[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18572-18574]
[From the U.S. 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

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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 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;

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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 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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