FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 16, 2013 | By USCIRF

USCIRF is deeply concerned by the violence against protestors and the targeting of churches in Egypt. The government's excessive use of force when breaking up protests, the high number of deaths, the return to a state of emergency, and the targeting of Christians by extremists are all profoundly troubling. USCIRF recognizes the grave issues at stake related to democracy, rule of law, and human rights in Egypt, and the Commission is particularly concerned about the immediate threats to religious minority communities.

"The level of violence against Coptic Christians, their property and businesses is unprecedented in modern Egypt, both in its scope and the number of churches and structures attacked,” said USCIRF Chairman Robert George. "This could portend even worse violence ahead if the situation is not brought under control. Assaulting religious minorities is not a legitimate form of protest against government action.”

Continued Chairman George, "Copts in particular, as well as other religious minorities, are among the most vulnerable to extremist reprisal violence. Thus far, churches have been attacked. But next could be indiscriminate violent acts targeting individuals and groups of Christians. USCIRF calls on the Egyptian government to immediately ensure the protection of places of worship and urges justice and accountability for perpetrators, both inside and outside of government. Impunity should not be allowed to prevail during such turbulent times.”

The Egyptian government confirmed that on August 14 more than 600 people were killed and thousands more injured after Egyptian security services dispersed a sit-in staged by former President Morsi's supporters. NGOs report that more than 50 Coptic Christian churches have been attacked across Egypt after the protest sites were cleared.

In USCIRF's 2013 Annual Report, the Commission recommended that Egypt be designated as a "country of particular concern” for particularly severe violations of religious freedom and that U.S. military aid be withheld until the Egyptian government has demonstrated it is implementing policies to protect freedom of religion and related human rights in Egypt. For more information, see the Annual Report's Egypt chapter, available here .

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at (202) 523-3258 or [email protected]

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

August 15, 2013 | By  Katrina Lantos Swett  and  M. Zuhdi Jasser

The following op-ed appeared in  The Moscow Times  on August 15, 2013 | Issue 5192

This month marks the 22nd anniversary of the "August putsch," in which hardline Communists held Soviet leader  Mikhail Gorbachev  under virtual house arrest for several days at his dacha in the Crimea. They sought to crush democratic reforms, including expanded autonomy for the Soviet republics. Who can forget  Boris Yeltsin  standing on a tank in defiance of the coup attempt, or the Soviet Union's dissolution several months later, leading to freedom and independence for the Soviet republics?


Yet a generation later, some of these republics are reminiscent of the old Soviet Union as they commit serious human rights violations, particularly through enacting and enforcing laws against freedom of religion or belief.
As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF,  detailed in its 2013 annual report, the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan fit the congressionally established criteria for countries of particular concern, or CPC, marking them as some of the world's most egregious religious freedom abusers.

USCIRF has concluded that three more — Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia — are on the threshold of receiving CPC status because of their systemic failure to respect religious freedom and related rights.
Uzbekistan can fairly be viewed as Central Asia's heart of darkness. Among many other restrictions, its 1998 law on religion penalizes independent religious activity and applies vague anti-extremism laws against many Muslims and others who pose no credible security threat.

Under such laws, the government over the past decade reportedly has sentenced or imprisoned, sometimes in psychiatric hospitals, as many as 10,000 nonviolent individuals for terms of up to 20 years.
A USCIRF delegation visiting Tajikistan last December found that its government targets religious activity that is independent of state control and jails people on unproven criminal charges linked to their religious activity or affiliation. Such abuses affect the majority Muslim community and also religious minorities, particularly Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses. 

Tajikistan's 2009 religion law and other statutes include stringent registration requirements for religious groups, criminalize unregistered activity, limit the number and size of mosques and impose state controls on publishing and importing religious literature. Turkmenistan's 2003 law on religion imposes similar hardships on religious groups. Turkmenistan remains the former Soviet Union's most isolated country, with major restrictions on foreign and domestic education, foreign travel and telecommunications.

The quasi-religious personality cult of the late Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov dominated the country's public life. Today, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is building a cult of personality around himself. Criticism of the president is often tantamount to treason, and teachers and school children are compelled to spend many hours participating in numerous public parades in the president's honor.
 


Kazakhstan, once Central Asia's bright spot, now is following the lead of these three other Central Asian countries. Onerous registration requirements in Kazakhstan's 2011 religion law have led to a sharp drop in registered religious groups, including Muslim and Protestant groups. The law permits regional and local religious organizations to be active only in their geographic area of registration, requires official permission to build or open new places of worship and restricts the distribution of religious materials to a limited number of government-approved premises.


Since Azerbaijan's government enacted a restrictive religion law in 2009, its religious freedom record has worsened markedly. This nation, which has a Shiite Muslim majority, bans unregistered religious activities, limits religious activities to a community's registered address and requires government permission to produce, import, export and disseminate religious materials after such materials have passed state censorship.
 


Russia's 1997 law on religion defines three categories of religious communities with varying requirements, legal status and privileges. By singling out Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Orthodox Christianity as the country's four "traditional faiths," the preface to the law sets an official tone that encourages discrimination against Protestants and other religious minorities.

A USCIRF delegation noted deteriorating religious freedom conditions in Russia during its September 2012 visit. First, the government continues to violate the rights of so-called "nontraditional" religious groups and Muslims. Second, it has implemented an extremism law against religious groups and individuals not known to use or advocate violence, particularly Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslim reading circles focused on the works of Turkish theologian Said Nursi, whose books are banned across Russia. Third, Russia gives outward support for and preference to the Orthodox Church. In June, President  Vladimir Putin  signed a new blasphemy law with possible criminal penalties against those deemed to have "offended religious sensibilities," thus opening a potential Pandora's box of abuse.

Many of these measures recall the darkest days of the Soviet Union when its republics marched in lockstep. Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan now all follow Soviet-style imprisonment of those refusing to worship according to state diktat. Soviet-style vetting to establish the legal status of religious literature is practiced by all six nations. The Soviet practice of subjecting religious dissenters to psychiatric evaluations continues, particularly in Uzbekistan.

While during the Soviet era, the false diagnosis of psychiatric illness was used against many who shared their belief in God, today the psychiatric profession is once again being hijacked — this time to persecute and falsely label those who reject a belief in a deity. For example, Alexander Kharlamov, an atheist writer in Kazakhstan, has been held against his will and forced to undergo psychiatric examination.

With the demise of the Soviet Union hastened by democratic opposition across the region a generation ago, we hoped that also meant the end of religious repression in that region of the world. But in too many post-Soviet states today, the ghost of Soviet control over peaceful religious life is alive and well.

Katrina Lantos Swett and M. Zuhdi Jasser are Vice Chairs of the U.S. Commission on International ­Religious Freedom.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact Kalinda Stephenson at 202-786-0613 or [email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

For Your Information

August 12, 2013 | By Robert P. George

The following op-ed appeared in Foreign Policy on August 9, 2013:

On Sunday, August 11, Pakistan will celebrate National Minorities Day, giving recently-elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif his first formal opportunity to recognize the value of religious minority communities to the nation.

Created in 2011, this day is a bittersweet irony for Pakistan.

On the one hand, it recalls the inclusive and tolerant vision of the past: of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder, whose speech to the nation on August 11, 1947 included these words:

"You are free. You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other places of worship...You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the state."

On the other hand, it highlights the stark realities of the present: how Pakistan has betrayed Jinnah's vision by failing to fulfill his words with concrete actions that protect religious minorities from harm. Indeed, Islamabad has done little to stem a rising tide of violence against members of Pakistan's Ahmadi, Christian, Hindu, Shi'a, and Sikh communities.

Last month, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released the findings from its Pakistan Religious Violence Project . Tracking publicly reported attacks against religious communities over the past 18 months, the project collected alarming data that catalogued the human toll of Pakistan's intolerance and hatred. During that time period, there were more than 200 incidents of sectarian violence that led to 1,800 casualties, including more than 700 deaths.

Many of those killed or injured were Shi'a citizens, with some of the most lethal assaults taking place during Shi'a holy months and pilgrimages. During the year-and-a-half period covered by the study, there were 77 attacks against the Shi'a, 54 against Ahmadis, 37 against Christians, 16 against Hindus, and 3 against Sikhs.

Since the publication of USCIRF's report, the death toll has continued to rise. On July 27, at least 57 people were killed and more than 150 woundedby bombs targeting a market frequented by Shi'a in northwestern Pakistan.

To his credit, Sharif raised concerns about the plight of religious minorities in his maiden speech to Pakistan's National Assemblyand tasked his government to crack down on militants targeting the Shi'a. Hopefully his comments reflect a realization that the time for mere talk and symbolism has passed and that resolute action is needed to ensure that the perpetrators of violence against religious communities are arrested, prosecuted, and jailed along with the violent extremist groups that have spurred the bloodshed.

Moreover, police officers must be held accountable for thwarting justice when they turn a blind eye to attacks or refuse to file police reports when the victims are religious minorities.

With luck, Sharif's comments also intimate that the government will reconsider its enforcement of blasphemy and anti-Ahmadi laws which violate international human rights standards and encourage extremist attacks on perceived transgressors. Just recently, a Christian man, Sajjad Masih, was found guilty of denigrating the Prophet Mohammedand sentenced to life imprisonment, despite the accuser recanting. He joins nearly 40 others who either are on death row or serving life sentences for allegedly blasphemous activity.

Interestingly, Masih's sentencing occurred on the eve of the fourth anniversary of attacks against Christians in Punjab in the village of Gojra -- where Masih is from-- in which eight were killed, 18 were injured, two churches and at least 75 houses were burned, and not a single perpetrator was brought to justice.

Pakistan's surreal inversion of justice, in which some are punished for alleged words and beliefs while others commit literal acts of violence against them with impunity and without consequence, must end. Sharif's government must prove it is serious about ending this dual attack on its most vulnerable citizens. One simple step it can take immediately is to reopen the Federal Ministry of Interfaith Harmony and reaffirm its mission of promoting respect for members of all religious communities, particularly religious minorities. In the meantime, USCIRF will keep monitoring the situation and the Sharif government to determine whether it should continue recommending that the United States designate Pakistan a "country of particular concern," marking it as among the world's most egregious violators of freedom of religion or belief.

Sixty-six years ago, Pakistan's founding father laid a dream of equality and freedom before his nation. It is time for Pakistan's government to honor that dream not merely by repeating its words, but enacting it through deeds.

Robert P. George is the Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).