FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2007

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

WASHINGTON-The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom is concerned over the detention of five Muslim dissidents in Egypt, another indication of backsliding by the Egyptian government in human rights protections including the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief.

Five members of an extended family belonging to the so-called Koranists were arrested in Egypt at the end of May. The Koranists are a small group that accepts only the Koran as its sole source of religious guidance and thus has been accused by the Egyptian government in the past of practicing beliefs deemed to deviate from Islamic law. The detainees include Abdellatif Muhammad Said, who has been working on a Web site promoting reformist views of Islam, and Amr Tharwat, an employee of a pro-democracy center headed by one of Egypt's most well-known human rights and political reform advocates, Saad Eddin Ibrahim. The government has not said under what charges the men are being held, although the Arabic language daily newspaper, Al-Masry al Youm, has said they face charges of "denigrating religions." The Commission has learned that the detainees have alleged ill-treatment or even torture by state security services.

"The U.S. government should promptly raise at the highest levels of the Egyptian government the arrests of the five Koranist members, who may be subject to ill-treatment," said Felice D. Gaer, chair of the Commission.

The five are in State Security Services detention, which has a long and well-documented record of poor treatment of detainees. Serious problems of discrimination, intolerance, and other human rights violations against members of religious minorities, as well as non-conforming Muslims, remain widespread in Egypt. Earlier this year, a court in Alexandria convicted and sentenced Abdel Karim Suleiman, an Internet blogger, to four years in prison: three years for insulting Islam and inciting sectarian strife and one year for criticizing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The Commission is also concerned over a case nearing its conclusion in an appeal being heard by Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court, which is expected to rule on July 1. The appeal is by 45 Coptic Christians who want to receive official recognition of their return to Christianity on their national identity cards. In April, a lower court turned down their request.

The Commission has recommended that the U.S. government urge the Egyptian government to remove de facto responsibility for religious affairs from the State Security Services, and to repeal Article 98(f) in the Penal Code which criminalizes insulting Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. In addition, the U.S. government should call on the Egyptian government to ensure that every Egyptian is protected against discrimination by modifying the national identity card either to omit mention of religious affiliation or to make such mention option. The full list of Commission recommendations regarding freedom of religion in Egypt can be found in the Annual Report.

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
June 29, 2007

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

WASHINGTON-The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff welcoming the Department's commitment to formally respond to USCIRF's Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal.

The full text of the letter follows.

June 29, 2007

Dear Secretary Chertoff:

Thank you for meeting with my fellow Commissioners and myself last month. As with our previous meeting, your understanding of the Commission's concerns regarding asylum seekers in the expedited removal process was particularly appreciated.

I particularly welcomed your commitment that the Department of Homeland Security will formally respond to our Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal. The Commission looks forward to receiving this response, and hopes that it will provide the basis for an ongoing dialogue on the Commission's recommendations between ourselves and the Department.

The Commission and I were pleased to hear more about the positive changes implemented by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). We understand that you are still reviewing the recommendation to allow asylum officers to grant asylum at the credible fear stage. We encourage you to make this policy change, as recommended and justified in the Commission's 2005 Report.

In the context of follow-up to theReport, Assistant Secretary Myers' efforts to reach out to the Commission merit a word of appreciation. The Commission welcomes the efforts that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is making to review national parole criteria and to train detention center personnel on cultural awareness and asylee population issues. We look forward to meeting with Assistant Secretary Myers again to continue the discussion on parole review. Allow me to reiterate the Commission's recommendation that detention standards be developed that are appropriate to the asylum seeker population, including the opening of other facilities based on the Broward County model.

We were pleased that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sent a representative to the meeting. We noted that quality assurance steps have been taken to monitor inspections and urge the agency to consider the further steps outlined in the Report, including the broader use of videotape.

As you know, the situation of Iraqi refugees has been an ongoing concern to the Commission. We applaud your recent decision to allow duress waivers to the material support bar to admission, so that refugee and asylum applicants forced to provide material support to terrorist organizations are no longer barred from the United States for such support solely as a result of such coerced actions. We hope this will be the first of the changes on material support issues that arise during the processing of Iraqi refugees. The Commission urges the Department to clarify that material support will not be a bar to individuals that provided support to groups opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Finally, the Commission and I look forward to working with you, CBP, ICE, and USCIS in the future. We consider it essential for the Department to ensure that American values in favor of refugee protection are reflected in the treatment that asylum seekers receive.

Sincerely,

Felice D. Gaer

Chair

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
June 29, 2007

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

WASHINGTON-A delegation from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan federal agency, returned earlier this month from a nine-day official visit to Saudi Arabia. The delegation, led by Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer, raised issues concerning the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief in the Kingdom that affect both Saudi citizens and the large population of foreign workers, as well as others overseas.

The delegation visited three distinct regions of the country in order to hear differing viewpoints: Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province. Among the Commission's interlocutors were Saudi government officials including the Minister of Islamic Affairs, the Minister of Culture and Information, and deputy ministers from the Interior and Foreign Affairs Ministries, members of the government's newly established National Human Rights Commission and of the non-governmental National Society for Human Rights, as well as legal experts, educators, community leaders, women's rights advocates, and journalists. The Commission regrets that the Saudi government did not grant requests for meetings with top officials at key agencies such as the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice (CPVPV) and the Ministries of Education and Justice.

"We appreciated the opportunity to visit different parts of the country and express our concerns. We are disappointed, however, that many officials with whom we sought to meet were not available for discussion," Gaer said.

The delegation's discussions focused on:

• halting the dissemination of intolerance literature and extremist ideology;

• reform of school textbooks and curricula to remove language encouraging intolerance, hatred, or violence on the basis of religious differences whether dealing with Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus or others;
• protecting the right of private worship;

• curbing harassment of religious practice by the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice; and

• empowering the National Human Rights Commission.

The delegation also explored:

• Saudi government efforts to institute political and social reforms, including through the National Dialogue Centers initiated by King Abdullah;

• the establishment of indigenous human rights institutions;

• the government's efforts to combat religious extremism;

• religious freedom restrictions and discrimination affecting followers of different schools of thought within Islam;

• limitations on the universal human rights of women; and

• freedom of expression, including on religiously sensitive issues in the press and other media.

The Commission was informed of some institutional movement by the Saudi government to address human rights violations. Also, the issue of abuses by the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, known as the mutawaa or religious police, received unprecedented exposure in the Saudi media while the delegation was visiting. The government has recently opened multiple investigations into alleged violations by members of the CPVPV, and at least two cases are going to trial.

On the eve of the USCIRF visit, the National Society for Human Rights published its first ever report, which calls for wide-ranging improvements in human rights practices in the Kingdom.

The Saudi government's Human Rights Commission, which investigates complaints from private citizens and has raised cases with government agencies, has now been operating in earnest for approximately six months. The Human Rights Commission has publicly committed itself to take up the issue of religious discrimination.

The delegation voiced many concerns in meetings with Saudi officials. Since 2004, the Secretary of State has designated Saudi Arabia as a Country of Particular Concern for its systematic and egregious violations of religious freedom. The Commission's concerns are laid out in the chapter on Saudi Arabia in its most recent Annual Report, which was issued on May 2.

Because the delegation could not meet with a number of key government officials and did not receive answers to several of the questions it posed in Saudi Arabia, the Commission has forwarded a list of follow-up queries to the Saudi Embassy in Washington in hopes of receiving further information and continuing to clarify the status of these issues. Later this summer, the Commission plans to issue a detailed report of its findings from the trip. In the meantime, it urges the U.S. government to remain closely and continually engaged in a candid discussion of religious freedom issues with the Saudi government.

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.