FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 8, 2005

Contact:
Anne Johnson, Director of Communications, (202) 523-3240, ext. 27

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) calls on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to designate Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as "countries of particular concern," or CPCs, for the severe, systematic, and ongoing violations of freedom of religion or belief carried out by their governments. Last September in its Annual Review, the State Department, following the Commission's recommendation, added Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and Eritrea to its list of CPCs, but notably omitted Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan, among the most repressive states in the world today, allows virtually no independent religious activity. The government of Uzbekistan places strict restrictions on religious practice and continues to crack down harshly on individuals and groups that operate outside of government strictures.

"It is time for the U.S. government to tell the truth about the state of religious freedom in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and designate these countries as CPCs, as is clearly warranted," said Commission Chair Michael Cromartie. "In the face of the religious freedom violations persistently perpetrated by the Turkmen and Uzbek governments, the failure to name them CPCs is not only unconscionable, but it violates the spirit and letter of the International Religious Freedom Act," Cromartie said.

Since 2001, the Commission has recommended that Turkmenistan be designated a CPC. In addition to the severe government restrictions on religious practice that effectively ban much, if not most, religious activity, Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov's ever-escalating personality cult has become a quasi-religion to which the Turkmen population is forced to adhere. His self-published work of "spiritual thoughts," called "Rukhnama," is required reading in all schools. In addition, copies ofRukhnamamust be given equal prominence to the Koran and the Bible in mosques and churches. In the past year, in a move likely aimed at avoiding possible CPC designation, Niyazov passed several decrees that permitted the registration of five very small religious communities. Despite this alleged easing of registration criteria, religious groups must ask permission from the state before holding worship services of any kind. It is unclear what-if any-practical benefits registration actually provides. Moreover, religious groups that do not meet often arbitrary registration rules still face possible criminal penalties due to their unregistered status and even newly registered religious groups have been raided by police.

Even the rights of the two largest religious communities, the majority Sunni Muslims and the Russian Orthodox, are seriously circumscribed. Last year, seven mosques were destroyed in the country and Niyasov forbade the construction of any new ones. Turkmenistan's former chief Mufti, Nazrullah ibn Ibadullah, was sentenced to 22 years in prison, because he apparently refused to elevate theRukhnamato the level of the Koran. Just last month, Niyazov undertook various moves against the country's only Muslim theological faculty. And, according to recent reports, the Russian Orthodox Church has been refused re-registration as part of an effort by Niyazov to pressure Russian Orthodox parishes in Turkmenistan to sever ties with the Tashkent-based Central Asian diocese and to subordinate them to the Moscow Patriarchate.

"Turkmenistan is a highly repressive state - where conditions are comparable to those in North Korea -- whose people suffer under the yoke of a personality cult, which allows them few freedoms of any kind, including religious freedom," Cromartie said. "It is extremely troubling that a few superficial decrees regarding religious freedom -- that do little if anything to change the situation on the ground -- have allowed Turkmenistan yet again to escape the CPC designation it so clearly deserves."

The Commission also recommends that Uzbekistan, which the Commission visited in the past year, be designated a CPC. The Uzbek government continues to exercise a high degree of control over the practice of the Islamic religion, as well as cracking down harshly on Muslim individuals, groups, and mosques that do not conform to state-prescribed practices or that the government claims are associated with extremist political programs. This has resulted in the imprisonment of thousands of persons in recent years, many of whom are denied the right to due process. There are credible reports that many of those arrested continue to be tortured or beaten in detention, despite official Uzbek promises to halt this practice.

Uzbekistan has a highly restrictive law on religion that severely limits the ability of religious communities to function, leaving over 100 religious communities of various denominations currently denied registration. Reportedly, all Protestant activity in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan is now banned and several Protestants now allegedly face criminal charges for their religious activities.

"The government of Uzbekistan does face threats to its security, including from members ofHizb ut-Tahrirand other political groups that claim a religious linkage, and the Commission's recommendation of CPC status for Uzbekistan should not be construed as a defense of that or any similar organization," Commission Vice Chair Felice Gaer said. "Nevertheless, these threats simply do not excuse or justify the scope and harshness of the government's ill treatment of religious believers nor the continued practice of torture, which reportedly remains widespread."

The shooting by Uzbek troops of hundreds of unarmed protestors in Andijon on May 12-13, provides the most brutal example to date of the Uzbek government's response to real or perceived threats to its security. In Andijon's aftermath, the Uzbek authorities have mounted a repressive campaign against religious believers, particularly Muslims; Andijon residents; journalists, human rights activists and Uzbek employees of Western NGOs. The Uzbek government has refused requests from the U.S. and other Western governments for an independent international investigation, probably by the OSCE, into the Andijon tragedy. Yet, rather than withdrawing U.S. forces from Uzbekistan in protest, the U.S. Department of Defense publicly stated that the decision was up to the Uzbeks. And so on July 29, in response to U.S. assistance in relocating Uzbek refugees from Andijon who had found temporary refuge in Kyrgyzstan, the Uzbek government said that American troops would have to leave Uzbekistan in 180 days. "By leaving the initiative to the Uzbek government about the U.S. use of the Uzbek military base, the U.S. squandered a good opportunity to stand firm on its human rights principles," Cromartie observed.

"Without a doubt, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan deserve CPC designation according to the criteria in the International Religious Freedom Act. The Commission calls on the Department of State to adhere to principles of the Act and state the truth about these countries by naming them in this year's upcoming round as the severe religious freedom violators that they so clearly are," Cromartie said.

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
August 4, 2005

Contact:
Anne Johnson, Director of Communications, (202) 523-3240 (202) 523-3240, ext. 27

THE WASHINGTON POST August 4, 2005

Iraq Must Avoid a Rollback of Rights

By Preeta D. Bansal and Nina Shea

Iraq's new democracy will be crippled from the outset if the drafts of the country's permanent constitution being circulated are any indication of where things are headed. In a significant rollback from language in the interim constitution, known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), current drafts would threaten regional stability and thwart stated U.S. goals of promoting freedom and democracy. They would establish a constitution under which dissent and debate would not be protected. As the deadline for a constitution approaches, the United States and the international community must redouble their efforts to ensure that an Iran-like theocratic state is not established in Iraq.

Current drafts would limit Iraq's international human rights obligations to those that do not contradict Islam or Islamic law. They assert that an undefined version of Islamic law, or sharia , is the main source of law. They make no reference to freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi, and they provide no guarantee of individual freedom of thought and conscience. One clause in the constitution would forbid any law contrary to sharia, leaving the door open for interpretations by unelected Islamic "experts" to be considered sacrosanct. In fact, the drafts authorize many of the constitutional court's justices to be sharia jurists who may have no education or experience in civil law -- placing Iraq's judiciary in the company of those in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which allow judges without traditional legal training to decide matters pertaining to constitutional law. Basic individual rights, perhaps even the constitution itself, would be protected only if they were not viewed as contrary to judicial interpretations of Islam.

This is a radical departure from the TAL, which set out Iraq's human rights obligations according to international instruments and guaranteed, among other things, the right to "freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief and practice" for every Iraqi -- man, woman, Arab, Kurd, Muslim, non-Muslim, believer, nonbeliever.

The guarantees in the TAL were a positive break from past Iraqi constitutions, which typically guaranteed aspects of freedom of religion only to minority groups, as opposed to individual Iraqis. Guaranteeing freedom of thought and conscience as an individual right for Muslims as well as for minority religious groups is essential if debate within Islam and dissent from imposed orthodoxies is to be allowed, and if the political breathing space necessary for plural and alternative voices within the Islamic tradition is to be created.

Now is not the time for the international community to take a hands-off approach, which it may be tempted to do by a false sense of cultural relativism and a misguided respect for a flawed "democratic" process that could, ultimately, lead to undemocratic results. The protection of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief is not un-Islamic. Like all individuals, Muslims deserve and need the freedom to think and believe. An April poll by the International Republican Institute found that 70 percent of the Iraqi people want equal rights for women and 60 percent want freedom of religion. According to a recent study by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, surveying the constitutions of the world's 44 predominantly Muslim countries:

• More than half of the world's Muslim population (estimated at over 1.3 billion) lives in countries that are neither Islamic republics nor have declared Islam the state religion.
• Several countries in which Islam is the declared state religion provide constitutional guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief that compare favorably with international legal standards.
• Similarly, countries with Islam as the declared state religion may maintain constitutional provisions protecting rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly that compare favorably with international standards.
• A number of constitutions of predominantly Muslim countries incorporate or otherwise refer to international human rights instruments and legal norms.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, have asserted in the past week the importance of women's rights in Iraq. But the problems with the draft constitution go beyond this. Women's equality will be in peril unless individual freedom of religion or belief is ensured. Otherwise, a woman will not be able to opt out of the religious laws of her sect.

Moreover, the absence of guaranteed religious freedom would severely damage the democratic framework, because individuals engaged in political debate or dissent would have no protection against possible criminal trials for apostasy and blasphemy.

The U.S. government and the international community should invoke universal human rights standards as a basis for dialogue and diplomatic engagement with Iraqis. This is crucial for regional security and stability, as well as for humanity. These standards should be a fundamental aspect of any constitution-related assistance programs and a yardstick for measuring the success of Iraq's constitutional process.

In the short time remaining, the administration should direct its efforts to backing individual human rights guarantees in the permanent constitution that are consistent with obligations set forth in international instruments to which Iraq is a party. It should also call on the United Nations, other allies and international experts providing technical advice on the drafting process to support incorporation of these guarantees. And it should urge Iraq's transitional government to include underrepresented ethnic and religious minorities, such as Sunni Muslims, Christians and others, in the constitutional process.

The United States has fought a war of liberation for Iraq, at great cost in blood and treasure. It must not settle now for anything less than the vision articulated by Rice: "a strong and vibrant and vital democracy here in the heart of the Middle East."

Preeta D. Bansal, former solicitor general of the state of New York, is a member and former chairman of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Nina Shea, vice chairman of the commission, directs Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom. She is an adviser to the Bush administration on Iraq.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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.

Iraq Must Avoid a Rollback of Rights

The Washington Post
August 4, 2005

By Preeta D. Bansal and Nina Shea

Iraq's new democracy will be crippled from the outset if the drafts of the country's permanent constitution being circulated are any indication of where things are headed. In a significant rollback from language in the interim constitution, known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), current drafts would threaten regional stability and thwart stated U.S. goals of promoting freedom and democracy. They would establish a constitution under which dissent and debate would not be protected. As the deadline for a constitution approaches, the United States and the international community must redouble their efforts to ensure that an Iran-like theocratic state is not established in Iraq.

Current drafts would limit Iraq's international human rights obligations to those that do not contradict Islam or Islamic law. They assert that an undefined version of Islamic law, or sharia , is the main source of law. They make no reference to freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi, and they provide no guarantee of individual freedom of thought and conscience. One clause in the constitution would forbid any law contrary to sharia, leaving the door open for interpretations by unelected Islamic "experts" to be considered sacrosanct. In fact, the drafts authorize many of the constitutional court's justices to be sharia jurists who may have no education or experience in civil law -- placing Iraq's judiciary in the company of those in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which allow judges without traditional legal training to decide matters pertaining to constitutional law. Basic individual rights, perhaps even the constitution itself, would be protected only if they were not viewed as contrary to judicial interpretations of Islam.

This is a radical departure from the TAL, which set out Iraq's human rights obligations according to international instruments and guaranteed, among other things, the right to "freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief and practice" for every Iraqi -- man, woman, Arab, Kurd, Muslim, non-Muslim, believer, nonbeliever.

The guarantees in the TAL were a positive break from past Iraqi constitutions, which typically guaranteed aspects of freedom of religion only to minority groups, as opposed to individual Iraqis. Guaranteeing freedom of thought and conscience as an individual right for Muslims as well as for minority religious groups is essential if debate within Islam and dissent from imposed orthodoxies is to be allowed, and if the political breathing space necessary for plural and alternative voices within the Islamic tradition is to be created.

Now is not the time for the international community to take a hands-off approach, which it may be tempted to do by a false sense of cultural relativism and a misguided respect for a flawed "democratic" process that could, ultimately, lead to undemocratic results. The protection of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief is not un-Islamic. Like all individuals, Muslims deserve and need the freedom to think and believe. An April poll by the International Republican Institute found that 70 percent of the Iraqi people want equal rights for women and 60 percent want freedom of religion. According to a recent study by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, surveying the constitutions of the world's 44 predominantly Muslim countries:

• More than half of the world's Muslim population (estimated at over 1.3 billion) lives in countries that are neither Islamic republics nor have declared Islam the state religion.
• Several countries in which Islam is the declared state religion provide constitutional guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief that compare favorably with international legal standards.
• Similarly, countries with Islam as the declared state religion may maintain constitutional provisions protecting rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly that compare favorably with international standards.
• A number of constitutions of predominantly Muslim countries incorporate or otherwise refer to international human rights instruments and legal norms.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, have asserted in the past week the importance of women's rights in Iraq. But the problems with the draft constitution go beyond this. Women's equality will be in peril unless individual freedom of religion or belief is ensured. Otherwise, a woman will not be able to opt out of the religious laws of her sect.

Moreover, the absence of guaranteed religious freedom would severely damage the democratic framework, because individuals engaged in political debate or dissent would have no protection against possible criminal trials for apostasy and blasphemy.

The U.S. government and the international community should invoke universal human rights standards as a basis for dialogue and diplomatic engagement with Iraqis. This is crucial for regional security and stability, as well as for humanity. These standards should be a fundamental aspect of any constitution-related assistance programs and a yardstick for measuring the success of Iraq's constitutional process.

In the short time remaining, the administration should direct its efforts to backing individual human rights guarantees in the permanent constitution that are consistent with obligations set forth in international instruments to which Iraq is a party. It should also call on the United Nations, other allies and international experts providing technical advice on the drafting process to support incorporation of these guarantees. And it should urge Iraq's transitional government to include underrepresented ethnic and religious minorities, such as Sunni Muslims, Christians and others, in the constitutional process.

The United States has fought a war of liberation for Iraq, at great cost in blood and treasure. It must not settle now for anything less than the vision articulated by Rice: "a strong and vibrant and vital democracy here in the heart of the Middle East."

Preeta D. Bansal, former solicitor general of the state of New York, is a member and former chairman of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Nina Shea, vice chairman of the commission, directs Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom. She is an adviser to the Bush administration on Iraq.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company