!

Remarks by USCIRF Chair Katrina Lantos Swett

Annual Conference
Religion Newswriters Association
Decatur, Georgia
Friday, September 19, 2014

Thank you, Debra Mason, for that very kind introduction.

I want to thank you and Brian Pellot for inviting me to speak here this morning at the annual
convention of the Religion Newswriters Association. I am truly honored and pleased to be
addressing such a distinguished gathering of leading religion journalists from across the nation.

Since you are busy people, I know Im speaking your language when I say that time passes quickly
indeed. It seems like a moment ago that, at Brians behest, I was moderating a fascinating event at
the Newseum in Washington on the challenge of covering religion and religious freedom in a
conflict-driven world. But actually, the event took place more than five months ago.

And since Brian apparently was pleased with the outcome, I am happy to find myself addressing
you this morning, and hopeful that I will live up to his high expectations or at least keep you
sufficiently attentive during my time at the podium.

Correct me if Im mistaken, but I believe that in your work as religion reporters, you have seen for
yourselves in countless ways that religion truly matters for millions of Americans. And that means
theres lots to write and report on in America regarding the religion field. From a journalistic
perspective, religion in America is, to borrow a biblical phrase, a field that remains white for
harvest.

But as we know, what is true of America is even truer of the world. According to a Pew study, 84
percent of the worlds people maintain some religious affiliation. And for many if not most of
these people, religion is not just one of several affiliations it is a major affiliation. And this is
often true at all levels, from the grassroots to the highest positions in government and society.

And yet, for generations, this simple fact somehow managed to elude, confound, or otherwise
astonish foreign policy experts across western democracies, including our own. Time and again,
these experts seemed like the proverbial deer in the headlights when confronting some of the major
events of our time, many of which clearly were driven by religion.

Some of you may recall the shock and disbelief which followed the fall of the Shah of Iran and his
replacement by the Islamic fundamentalist regime of the Ayatollah Khoumeini, despite many
indicators that Khoumeinis movement was on the rise. Foreign policy elites seemed equally
surprised nearly a decade later about religions role in the stunningly rapid succession of events in
central and Eastern Europe, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rending of the Iron
Curtain, and the demise of the Soviet Union. When Pope John Paul II first stood up to Soviet
#

tyranny in the early 1980s, few in the foreign policy field ever imagined how his actions would
propel religion-based freedom movements across the Soviet empire, helping to end its dictatorial
reign. It is equally clear how the brutal reality behind 9/11 confounded the experts, as 19 hijackers
killed 3,000 Americans and themselves for no other reason than a belief that somehow they were
pleasing God. In recent years, issues of religion and society have risen to the fore following what
many have labeled the Arab Awakenings.

And so today, at long last, we see a growing understanding of what should be obvious to all: You
cannot conduct foreign policy with the rest of the world if you are clueless about religions pivotal
role in the world. In other words, whether it is employed for good or for evil, religion matters
greatly across the globe. And because religion matters, so does religious freedom. Simply stated,
people want -- at least for themselves -- the freedom to practice their religion as they see fit.

Yet while religion matters to 84 percent of the worlds people, 76 percent of people live in
countries where freedom of religion or belief is seriously violated, either by the government or by
non-state actors, including the forces of violent religious extremism. These violations can range
from onerous rules and regulations to imprisonment, torture, and even murder. Since the very
freedom that billions of people most want is being restricted, such restrictions set the stage for
strife and instability across much of the world.

**********

This morning, I will focus on violations of religious freedom in various countries. I will focus
specifically on those nations that, based on my Commissions findings, are some of the most
serious religious freedom abusers. And let me add that these findings and other information may
be found on our website www.uscirf.gov and I hope you will turn to it and to us for facts or
comments on relevant international stories.

After highlighting USCIRFs concerns about religious freedom violations in these states, I will
point out the patterns of these violations patterns that reflect the kinds of governments that are
in control and how they handle religion and religious freedom within their borders. This analysis
can be especially helpful in understanding or even anticipating the likely course of events in these
countries.

Finally, I will offer a challenge for our government in Washington and for you as journalists to
make the issue of religious freedom abroad an unavoidable one for our nation and world.

**********
As some of you may know, our Commission is an independent U.S. government advisory body
separate from the State Department. I and my fellow Commissioners are appointed by the White
House or Congress, but serve in a volunteer capacity. We are supported by an able staff of full-
time professionals. We monitor religious freedom conditions and based on our findings,
recommend actions that our government can take to encourage reforms. We also recommend
which countries the State Department should either designate or re-designate as CPCs or countries
of particular concern for their systematic, ongoing, and egregious abuses which mark them as
the worlds worst religious freedom violators. We call these nations Tier 1 countries.
$

Each year, we also compile a list of countries that, while falling short of CPC status, either
perpetrate or tolerate violations on a level that is serious enough to receive continued scrutiny.
We call them Tier 2 nations.

For all of these countries, we provide specific recommendations for the U.S. government in
response to the violations we have documented.

This year, we recommended that the State Department continue to designate the following eight
countries as CPCs: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and
Uzbekistan. Let me summarize why.

In Burma, which two of my fellow Commissioners recently visited, the government continues to
discriminate and condone violence against Rohingyas and other Muslims, and ethnic minority
Christians have faced serious abuses during military incursions in Kachin state. The plight of the
Rohingya Muslims remains dire in every respect. They truly are a stateless community without a
country that will welcome them as citizens.

In China, the government continues its relentless persecution of Tibetan Buddhists and Uyghur
Muslims. Since May 2011, more than 130 Buddhists have immolated themselves in protest against
Beijings repression. During the month of Ramadan, China restricted the freedom of selected
Uyghur Muslims to fast and fulfill other religious duties, while in recent years, officials have shut
down religious sites, conducted raids on schools leading to multiple injuries and deaths, and
restricted the study of the Quran.

Among Christians, unregistered groups face arrests, fines, and the shuttering of churches. And in
Zhejiang province, where Christianity has thrived, an ominous new threat has emerged: Officials
are now targeting registered churches, demolishing some of them, and removing the steeples and
crosses of others. Earlier this week, I met with family members of Christian pastors and lawyers
who have been jailed for their advocacy.

Beijing also continues its 15-year campaign to obliterate the Falun Gong.

In Eritrea, the regime of President Isaias Afwerki is responsible for the torture and other ill-
treatment of religious prisoners, arbitrary arrests and detentions without charges, a prolonged ban
on public religious activities, and interference in the internal affairs of registered religious groups.
The religious freedom situation is especially grave for Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians and
Jehovahs Witnesses.

Eritreas government dominates the internal affairs of the Orthodox Church of Eritrea, the
countrys largest Christian denomination, going so far as to depose their patriarch and keep him
under house arrest for years. The regime also suppresses Muslim religious activities and those
opposed to the government-appointed head of the Muslim community.

In Iran, religious freedom conditions have continued to deteriorate, particularly for religious
minorities, especially Bahais and Christian converts. Sufi and Sunni Muslims and dissenting Shia
Muslims also face harassment, arrests, and imprisonment. Tehran continues to respond to
%

perceived opponents through prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily or
entirely upon the religion of the accused.

In North Korea, the government maintains a stranglehold on all religious activity and perpetuates
an extreme cult of personality venerating the Kim family as a pseudo-religion. Individuals engaged
in clandestine religious activity are arrested, tortured, imprisoned, and sometimes executed.
Thousands of religious believers and their families are held in penal labor camps, including
refugees repatriated from China.

In Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom completely restricts the public expression of any religion other
than Islam. Not a single church or other non-Muslim house of worship exists in the country. In
addition, the Saudi government privileges its own interpretation of Sunni Islam over all others. It
has arrested individuals for dissent, apostasy, blasphemy, and sorcery. And it has failed to deal
sufficiently with the exportation of extremist literature around the world.

In Sudan, the government led by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir imposes a restrictive
interpretation of Shariah (Islamic law) on Muslims and non-Muslims alike, using amputations
and floggings for crimes and acts of indecency and immorality and arresting Christians for
proselytizing. Governmental and non-governmental attacks on the Christian community also
continue. These religious freedom violations, as well as the violence in Southern Kordofan, Blue
Nile, and Darfur, stem from President Bashirs longtime policies of Islamization and Arabization.

And in Uzbekistan, severe religious freedom abuses continue through a highly restrictive religion
law and harsh penalties on all independent religious activity. The government imprisons
individuals who do not conform to officially-prescribed practices or who it claims are extremist,
including as many as 12,000 Muslims.

**********

Besides recommending countries for re-designation, USCIRF also recommended that eight more
states be newly designated as CPCs: Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria,
Tajikistan, and Vietnam.

When the State Department released its religious freedom report in late July, we were pleased to
see that it had indeed designated Turkmenistan, a longtime recommendation, for CPC status
and for good reason: Turkmenistans repressive 2003 religion law remains in force, posing severe
obstacles for all religious groups. Police raids and harassment of registered and unregistered
religious groups alike continue. Turkmen law does not allow a civilian alternative to military
service and nine Jehovahs Witnesses currently are imprisoned for conscientious objection. While
we were pleased by Turkmenistans designation, we remain disappointed that the State Department
does not name other countries as CPCs.

Pakistan is a glaring example. For the second year in a row, USCIRF has concluded that Pakistan
represents the worst situation in the world among countries not designated as CPCs. In Pakistan,
conditions over the past year reached an all-time low due to chronic sectarian violence targeting
mostly Shia Muslims but also Christians, Ahmadis, and Hindus. Also, Pakistans blasphemy laws
&

statutes and anti-Ahmadi laws, besides being themselves violations of religious freedom, have
encouraged religious extremists to commit religious freedom abuses of their own through violence
against perceived transgressors. Mob attacks and terrorist activity go virtually unpunished, creating
a climate of impunity in this nuclear-armed country.

Elsewhere, in Egypt, despite some progress during a turbulent political transition, both the Morsi-
era government and the interim government largely failed to protect religious minorities,
particularly Coptic Orthodox Christians, from violence. While the new constitution includes
improvements regarding freedom of religion or belief, it remains to be seen how the relevant
provisions will be interpreted. Meanwhile, repressive and discriminatory laws and policies that
restrict religious freedom and related rights remain in place, and Egyptian courts continue to
prosecute, convict, and imprison Egyptian citizens for blasphemy.

In Iraq, the government continued its failure to stem the tide of violence by non-state actors like
ISIL, including attacks targeting religious pilgrims and worshippers, religious sites, and leaders.
As we all know, in recent months, ISIL has conquered large swaths of the country and unleashed
a reign of terror against non-Muslim minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, as well as Shia
Muslims and dissenting Sunni Muslims. What few people know is how the Iraqi government
before ISILs invasion helped fuel Sunni-Shia tensions. ISILs onslaught poured gasoline onto
this fire and now the entire country is threatened, further exacerbating Iraqs poor religious
freedom environment.

In Nigeria, the countrys democracy is being tested by recurring sectarian violence, attacks and
threats against Christians by Boko Haram, and the misuse of religion by politicians, religious
leaders, and others. In a nation where religion and religious identity are connected to ethnic,
political, social and economic controversies, these dynamics strain already-tense Christian-
Muslim relations. While the Nigerian government does not engage in religious persecution, it
tolerates severe violations through its failure to prevent or contain sectarian violence or bring the
guilty to justice.

In Syria, a three-year-old civil war has devolved largely into a sectarian religious conflict,
exacerbated by the Assad regime, with severe religious freedom abuses affecting all Syrians. The
regimes targeting of Sunni Muslims and other opponents and its indiscriminate shelling of civilian
areas have killed tens of thousands of Syrians and displaced millions. In addition, extremist and
U.S.-designated terrorists groups, including al-Qaeda and ISIL, target religious minority
communities, including Christians and Alawites, because of their faith. Even internationally-
recognized opposition military groups have committed religious freedom violations when working
with other groups to secure strategic areas.

In Tajikistan, the government suppresses and punishes all religious activity independent of state
control, particularly the activities of Muslims, Protestants, and Jehovahs Witnesses. The
government also imprisons individuals on unproven so-called criminal allegations linked to
Islamic religious activity and affiliation. Jehovahs Witnesses have been banned since 2007 and
there are no legal provisions on conscientious objection to military service.

'

And finally, in Vietnam, despite some positive changes over the past decade, the government
continues to imprison individuals for religious activity or religious freedom advocacy. Over the
past year, arrests and confrontations with the Catholic Church have escalated tensions. Vietnams
government uses a specialized religious police force and vague national security laws to suppress
independent Buddhist, Protestant, Hoa Hao, and Cao Dai activities, and seeks to stop the growth
of ethnic minority Protestantism and Catholicism via discrimination, violence, and forced
renunciations of their faith.

**********

As I mentioned earlier, in addition to supporting designation or re-designation of the nations Ive
just mentioned, this years annual report also highlights governments that, while falling short of
CPC status, still engage in or permit violations that merit scrutiny. Such abuses are characterized
by at least one of the elements of the systematic-ongoing-and-egregious CPC standard. For
2014, these Tier 2 nations are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos,
Malaysia, Russia, and Turkey.

Let me briefly discuss conditions in one of these nations -- Russia. As the Kremlin has continued
its broad-based assault on human rights, religious freedom conditions have suffered accordingly.
New laws in 2012 and amendments this year to the anti-extremism law were deployed particularly
against Jehovahs Witnesses and Muslim readers of Turkish theologian Said Nursi. Hundreds of
Muslims have been jailed, reportedly on false charges; many are denied due process and mistreated
in detention. Rising xenophobia and intolerance, including anti-Semitism, are linked to violent and
lethal hate crimes that occur with impunity. A blasphemy law, which went into effect in July 2013,
further curtailed the freedoms of religion, belief, and expression.

**********

As we look at these countries and their violations, we can see at least four types of abuses for
which they are responsible: state hostility, state sponsorship, state enforcement, and state failure.

State hostility refers to a governments actively persecuting people on account of their beliefs.
State sponsorship refers to a government actively promoting and even exporting ideas that seek to
destroy other peoples religious freedom. State enforcement refers to the government actively
applying laws such as anti-blasphemy codes to individuals, often religious minorities, thus
violating freedom of expression, as well as freedom of religion. And state failure means the
government is neglecting to take action to protect people whom others are aggressively targeting
due to their beliefs or to punish the aggressors.

When it comes to state hostility toward religions, we are talking about governments that persecute
their own people on the basis of religion. Some of these nations, like China or North Korea, are
secular tyrannies which consider all religious beliefs as potential competitors of state secularist
ideology such as Communism. While North Korea is far more draconian in its persecution of
religious believers, both governments see religion as ultimately rivaling the state for their peoples
allegiance.

(

Other countries, such as Uzbekistan, are likewise secular tyrannies which persecute people of faith,
such as Muslims, not due to any desire to protect a particular state ideology, but due to a stark,
paralyzing fear of religion and the potential it could pose for extremism.

Other nations we monitor that persecute their own people are religious tyrannies which enthrone
one form of religion over the others which likewise are seen as rivals. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and
Sudan are prominent examples. Each of their governments enthrones a single interpretation of
Islam over other forms of religious expression.

And finally, a number of governments we monitor for religious persecution are a hybrid of secular
and religious. Russia, for example, has a secular government but favors the Moscow Patriarchate
of the Russian Orthodox Church as the nations cultural embodiment while persecuting its
competitors, such as Jehovahs Witnesses, or those it feels pose a threat to the state, such as
Muslims in the North Caucasus.

Regarding state sponsorship of ideologies targeting other peoples freedom, Saudi Arabia
continues to export its own extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam through textbooks and other
literature which teach hatred and violence toward other religious groups. And extremist
educational literature which devalues others also is found in Iran and Pakistan.

Regarding state enforcement of laws that repress freedom of expression and religion, Egypt and
Pakistan enforce anti-blasphemy codes, with religious minorities bearing the brunt of the
enforcement.

And regarding state failure to protect religious freedom, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, and of course
Iraq are prime examples of countries which have neither protected their citizens adequately against
religion-related violence nor done enough to bring the perpetrators to justice.

**********

In short, religious freedom faces multiple challenges across the globe from repressive
governments to violent non-state actors. The obvious question is what can be done about it.Over
the past 15 years, both Republican and Democratic administrations have failed to utilize the CPC
mechanism as the key foreign policy tool it was intended to be or to take other steps to prioritize
religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy. If religious freedom policy abroad is to become more
robust and effective, this must change.

Administrations must make annual CPC designations. And they must ensure that the CPC list will
expand or contract in a way that reflects actual conditions on the ground. Right now, that frankly
isnt happening. Until this July with the welcome addition of Turkmenistan, the last time the State
Department added a new country to the CPC list was in 2006, when it added Uzbekistan.
Meanwhile, things have measurably worsened in numerous countries, as we have seen.

In addition to the executive branch, Congress also has a role to play. It should change the law to
allow the State Department to designate not just governments, but transnational organizations and
local groups -- non-state actors like terrorist organizations that are horrific religious freedom
)

abusers. It should hold more hearings on religious freedom; introduce and pass relevant and
appropriate legislation; and participate in the Defending Freedoms Project, a collaborative effort
between the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, and USCIRF,
whereby Members of Congress adopt prisoners of conscience and advocate on their behalf.

Let me conclude my remarks this morning by underscoring that last suggestion. More than
anything else, religious freedom is about people. When this pivotal freedom is violated, real people
suffer. Their stories must be told. Some have been told already. Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman
in Pakistan, is one example. Gao Zhisheng, one of Chinas most respected human rights lawyers,
is another.

Aasia Bibi sits on death row on blasphemy charges. Gao Zhisheng has been imprisoned, tortured,
and disbarred. When China released Gao last month, he had lost 50 pounds, and half his teeth
were gone or had rotted out. As I speak, Gao remains confined to a remote village, while security
agents prevent him from receiving medical treatment.

These are just two of the newsworthy stories about the real victims behind religious freedom
abuses. There are so many others that are waiting to be told. It is my fervent hope that in the course
of your good work, you will tell their stories to this nation and world, and in so doing, shine the
brightest of spotlights on the behavior of offending nations and the centrality of human rights,
including the pivotal right of religious freedom.

In conclusion, I hope that todays remarks have been informative and helpful and I wish for all
of you a wonderful and enlightening conference.

Thank you again.