Nov 24, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 24, 2008
Contact: Judith Ingram
Communications Director
(202) 523-3240, ext 127
WASHINGTON-The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom is deeply concerned over a draft law that gravely threatens freedom of religion in Kazakhstan in the latest, disturbing signal of tightening restrictions on human rights in the Central Asian country. The current, unpublished version of the law does not reflect most key points challenged in public discussion inside Kazakhstanor points conveyed by the Commission in press releases, conversations, or meetings with Kazakh officials over the past several months, including last week. While an expert team from the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe will be in Kazakhstan this week to analyze the latest draft-just as the country"s parliament will be voting on the final draft -the Kazakh government so far has refused to make public either the latest draft or the reportedly extensive OSCE critiques of it.
Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer met with Kazakh representatives in October in Warsaw, where issues of concern were raised. Commissioner Imam Talal Eid and Commission staff met with a Kazakh delegation in Washington last week to discuss the draft law. While the delegation members, including members of parliament and an official from the presidential administration, listened to Commission concerns, they did not provide the Commission access to the draft law or to critiques by the OSCE"s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Several delegation members claimed that the OSCE"s responses to the draft law had been "generally positive,” but that assessment is not shared outside Kazakhstan, not to mention by the religious communities most affected. In fact, there is growing concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in Kazakhstan, including alarming restrictions on the freedoms of expression and association and weakening rule of law. The government is assuming ever greater and more arbitrary powers at the expense of citizens" rights; some advocates see the regressive religion law as an emblem of this disturbing trend.
"As an incoming OSCE Chair in 2010, Kazakhstan should strive to be like Caesar"s wife: above criticism or complaint with regard to its human rights record. Unfortunately, that is not the direction in which events are moving, as illustrated by the opaque style with which the religion law is being handled. At a minimum, it should accord more attention to OSCE's substantial expertise in assessing how legislation comports with participating states" obligations under international accords,” Gaer said.
The current draft will come to a vote in the upper chamber of parliament this week before going to the Kazakh president for signature. It reportedly will introduce more restrictive registration requirements for all religious groups, reduce the number of religious communities permitted to operate in Kazakhstan, and increase the penalties for members of unregistered communities. It will also increase the minimum number of members of religious organizations necessary to register from 10 to 50. According to the law, unregistered religious communities could not teach or profess their religion, own property, or rent public space for religious activities.
While the latest version of the law reportedly dropped the requirement that religious communities annually submit detailed statistical data on their activity to the government, it still requires that registered communities provide unspecified information to the authorities every year so as to maintain legal status, and it sets no time limits on executive agency"s responses to registration requests. In addition, the latest draft version of the law no longer gives judges any flexibility in setting fines for those found to have violated the religion law. A ban on charitable activity linked to religion that "exploits the material needs of citizens" may be used to make faith-based humanitarian work impossible.
On Nov. 21, the OSCE issued a formal request to the Kazakh government that it make public its review of the draft religion law. Previous such requests have been ignored.
"Surely that is not too much to ask of a country that will chair that OSCE in 2010,” Gaer said. "No matter what the outcome of the legislative process, the Commission will watch closely as the law is implemented and as we prepare to make further recommendations on human rights including freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief.”
Nov 19, 2008
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Nov 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 12, 2008
Contact: Judith Ingram
Communications Director
202/523-3240
[email protected]
The Saudis' dubious interfaith agenda at the UN
The country's lack of religious freedom betrays its lofty rhetoric. The real aim of its 'dialogue' is to promote a global blasphemy law.
WASHINGTON—World leaders gathering at the United Nations this week for a special session of the General Assembly to advance interfaith dialogue should have no illusions that their efforts will miraculously promote mutual respect between religious communities or end abuses of religious freedom.
Saudi King Abdullah, who initiated this week's special session, is quietly enlisting the leaders' support for a global law to punish blasphemy – a campaign championed by the 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference that puts the rights of religions ahead of individual liberties.
If the campaign succeeds, states that presume to speak in the name of religion will be able to crush religious freedom not only in their own country, but abroad.
The UN session is designed to endorse a meeting of religious leaders in Spain last summer that was the brainchild of King Abdullah and organized by the Muslim World League. That meeting resulted in a final statement counseling promotion of "respect for religions, their places of worship, and their symbols ... therefore preventing the derision of what people consider sacred."
The lofty-sounding principle is, in fact, a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion. Instead of promoting harmony, however, this effort will exacerbate divisions and intensify religious repression.
Such prohibitions have already been used in some countries to restrict discussion of individuals' freedom vis-à-vis the state, to prevent criticism of political figures or parties, to curb dissent from prevailing views and beliefs, and even to incite and to justify violence.
They undermine the standards codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the keystone of the United Nations, by granting greater rights to religions than to individuals, including those who choose to hold no faith – or who would seek to convert.
Another stark irony hangs over the UN special session this week. Saudi Arabia is one of the world's worst abusers of religious freedom, a fact recognized by the Bush administration when it named it a "country of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act in 2004. The king couldn't hold such a conference at home, where conservative clerics no doubt would purge the guest list of Jews from Israel, Baha'is, and Ahmadis.
The Saudi government permits the public practice of only one interpretation of Islam. This forces the 2-to-3 million Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and other expatriate workers there to leave their convictions at the border, since non-Muslim places of worship are prohibited, non-Muslim religious materials risk confiscation, and even private worship is affected by the strictures.
It also violates the rights of the large communities of Muslims who adhere to Islamic traditions other than the one deemed orthodox by Saudi clerics. In the past two years, dozens of Shiites have been detained for up to 30 days for holding small religious gatherings at home. One Ismaili, Hadi Al-Mutaif, is serving a life sentence after being condemned for apostasy in 1994 for a remark he made as a teenager that was deemed blasphemous. The alleged crime of apostasy, in fact, can be punished by death.
The government's policies are enforced by the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, a roving religious police force, armed with whips, that regularly oversteps its authority and is unchecked by the judiciary.
Women seeking to exercise basic freedoms of speech, movement, association, and equality before the law have experienced particularly severe abuse.
In a particularly egregious recent case, a woman was gang-raped as punishment by seven men who found her alone in a car with a man who was not her relative. She escaped the sentence of 200 lashes and six months in prison only because of a pardon by King Abdullah, yet he also said he believed the sentence was appropriate.
Holding a session on advancing interfaith dialogue abroad is a pale substitute for hosting it in the kingdom, where the message of respect for freedom of religion and belief is most needed.
Against the background of Saudi repression and the kingdom's role in exporting extremism, including through school textbooks preaching hatred of "unbelievers," the UN and every world leader attending the special session should be demanding an end to severe violations of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia.
Dialogue is no substitute for compliance with universal human rights standards.
The monarch would make a far greater contribution by exponentially increasing his efforts to promote religious freedom at home, where religious intolerance reigns. A welcome first step would be to release Hadi Al-Mutaif and all other religious prisoners who remain behind bars in Saudi Arabia.
• Donald H. Argue and Leonard A. Leo are members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.