FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 12, 2005

Contact:
Anne Johnson, Director of Communications, (202) 523-3240

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is pleased to invite you to an on-the-record briefing on the current status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief in Russia with Oleg Mironov, former and first Human Rights Ombudsman of the Russian Federation, and Mufti Ismagil Shangareev, Director of Moscow's Islamic Human Rights Defense Center. Oleg Mironov has been a vocal critic of the 1997 Russian law on religion and the war in Chechnya. Mufti Shangareev, who was named a mufti in 1992 in the Orenburg region of Russia, established the Islamic Human Rights Defense Center in 2003, which advocates for the rights of Muslim minorities, as well as the rights of non-Muslims in Muslim-majority countries. Oleg Mironov and Mufti Shangareev are planning a new organization, the Inter-Confessional Human Rights Center.

WHEN: Friday, April 15, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
800 N. Capitol Street, NW Suite 790, Washington, DC

Please R.S.V.P. to Caroline Gobble at  [email protected]  or (202)523-3240

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and the Congress.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 17, 2005

Contact:
Anne Johnson, Director of Communications, (202) 523-3240, ext. 27

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expresses deep concern about the impending visit to the United States of State Minister Narendra Modi from the Indian state of Gujarat. Three years ago, after a fire on a train resulted in the death of 58 Hindus, hundreds of Muslims were killed across Gujarat by Hindu mobs. Hundreds of mosques and Muslim-owned businesses and other kinds of infrastructure were looted or destroyed and, in the end, as many as 2,000 Muslims were killed. India's National Human Rights Commission, an official body, as well as numerous domestic and international human rights investigators, found evidence of complicity in the attacks by officials of the Gujarat state government, headed then and still by State Minister Modi.

In the months following the violence, the Modi government in Gujarat was widely accused in India of being reluctant to bring the perpetrators of the killings of Muslims to justice. In response to the alleged failures of the Gujarat government, India's Supreme Court declared in October 2003 that it had "no faith left" in the state's handling of the investigations and instructed the Gujarat state government to appoint new prosecutors to examine the religious violence of 2002. In April 2004, in what was seen as an additional indictment of Modi's Gujarat government, the Supreme Court stepped in once more and ordered a transfer of a trial of perpetrators to a neighboring state.

"At a time when the newly elected Indian government and courts have initiated a number of actions to address the tragic Gujarat massacres in which Gujarat state officials were found by India's own investigative bodies to be complicit, the Commission has been concerned that Modi's private visit will only serve inappropriately to give a platform in the United States to someone who has been implicated in grave violations of religious freedom," said USCIRF Chair Preeta D. Bansal.

"The Commission communicated with the State Department about the matter some time ago. We urge the Department to act with appropriate Indian officials to forestall or prevent the planned visit," Bansal said.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and the Congress.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 11, 2005

Contact:
Anne Johnson, Director of Communications, (202) 523-3240, ext. 27

WASHINGTON - Please join the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for an on-the-record briefing on Uzbek policies toward religion and the current status of religious freedom in Uzbekistan. The briefing will feature two leading human rights experts on Uzbekistan: Vitaly Ponomarev, director of the Central Asian Program at the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center, and Alisher Ergashev, a well-known human rights lawyer who has just completed a report on Uzbekistan's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

WHO: Vitaly Ponomarev, a leading Russian human rights expert on Central Asia, is director of the Central Asian Program at the Memorial Human Rights Center in Moscow. Ponomarev has written several books and articles on Central Asia and has compiled the most comprehensive list of political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan.

Alisher Ergashev, a well-known human rights lawyer and a member of the Legal Aid Society, has just completed a detailed alternative report on Uzbekistan's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which he will present to the UN Human Rights Committee on March 21.

WHEN: Thursday, March 17, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
800 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 790
Washington, D.C. 20002

Please RVSP to Caroline Gobble at: [email protected] or (202) 523-3240, ext. 24.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and the Congress.