Oct 14, 2015
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
October 14, 2015 | Mary Ann Glendon and Katrina Lantos Swett
The following op-ed appeared in the Atlantic Council on October 14, 2015. This op-ed also appeared in Newsweek.
"We cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated," US President Barack Obama said on September 28 at the UN General Assembly. He was condemning Russia's annexation of Crimea and its aggressive moves in eastern Ukraine.
Much of the world has decried these acts and their most visible consequences: at least 8,000 dead, 1.5 million internally displaced, and nearly a million made refugees. Yet we must not ignore another aspect of Russia's actions in Ukraine—serious violations of the right of freedom of religion or belief.
By any measure, this is a made-in-the-Kremlin problem. Russian President Vladimir Putin's government views the country's security through the lens of national identity, with a Kremlin-compliant Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church as its dominant religious and cultural expression. This view serves as a pretext for trampling upon religious diversity and freedom within Russia and now Ukraine.
After invading Crimea in March 2014, Russia ordered Crimea's religious groups, which number about 1,500, to register with Moscow under its religion law or lose their legal operating status. They face a bleak choice: Register under an onerous and costly process, or forfeit the right to open bank accounts, own property, invite foreign guests, and publish literature.
Russia also has targeted Crimea's religious minorities through its notorious anti-extremism law, which defines "extremism" as merely asserting the superiority of one's religious beliefs. This law does not require the threat or use of violence for the prosecution of individuals or the banning of Islamic and other religious texts.
Authorities have raided Muslim Crimean Tatar homes, mosques, and schools, as well as the Kingdom Halls of the Jehovah's Witnesses. They have detained imams and imposed fines simply for possessing Islamic and Jehovah's Witness texts banned under Russia's extremism law. They have accused the Majlis, the Crimean Tatar representative body, of extremism, and harass its members, while expelling two Turkish imams from Crimea.
Other than the Orthodox Church's Moscow Patriarchate, no religious community in Crimea has remained unscathed.
In March 2014, Rabbi Mikhail Kapustin of Simferopol was forced to flee Crimea after denouncing Russian actions. His synagogue was defaced by a swastika and a month later, vandals defaced Sevastopol's monument to 4,200 Jews murdered by the Nazis in July 1942.
Christian churches and leaders not affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate also have faced abuse and violence. Those within the Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarchate in Crimea have endured mob and arson attacks. By late 2014, clergy without Russian citizenship, including Greek and Roman Catholics as well as Kyiv Patriarchate clergy, were forced into exile. The home of the Kyiv Patriarchate's Bishop of Simferopol and Crimea was burned down.
Pro-Russian forces have visited similar abuses in the Donbas since Russian-backed paramilitary groups seized territory and proclaimed the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) last year.
Among these forces is the 4,000-man Orthodox Army, once headed by a Russian military intelligence officer and funded by a Russian oligarch.
These forces confiscated Jehovah's Witness, Evangelical, and Pentecostal houses of worship and schools, and perpetrated church attacks, abductions, and assaults on the Kyiv Patriarchate and Protestant representatives.
Several Ukrainian Orthodox churches in the Luhansk region were damaged. In separate incidents, a Protestant orphanage was raided and a rehabilitation center seized.
In June 2014, pro-Russian militants reportedly tortured to death five Protestants in Slovyansk. In July, DPR militants seized and reportedly abused a Greek Catholic priest, whom they held captive for twelve days, and a Roman Catholic priest whom they held for eleven days. In August 2014, they took prisoner two Protestant pastors, beating one of them severely. In October, they held captive a Seventh-day Adventist pastor for twenty days and subjected him to similar abuse.
Whether in Crimea or eastern Ukraine, blame for these religious freedom violations must be laid at Moscow's doorstep and the world must escalate pressure on the Putin regime to alter its course. Successful Ukrainian military resistance to pro-Russian aggressors in the Donbas shows very clearly that when people's freedom is endangered, they will take a stand.
It is time for Putin to recognize that freedom, not oppression, is the path to cultural integrity and lasting security. Russia must embrace religious freedom at home while allowing its Ukrainian neighbors the same rights in their own land.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.
Sep 28, 2015
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
September 28, 2015 | Daniel I. Mark and Katrina Lantos Swett
The following op-ed appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on September 27, 2015
Washington hosted two dramatically different dignitaries last week - Pope Francis and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both had meetings with President Obama, and the pope became the first pontiff to address a joint meeting of Congress.
These two leaders are on exactly opposite paths: Pope Francis is a stalwart champion of human rights and witness for religious freedom while President Xi heads a regime that is one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights, including religious freedom.
Pope Francis embodies religious freedom's universal message and promise, as cited in Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
In contrast, President Xi symbolizes a world in which more than 75 percent of people live in countries that perpetrate or tolerate serious violations of this liberty.
Despite this global crisis for religious freedom, people who cherish this right are found across the globe. Now, people around the world must speak for the persecuted with one powerful, united voice.
Last weekend in New York, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) took its latest step in promoting that aim, bringing together like-minded people from nearly 50 countries for an unprecedented meeting. Cosponsored by the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief (IPP), the gathering included more than 100 parliamentarians as well as diplomats and civil society and religious leaders. They met next to the United Nations, where the General Assembly is now in its 70th annual session.
Since its launch last November, the IPP has focused on threats to religious freedom from both governments and nonstate actors. Some governments, including China's and North Korea's, are secular tyrannies that suppress religious groups across the board. Other countries, such as Iran and Sudan, elevate a single religion or religious interpretation while persecuting those who embrace alternatives.
These state actors abuse religious freedom in many ways, including by imprisoning people due to their beliefs and actions. In China, for example, Ilham Tohti, a respected Uighur Muslim scholar, is serving a life sentence for alleged "separatism." Iran holds hundreds of religious prisoners, from Baha'is to Christians, from Sufis and Sunnis to Shiite reformers and clerics.
At least one electoral democracy is also a major abuser of religious freedom. Pakistan, which a USCIRF delegation visited for the first time in March, has more people on death row or serving life sentences for blasphemy than any other country. Pakistan's blasphemy law not only violates freedom of religion but also emboldens nonstate actors, including extremist religious groups, to assault and murder perceived transgressors.
In addition, over the last year, nonstate religious actors have fueled some of the worst humanitarian crises of our time. In both Iraq and Syria, ISIS and other violent religious groups have kidnapped and enslaved Yazidi and Christian women and girls, beheaded or crucified men and boys, driven families from their homes, and uprooted 2,000-year-old faith communities that are now threatened with extinction.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram has perpetrated mass killings at churches and mass kidnappings of children.
In Burma, Buddhist extremists have assaulted Rohingya Muslims.
In the Central African Republic, fighting between Christians and Muslims has destroyed nearly all the country's mosques.
And these conflicts have forced millions of people to flee for their lives.
The IPP has written over the last nine months to the heads of state of Myanmar, Pakistan, and Indonesia, to the Sudanese foreign minister, and to the North Korean ambassador to the United Nations. Citing international pressure, Pakistan's government introduced reforms to its blasphemy law; Sudan released two jailed Christian pastors; and the North Koreans invited Brazilian members of IPP to Pyongyang to discuss religious freedom concerns.
Last weekend, the IPP's 100 parliamentarians signed the New York Resolution on Freedom of Religion or Belief.
We applaud them for standing for Pope Francis' way of freedom, not President Xi's path of repression.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or at 202-786-0615.
Sep 24, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) supports the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2015 (S. 2078). USCIRF, which is set to sunset on September 30, 2015, urges both the Senate and House to swiftly pass the bill.
“All USCIRF Commissioners support S. 2078 which was drafted by Senators Corker (R-TN), Cardin (D-MD), Rubio (R-FL), and Durbin (D-IL), and which was unanimously approved today by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This bipartisan bill would allow USCIRF to continue its vital mission in support of international religious freedom. Such support is critically necessary today, especially given the importance of religion in today’s world and the violations of religious freedom that top the foreign policy challenges the United States faces,” said USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George, who was appointed to the Commission by Speaker of the House John Boehner. Eric P. Schwartz, a USCIRF Vice Chair who was appointed by President Obama, agreed, noting that “this bill has support from all Commissioners and bipartisan support in the Senate.”
USCIRF is composed of nine private sector commissioners who volunteer their time in support of USCIRF’s mandate, and the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, who is a non-voting member. Commissioners are appointed by the President and Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. USCIRF is a congressionally created entity that is separate and independent from the Department of State, and is not a non-governmental organization, interest group, or advocacy organization.
The current Commissioners are: Dr. Robert P. George (Chairman), Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser (Vice Chair), Eric P. Schwartz (Vice Chair), Mary Ann Glendon, Dr. Daniel I. Mark, Rev. Thomas J. Reese S.J., Hannah Rosenthal, Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, and Dr. James J. Zogby. Ambassador David Saperstein, the State Department's Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, serves as an ex-officio member of the Commission.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0613.