Jul 25, 2013
Editor’s note: Katrina Lantos Swett is chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Mary Ann Glendon is vice chairwoman of USCIRF. The views expressed are their own.
As much of the world’s attention has been focused on the huge human rights abuses in Syria, a severely persecuted group from China has quietly marked nearly a decade-and-a-half since the start of a brutal campaign of detention, defamation and public degradation.
On July 20, the Falun Gong – a peaceful movement founded in 1992 and characterized by the practice of meditation exercises and moral precepts – marked 14 years since the launch of a government campaign against it. It is time for Washington and the world to take note of its plight.
Beijing’s efforts against the Falun Gong, which stem from fears over its substantial growth as an independent-minded group thriving outside of Communist ideology and control, have been remarkable.
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Jul 24, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 23, 2013 | By USCIRF
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, was elected today as Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Professor George was appointed to the Commission in 2012 by Speaker of the House John Boehner and is serving his first term as a Commissioner.
Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, USCIRF's outgoing Chair and an appointee of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, announced Professor George's selection. "I have been honored to work alongside Professor George this past year in the struggle to guarantee religious freedom abroad for people of every faith and shade of belief. He is a true human rights champion whose compassion for victims of oppression and wisdom about international religious freedom shine through all we have accomplished this past year. Our bipartisan Commission is united in its admiration for Professor George's skills as an advocate and leader of the international religious freedom movement. The Commission is eager to continue its work under his able leadership.”
Commenting on his election as Chair of USCIRF, George said, "I am deeply honored that my colleagues have entrusted me with this position of leadership. I have big shoes to fill: Dr. Lantos Swett is a visionary leader who brings people together and empowers them in support of international religious freedom. As our leader, she tirelessly and effectively promoted this most fundamental of human rights. It will be my constant endeavor to live up to her outstanding example as USCIRF works to ensure that the cause of religious freedom, understood in its most robust sense, is given the high priority it deserves in the formation and execution of U.S. foreign policy. While much has been accomplished, much remains to be done.”
Prior to joining USCIRF, George served on the President's Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He also has served on UNESCO's World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.
Professor George is a recipient of many notable honors, including the United States Presidential Citizens Medal and the Honorific Medal for Human Rights of the Republic of Poland.
An award winning teacher at Princeton, George is a prolific writer in the areas of moral and political philosophy, philosophy of law, and constitutional law and theory. His most recent book is Conscience and Its Enemies (ISI Books, 2013). His scholarly articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, and other leading journals of law, philosophy, and political science. His writings also have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Boston Review, and the Times Literary Supplement.
A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, George holds a master's degree in theology from Harvard and a doctorate in philosophy of law from Oxford University, as well as honorary doctorates of law, letters, science, ethics, divinity, civil law, humane letters, and juridical science.
Also on July 23, two USCIRF Commissioners, M. Zuhdi Jasser and Dr. Lantos Swett, were elected as Vice-Chairs.
M. Zuhdi Jasser, appointed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in March 2012, is serving his first term on the Commission. He is president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy which advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the U.S. Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. He is also a founding member of the American Islamic Leadership Coalition which represents a diverse group of reform minded American Muslim leaders. The son of Syrian immigrants, Dr. Jasser is a former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy where he served 11 years. Dr. Jasser is a nationally recognized expert who is widely published and has spoken at hundreds of national and international events and given testimony to Congress on the value of the centrality of religious liberty in the contest of ideas within Islam. Dr. Jasser is the author ofA Battle for the Soul of Islamand a physician currently in private practice in Phoenix Arizona specializing in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology.
Dr. Lantos Swett, also serving her first term at USCIRF, is President of the Lantos Foundation. As President of the foundation, which was founded in 2008, she works to carry on the human rights legacy of her father, the late Representative Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress. Dr. Lantos Swett teaches human rights and American foreign policy at Tufts University. She also served as Deputy Counsel to the Criminal Justice Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee for then-Senator Joe Biden.
Jul 22, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 22, 2013 | by USCIRF
WASHINGTON D.C. -- On the one-year anniversary of the crackdown on Muslim protestors for peacefully advocating for their religious freedom rights, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) calls on the Ethiopian government to release 29 individuals who have been detained and put on trial.
In July 2012, the government arrested hundreds of Muslims peacefully demanding that it cease interfering in their religious affairs and allow their community to vote freely for representatives on the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC). While most were released, 29 were charged on October 29, 2012 under the government's Anti-Terror Proclamation, accused of "intending to advance a political, religious or ideological cause” by force and the "planning, preparation, conspiracy, incitement and attempt of terrorist acts.” It was the first time that Ethiopia's terrorism law was used in connection with a religious freedom issue.
"We are deeply concerned that Ethiopia's government is seeking to silence peaceful religious freedom proponents by detaining and trying them in secret under trumped-up terrorism charges. They should be released now and their trials halted,” said USCIRF Chair Katrina Lantos Swett. "When USCIRF was in Ethiopia in December 2012, we met with lawyers for the 29 who reported that their clients had been tortured and experienced other ill-treatment in detention. Since then, the Commission has expressed concern about a February 2013program, Jihadawi Harekat (Holy War Movement). This program, which the government aired on Ethiopia TV and portrayed the protesters and those arrested as terrorists, could prejudice the outcome of their trial. The U.S. government must increase its advocacy to ensure that the defendants' religious freedom and human and due process rights are respected."
Starting in December 2011, Muslims in Addis Ababa and across Ethiopia held weekly peaceful demonstrations in mosques after Friday prayers to protest efforts by the government and the EIASC to impose al-Ahbash, a foreign interpretation of Islam, on their community. While officials did not stop the protests for almost six months, as they grew in size, protestors reported that security forces began intimidating them and their families to discourage continued demonstrations.
The first arrests occurred on July 13, 2012, when police raided the Aweliya Mosque as individuals gathered to plan for both a charity event and protests to coincide with an upcoming African Union Summit in Addis Ababa. Protestors reportedly were beaten and arrested, with some witnesses alleging police use of tear gas and live ammunition. On July 19-20, the police continued to arrest Muslim community members, including journalists and the 17 members of the Arbitration Committee the protestors had elected to negotiate with the government. On July 21, police broke up a sit-in protesting the arrests. According to witnesses, protestors were subjected to beatings, tear gas and arrests.
Those charged include nine members of the Arbitration Committee, the editor-in-chief of the Ye'Muslimoch Guday Yusuf Getachew, and Habiba Mohammed, the wife of the (now former) Minister of Civil Service, Junedin Sado.