury, but it has a three-judge panel up there, and the prosecutor
is really elevated to almost being another judge. The prosecutor was up
at the dais. We were in a room that was about half the size of this
room. It was maybe about two-thirds the size. It was a big room. The
defense attorney was off to the side about another 30 or 40 feet, and
the defendant was right in front of this panel of judges and was being
looked down upon. He had to testify for 6 hours on his own behalf. One
doesn't have a choice in Turkey. Then they listed the charges.
Why do I say it was a kangaroo court? Let me give a summary. I am not
going to cover all of the charges because my time is limited today, but
let me give a summary of some of the charges.
In the time I was there, there were about a half dozen secret
witnesses. The defendant didn't get to face his accusers. In Turkey,
these secret witnesses can say what they want to say. The essence of
one secret witness's testimony was that he knew that Pastor Brunson was
involved in either plotting the coup or in working with the PKK, which
is a terrorist organization fundamentally made up of Kurds, because he
witnessed a light on in this church for 4 hours.
First off, in the U.S. system, I know you are probably not going to
get prosecuted for 35 years for having a light on for 4 hours--at least
I hope not. Yet what makes this even more challenging is that this is
the church. This church only seats about 120 people. It has two very
small upstairs' rooms. I know because I have been there. We took these
pictures when I visited Turkey after the visit to the prison. This is
the room that is alleged to have had a light on for 4 hours, but there
is one problem--no window, no way to possibly see into this room. In
fact, the windows downstairs are closed with storm--I am trying to
think of the name--shutters, wooden shutters. There is no way you could
even see in. Yet this witness had what they considered to be compelling
testimony that a light had been on, and for that reason, the pastor had
to have been involved in the terrorist plot or the coup.
Another of the charges that have been alleged by the prosecution is
that all of the churches in America are connected and that they
actually work in unison in other countries to disrupt the governments
of other countries. A Christian church may take the Word to people in
other countries, but it is really kind of organized as an intelligence-
gathering and destabilizing force on behalf of the American Government
in order to disrupt other sovereign nations.
Literally, this is how they have been thinking, and this is what they
have been using to prosecute him. It is a kangaroo court.
I maintain that what we have is a hostage situation here. We have
President Erdogan saying: If we give him a pass, give us somebody we
are trying to extradite from the United States. On the one hand, they
say you have to work through the system, and we have to let justice be
served. On the other hand, the President has said: If you give us
somebody we are trying to extradite from the United States, then we
will give you Pastor Brunson. This is a hostage situation. This is
religious persecution.
I will finish with this. Turkey is a NATO ally. It is an important
NATO ally. It has been in NATO since 1952. It is in a very dangerous
part of the world. It has a lot of challenges that it has to deal
with--the Syrian conflict and its own internal economic challenges.
There are a number of challenges, and I understand that President
Erdogan's job is difficult. I would like to make it easier. As a co-
lead of the Senate's NATO Observer Group, I would like to actually
strengthen our partnership and make safer and more secure its homeland
and its threat from foreign adversaries.
Yet, today, I have a NATO ally that is behaving like no NATO ally
ever has in the history of the alliance. These are the sorts of things
we are supposed to be doing as members of the NATO alliance, not
illegally imprisoning for 586 days a Presbyterian minister.
We will be doing the NDAA markup next week, which is the National
Defense Authorization Act. I will be working with other Members and
will have to put forth provisions in the NDAA, which is the last thing
that I would like to do. I would like to put provisions forward that
strengthen the alliance with NATO, that send a very clear signal that
we want to help them secure their homeland, and that send a clear
signal that we want to work together in the fight in Syria. But today I
can't have that as a priority. Today my No. 1 priority is releasing
Pastor Brunson. I hope everybody understands that this is something
that everybody--whether you are from North Carolina, North Dakota, or
any State in this Nation--should all stand as a nation saying: This is
not how you treat an American citizen and certainly not a NATO ally.
I look forward, hopefully, to never doing this speech again. I hope
that by next week Pastor Brunson is free and that we sent a very clear
message to all the other people in Turkey who are in prison because of
their faith that this is unacceptable behavior.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.