FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 6, 2014 | USCIRF

WASHINGTON, DC – On the eve of President Obama’s November 12-14 trip to Burma, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today released a new report, “Burma: Religious Freedom and Related Human Rights Violations are Hindering Broader Reforms.”  The report and its recommendations reflect a USCIRF Commissioner-level visit to Burma in August 2014 by Commissioners M. Zuhdi Jasser and Eric P. Schwartz and two USCIRF staff. 

USCIRF focused on four key issues in its mission: discrimination and horrible abuses against Rohingya Muslims; broader patterns of intolerance against Muslims driven by bigotry and chauvinism among religious and political figures that also impact all other minority religious communities in Burma; laws, policies and proposed legislation that entrench multiple forms of discrimination; and deprivation of citizenship to Rohingya Muslims and prejudicial practices in the issuance of identification documents to all Muslims. 

In the report, USCIRF urges the U.S. government to press Burma’s political leaders to permit humanitarian access to Rohingya Muslims who are displaced in Rakhine State and have been denied freedom of movement, and revise the Rakhine State Action Plan to ensure that Rohingya who have been in Burma for generations and know no other home will not be denied citizenship.  USCIRF also urges the U.S. government to press for the basic rights of all minority religious communities; encourage tolerance and reconciliation; and support international efforts to promote religious freedom and human rights, including a forthcoming UN resolution that will focus on human rights in Burma.  USCIRF also urges U.S. officials to use the term “Rohingya” in recognition of that community’s right to self-identify.  Additional recommendations can be found in the report. 

USCIRF’s visit to Burma underscores the appropriateness of Burma’s designation as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act.  For more than a decade, Burma has been designated by the State Department as a CPC due to systematic, egregious and ongoing religious freedom violations.  In its report, USCIRF recommends specific ways the U.S. government could take advantage of this CPC designation to encourage reform and respect for religious freedom and related human rights.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0613.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 30, 2014 | USCIRF

WASHINGTON, D.C. -  The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) condemns the recent formal arrest of Wu Zeheng, also known as Buddhist Zen Master Shi Xingwu, and more than a dozen of his followers.  They were charged under the highly problematic Article 300 of the Criminal Law of China that makes it a crime for anyone to form or use “superstitious sects or secret societies or weird religious organizations…to undermine the implementation of the laws and administrative rules and regulations of the State.”   If convicted, each could serve from seven years to life in prison. In practical terms, a formal arrest in China almost invariably leads to a conviction.

Wu is a Chinese Buddhist leader with millions of followers in China, Taiwan, and around the world. He was taken into custody in July, after more than 100 armed Chinese policemen staged a coordinated raid on several businesses and living compounds which his group, Huazang Dharma, operated.  An estimated 50 people, including children, were detained in the raid. 

“The arrest of Wu Zeheng escalates the Chinese government’s campaign against organized religions,” said Katrina Lantos Swett, USCIRF Chair.  “We urge the government to reverse course, release Wu Zeheng, and begin living up to its legal obligation to ensure that its citizens are guaranteed their fundamental right to freedom of religion or belief as provided by both Article 36 of the Chinese Constitution and international law.”

Wu’s indictment is part of the Chinese government’s broader nationwide crackdown on organized religion, which has accelerated with the expansion of religious observance in China. The government views vibrant faith communities as threatening its authority and ability to control its citizens.  Even adherents of China’s five officially sanctioned religions — Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism — along with religions that the government has not sanctioned, have been targeted.   The government has persecuted, intimidated, and jailed religious leaders, especially those with significant followings like Wu, who also has been targeted for being an alleged “evil cult” leader.

The Chinese government long has vilified the Falun Gong and its practitioners, including Wang Zhiwen, who recently finished a 15-year prison sentence during which time he was tortured, followed by detention in a “brainwashing center.” Despite his release from prison, Wang now will be stripped of all political rights for four years. Other Falun Gong prisoners, Li Chang, Yu Changxin, and Ji Liewu, remain imprisoned.  China’s Christian leaders also have been targeted, with many Christian prisoners of conscience detained, including Ms. Yang Rongli and her husband, leaders of a 50,000 member house church in Shaanxi province; Alimujiang Yimiti, a Uighur Christian; and Zhang Shaojie, a pastor in Henan province.  

The Chinese government also actively represses the religious practices of Uighur Muslims, especially in the autonomous region of Xinjiang, and has imprisoned Uighur prisoners of conscience including Ilham Tohti who received a life sentence in September 2014 for “separatism.”  Religious freedom conditions in Tibetan areas remain acute, given the Chinese government’s efforts to control Tibetan’s religious practice and culture and its detention of senior monks and other leaders including Tenzin Delek and Lobsang Tsering.  

In its 2014 Annual Report, USCIRF stated that “The Chinese government continues to perpetrate particularly severe violations of religious freedom,” and again recommended that China be designated as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC).  USCIRF has recommended CPC status for China since the Commission first made recommendations in 2000.  The State Department has designated China as a CPC since 1999.   For more information on religious freedom conditions in China see the 2014 Annual Report.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0613.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

October 27, 2014 | By Katrina Lantos Swett and Mary Ann Glendon

The following op-ed appeared in The Seattle Times on October 24, 2014

NORTH Korea’s release of Jeffrey Fowle, imprisoned for leaving a Bible in a public place, still leaves two other Americans in captivity. Kenneth Bae, a former Washington state resident, and Matthew Miller are serving sentences of 15 and six years, respectively, of hard labor for supposedly undermining the government.

While their continued imprisonment highlights the country’s severe human-rights abuses, Fowle’s release — coupled with North Korea’s previous moves to blunt rising condemnation of its record — reveals a mindset that is increasingly sensitive to world opinion.

Thus, in the wake of Fowle’s release, the world must not let up. It must stand with the United States for Bae’s and Miller’s freedom. It must insist that Pyongyang cease abusing its own people’s religious freedom and related rights.

North Korea holds at least 200,000 people in penal labor camps where many are starved or beaten to death. It maintains a stranglehold on religious belief and practice, which are seen as threatening the state and the quasi-religious personality cult surrounding the ruling Kim family.

The United Nations is now poised to pass a resolution condemning North Korea’s appalling conduct and calling for the abuses to end.

The resolution responds to several key findings and developments this year:

In February, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry released a report concluding that Pyongyang’s abuses are “without any parallel in the contemporary world.” It found “an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information, and association.”

In April, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, on which we serve, released its annual report confirming severe religious persecution. Since early 2013, the government has executed as many as 80 people for such crimes as possessing Bibles, while Bae was sentenced for a “national security crime” connected to his work for Youth with a Mission, an evangelical organization.

In June, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for human rights in North Korea, Marzuki Darusman, issued his own findings unveiling North Korea’s bleak human rights landscape, as did the U.N. Human Rights Council, which adopted a similar report last month as part of the Universal Periodic Review. Also last month, the U.N. General Assembly held a high-level discussion on North Korean abuses, during which Secretary of State John Kerry, confronting its labor camps, urged North Korea to “shut this evil system down.”

All of this unwanted attention has struck a nerve in Pyongyang. Last month, North Korea responded to the Commission of Inquiry findings with an unprecedented 54,000-word denial of the undeniable. For the first time in 15 years, North Korea sent its foreign minister to last month’s U.N. General Assembly opening. North Korea recently circulated its own resolution to counter the impending U.N. resolution. And earlier this week, it released Jeffrey Fowle.

Taken together, these responses show how, despite its insular history, the Kim Jong Un regime now worries what the world thinks. The U.N. resolution can keep the pressure on, reiterating to North Korea that the world cares, and that its depredations must end.

Yet, more can be done. The United States can work more closely with allies like Japan and South Korea to raise human-rights concerns and press for improvements, including closing the labor camps. China should fulfill its international duties to protect North Korean asylum seekers within its borders, allowing the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and international humanitarian groups to render assistance. And the United States could fully implement the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2012, using authorized funds to increase access to information and news media inside North Korea, promote human rights, resettle refugees and monitor humanitarian aid delivery.

It has been famously shown that while lights span the night sky over South Korea, North Korea is shrouded in darkness. It’s time to pierce the darkness. The world must support freedom for Bae and Miller — and for North Korea’s long-suffering people.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0613.