FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 19, 2007

Contact:
Judith Ingram, Communications Director,
(202) 523-3240, ext. 127

WASHINGTON-The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom condemns the Chinese government's crackdown on human rights defenders and the so-called "campaign to root out foreign infiltration," which penalizes religious communities that do not enjoy official sanction, targeting their activities involving foreign coreligionists. Chinese government leaders have recently used these two campaigns, which have been explicitly endorsed at the highest levels of the central government, to violate human rights, including the right to freedom of religion or belief. In particular, the Commission deplores the recent conviction of Yang Maodong, a prominent Chinese legal activist and human rights defender sentenced to five years in prison following a 13-month trial during which he was tortured, according to human rights organizations. The Commission calls on the U.S. government to urge the Chinese government to release Yang Maodong and other recently imprisoned human rights defenders.

"Chinese leaders have publicly stated a commitment to uphold the rule of law, yet they have also pursued a crackdown on rights defenders who attempt to strengthen the capacity of Chinese citizens to protect civil and political rights, including the right to religious freedom," said Commission Chair Michael Cromartie. "The sentencing of Yang Maodong once again demonstrates that even though China has introduced laws and regulations to respect and protect human rights, the government remains unwilling to implement substantive legal reforms. China's vows to fully implement the rule of law remain empty promises," Cromartie said.

Prior to his arrest in September 2006, Yang Maodong, who is also known as Guo Feixiong, was closely involved in the legal defense of Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer who received a suspended prison sentence in December 2006 on charges of subversion largely related to his statements opposing China's crackdown on Falun Gong. Yang also authored articles calling for an end to human rights abuses against the Falun Gong and for the release of Christian pastor Cai Zhuohua, who served a three-year sentence for distributing Bibles to unregistered Christian house churches.

As China arrests and harasses lawyers and human rights defenders, it continues to use legal and administrative measures to restrict peaceful religious activities. A recent example is the current campaign "to root out foreign infiltration," which has allowed Chinese authorities to close businesses and target unregistered religious groups that have overseas contacts.

In two recent cases, foreign businesses with longstanding operations in China have been ordered to close their offices, reportedly due to their contacts with local leaders of unregistered house churches. In October, a company that is owned by a Christian couple from Australia was raided and fined over US$13 million in a move that was reportedly motivated by the company's employment of large numbers of Christians. The China Aid Association reports that in the last two weeks, three Chinese employees of the company have been detained and its business license has been officially revoked. In September, owners of two American companies in Xinjiang were ordered to cease operations. An indictment that orders the visas of the business owners revoked concludes they were "engaged in religious infiltration activities... in the name of doing business" reportedly due to activities of the owners to hold Bible studies on the premises and to support unregistered house churches in their locality.

Authorities in Henan Province also recently implemented a directive referring to "the fight against infiltration activities by hostile overseas forces under the guise of Christianity" as part of a central government-backed effort targeting local Christian house churches to "resolutely stop their activities." The directive is now being used to bolster ongoing efforts to repress local unregistered house churches and punish religious leaders who refuse to register.

The campaign against foreign infiltration also targets the religious activities of ethnic minorities. After the Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in Washington, the Chinese government scorned the Tibetan spiritual leader's activities as acts of foreign infiltration. Several monks were arrested at Drepung Monastery in Lhasa for participating in celebrations of the award, according to the International Campaign for Tibet.

"China is actively seeking foreign investment and in nine months, Beijing will host millions of visitors at the Olympic Games," Cromartie said. "On the one hand, China invites international attention to its sporting events and its business communities, but on the other, seeks to punish contact with foreigners against those who seek to worship freely and without interference. This policy is unsustainable in a globalized world."

In its 2007 Annual Report, the Commission recommends that the U.S. government, through the newly instituted Human Rights Defenders Fund, make support available to Chinese lawyers and others who defend the internationally recognized rights of individuals and communities targeted because of their religious belief or practice. In light of the ongoing crackdown on rights defenders in China, the Commission calls for immediate implementation of this recommendation. For a full list of the Commission's recommendations on China, see the 2007 Annual Report ( www.uscirf.gov ).

The Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan, independent federal body, is mandated by Congress to monitor abuse of freedom of religion or belief and related human rights around the world and to make recommendations to the President, State Department and Congress on ways to address religious freedom concerns.

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.

Michael Cromartie,Chair•Preeta D. Bansal,Vice Chair•Richard D. Land, Vice Chair•Don Argue•Imam Talal Y. Eid•Felice D. Gaer•Leonard A. Leo•Elizabeth H. Prodromou•Nina Shea•Ambassador John V. Hanford III,Ex-Officio

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 8, 2007

Contact:
Judith Ingram, Communications Director,
(202) 523-3240, ext. 127

WASHINGTON-As the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meets in Madrid this month to decide which member state will serve as its chair in 2009, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom strongly recommends that the United States withhold support from one of the declared candidates: Kazakhstan.

"The OSCE chair should be emblematic of the values of this preeminent trans-Atlantic security and human rights organization," said Michael Cromartie, chair of the Commission. "Yet Kazakhstan's blatant and widespread violations of human rights, including those associated with freedom of religion or belief, make it a poor contender, at least in 2009, to lead the OSCE."

Kazakhstan, which emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union with a relatively stable economy based on extensive oil and gas resources, looked promising 10 years ago. Home to scores of ethnic groups-due, in part, to its role as a place of forced exile for dissenters from Czarist Russia and then the Soviet Union-it was an ethnically and religiously diverse society with a government that encouraged tolerance.

Today, however, the Kazakhstan government has joined other states in the former Soviet Union in placing new restrictions on human rights and civil society. The State Department's 2007 International Religious Freedom Report notes that Kazakhstan's "religious laws narrow the legal protections of religious freedom found in the Constitution." Religious groups must comply with onerous registration requirements; unregistered groups have endured increasing fines, and purportedly "non-traditional" religious groups are often refused permission to register or their applications are substantially delayed. Recently, the government has targeted minority religious groups in spurious criminal cases, and used property disputes as a tool of pressure against the Hare Krishna community.

There are at least 300 political prisoners in Kazakhstan who have been convicted on allegedly religion-related charges, according to leading human rights activists. Most of these prisoners are assumed to be Muslims, but it is impossible to know how many are allegedly tied with extremist organizations and how many are simply devout believers who may dissent from officially favored religious hierarchies. According to the Forum 18 News Service, two Baptist congregations and a Pentecostal one have been caught up most recently in the crackdown on religious practice that has been dubbed Operation Religious Extremism.

The Kazakhstan government also has a deteriorating record on protecting democratic institutions. The OSCE itself pronounced the country's parliamentary elections in August 2007 "neither free nor fair." Recent constitutional amendments have made current President Nursultan Nazarbayev practically president for life, and changes in election law have made it possible only for the pro-presidential party to win seats in parliament. Moreover, for several years the government has cracked down on independent media.

"Against this background, Kazakhstan should not be rewarded with a key leadership role in an organization that is central to promoting the protection of human rights," Cromartie said. "The Commission calls on the U.S. government and other OSCE states to vote against Kazakhstan's bid to be OSCE chair, and to energetically engage the Kazakhstan government in talks on how to significantly improve its record on human rights, including religious freedom, in part so that its bid eventually can be reconsidered."

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
Nov. 7, 2007

Contact:
Judith Ingram, Communications Director,
(202) 523-3240, ext. 127

WASHINGTON-The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom deplores the fact that, as part of its recently declared state of emergency and suspension of the Constitution and among the many ensuing detentions, the government of General Pervez Musharraf has placed Asma Jahangir, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Religion or Belief, under house arrest. The Commission calls on the U.S. government, at the highest levels, to protest Ms. Jahangir's detention and to urge the government of Pakistan to release her immediately so that she may continue her important work as Special Rapporteur.

The Special Rapporteur is the independent expert who investigates and reports to the UN on violations of the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief around the world. Since its creation in 1986, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur has been an important tool in the international protection of this fundamental freedom. Ms. Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer and human rights defender, has held this mandate since 2004. Ms. Jahangir's sister and fellow lawyer and human rights advocate, Hina Jilani, is also an independent UN human rights expert and reportedly is also the target of an arrest warrant.

The detention order asserts, without providing specifics, that Ms. Jahangir's exercise of her rights of association and expression have been found "prejudicial to public safety and maintenance of public order," and orders that she be arrested and confined to her residence in Lahore for 90 days.

"By placing Asma Jahangir under house arrest, the government of Pakistan not only appears to be violating her individual human rights, but also is interfering with her ability, as a UN Special Rapporteur, to protect and promote the human rights of others," said Commission Chair Michael Cromartie. Over the next three months, the Special Rapporteur had been scheduled to visit Angola and Israel to examine the situation with respect to the freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief in those countries. Later in 2008, she is scheduled to go to India and Turkmenistan; Bangladesh, China, and Iran have agreed in principle to allow her to visit. She has already visited and reported on such countries as Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and Azerbaijan.

As one of the members of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN body to which the independent human rights experts report, Pakistan is supposed to "uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights," according to the UN General Assembly resolution that created the Council. "Suspending the Constitution, restricting the media, and arresting judges, lawyers, political party officials, civil society representatives and UN human rights experts hardly seems appropriate for a Human Rights Council member," Cromartie said.

The Commission, an independent, bipartisan federal body, has long raised concerns about the ways in which the Pakistani government severely violates the internationally guaranteed right to religious freedom inside Pakistan. Abuses include the country's blasphemy laws, which commonly involve false accusations and result in the lengthy detention of and violence against Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims on account of their religious beliefs; the laws violating the fundamental rights of the Ahmadi community; the persistent sectarian violence targeting Shi'as, Ahmadis, Hindus, and Christians; and the Hudood ordinances, which violate the rights of women in Pakistan.

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.