FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 11, 2008

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

WASHINGTON-The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom urges President Bush to raise the critical issue of ongoing Saudi violations of the freedom of religion and other human rights when he meets with Saudi leaders early next week. According to National Security Advisor Steven Hadley, the president's trip to the Middle East will highlight the U.S. government's "work in the region to combat terrorism and extremism, promote freedom, and seek peace and prosperity." The President should stress that respect for religious freedom and other human rights is an essential component of ensuring a stable, democratic, and peaceful society that guards against terror and extremism.

"President Bush should be emphasizing that the Saudi government must significantly improve its performance in matters of religious freedom and other human rights if it is to enjoy a true partnership with the United States," said Commission Chair Michael Cromartie.

President Bush should call specifically for the release of all religious prisoners in Saudi Arabia, including 17 Ismailis in Najran who have languished in prison for terms ranging from more than seven to 14 years. One Ismaili, Hadi Al-Mutaif, has been imprisoned since originally being sentenced to death for apostasy in 1994 for a remark he made as a teenager that was deemed blasphemous. He is serving a life sentence.

The Commission sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia in May-June 2007 to assess how far the Saudi authorities have progressed in implementing their previously articulated commitments to improve the climate for religious freedom. In July 2006, the U.S. State Department and the Saudi government confirmed a set of policies intended to decrease the grave violations of religious freedom in the Kingdom and the state-abetted export of extremist textbooks and teachers that promote religious hatred and intolerance the world over. Despite the failure of the Saudi government and the U.S. State Department to respond to the Commission's requests for copies of these textbooks, the Commission has recently received some Saudi textbooks from other, independent sources and is currently reviewing them to determine whether they still contain highly intolerant material.

The Commission found that in spite of its pledges to reform, the Saudi government persists in severely restricting all forms of public religious expression other than the government's own interpretation and enforcement of a strict school of Sunni Islam. This violates the rights of the large communities of Muslims from other schools of Sunni Islam, as well as members of the Shi'a community, who comprise 10-15 percent of the population in Saudi Arabia, and the two to three million non-Muslims residing in the Kingdom.

Even private worship is affected by the strictures. Over the past year, dozens of members of the Shi'a community in the Eastern Province have been detained for up to 30 days for holding small religious gatherings in private homes. Nearly a dozen British and American pilgrims, including two minors, were detained and held overnight by members of the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice (CPVPV) in Mecca in August 2007 after hours of interrogation and verbal and physical abuse. The pilgrims were detained only after it became known to members of the CPVPV that they were Shi'a.

The Saudi government continues to grant unwarranted power and impunity to the CPVPV, whose members harass, detain, whip, beat and otherwise mete out extrajudicial punishments to individuals deemed to have strayed from "appropriate" dress or behavior. Many Saudis believe that members of the force will never be prosecuted for violations of others' rights, including criminal actions, because they are protected by members of the religious establishment and the Royal family. Despite an increase over the past year in the number of investigations of abuses by members of the religious police, members have not been held accountable and the courts have dismissed several cases that have been prosecuted.

The Saudi government's harsh enforcement of its interpretation of Islam, together with other violations of freedom of religion, adversely affects the human rights of women. The Saudi government has continued discriminatory measures aimed at the destruction, rather than realization, of many of the human rights guaranteed to women. In one of the most recent egregious cases, a woman was convicted and sentenced last fall to 200 lashes and six months in prison because, immediately before she was raped by seven men, she was found alone in a car with a man who was not her relative, which is illegal in Saudi Arabia. She escaped the sentence only because King Abdullah pardoned her, but he also said he believed the punishment for the alleged crime was appropriate.

"The Commission sees an unmistakable gap between Saudi promises and performance," Cromartie said. "President Bush must strongly press the Saudis to ensure that their actions match their words."

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
Jan. 10, 2008

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

WASHINGTON-The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan, independent federal body, is seriously concerned about the riots between the Hindu and Christian religious communities in Kandhamal district, Orissa, which had particularly severe consequences on the minority Christian community: at least five people and possibly more have been killed, dozens injured, and over 500 displaced, including priests, nuns, and other individuals who reportedly remain in hiding. In addition, at least 400 homes and 20 churches were burned. In light of the frequency with which devastating acts of communal violence have occurred in India in recent years, the Commission fully supports the announcement by India's National Human Rights Commission to send an investigative team to Kandhamal to obtain first-hand information on the events there.

"A national-level investigation into the December 2007 violence in Orissa and subsequent prosecution will send a strong message to all that violence committed in the name of religion is never acceptable," said Commission Chair Michael Cromartie. "The reported acts of violence against religious communities in Orissa are serious enough to warrant a national-level investigation and response."

The clashes erupted on December 24, 2007 and are the subject of conflicting reports. According to some sources, hundreds of members of a Hindu extremist group demanding that Christmas celebrations be halted attacked Christian individuals, churches, offices, and residences, destroying homes, looting shops, and injuring a number of individuals, and these actions were soon followed by retaliatory actions by Christians against Hindus. Other sources say the unrest began when Christians attacked a Hindu leader, while yet others allege that Christians erected religious statues at a Hindu religious site.

During the subsequent three days of rioting, 20 churches and an untold number of prayer houses and private residences belonging to both Hindus and Christians were destroyed. Although hundreds of national troops reportedly were sent to the region, the government of Orissa reportedly failed to act quickly-thereby enabling the violence to spread and perpetrators to escape accountability. Members of the minority Christian community allege that local police did not respond adequately to calls for help.

Religiously motivated violence has broken out before in Orissa. In 1999, Hindu extremists in Orissa murdered Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, a crime for which the perpetrator remains incarcerated. According to Indian news reports, some Indian officials claim that violence between Hindus and Christians has decreased since the murder. However, international human rights groups report that extremist Hindu groups for years have been conducting a sometimes violent campaign against Christians in Orissa that state government officials have done little to halt.

"The U.S. government should urge the government of India at the very least to ensure that the perpetrators of the recent Hindu-Christian violence in Orissa are held to account and to protect the safety of members of religious minorities in that state," Cromartie said.

The U.S. government should also urge the Indian government to make more vigorous and effective efforts at the national level to stem violence against religious minorities. These efforts should include fulfillment of a 2004 pledge to criminalize inter-religious violence, and engagement in the pre-planning necessary to ensure that law enforcement officials can quell outbreaks of communal violence.

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
Jan. 4, 2008

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

WHEN: Monday, Jan. 7, 12-1 p.m.

WHERE: Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, Sixth Floor, Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C.

NOTE: A Photo ID is required for entry into the building.

RSVP:  [email protected]

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars are co-sponsoring a presentation on the Putin government's responses to increased xenophobia in Russia. The event features a talk by Aleksandr Verkhovsky, the director of the Moscow-based SOVA Center, on Monday, Jan. 7, from 12 to 1 p.m.

The SOVA Center has emerged as one of Russia's leading non-governmental organizations focusing on xenophobia and freedom of religion or belief in Russia. Mr. Verkhovsky will address recent amendments to the anti-extremism law as well as hate crimes. USCIRF Senior Policy Analyst Catherine Cosman will comment on Mr. Verkhovsky's talk.

In its most recent Policy Focus report on Russia, the Commission has analyzed the harsh impact of political authoritarianism, rising nationalism, officially tolerated xenophobia and intolerance, and the sometimes arbitrary official response to domestic security concerns on human rights in Russia. Those trends are having a particularly severe impact on Russia's Muslims and other religious and ethnic minorities. Last year, the Commission also published an extensive analysis of the impact of Russia's new law regulating NGOs. The Commission's policy recommendations to the U.S. government have included urging the Russian government to establish a nationwide anti-discrimination body, work with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to decrease hate crimes, and ensure the equal legal treatment of the members of religious minorities. For more information, see  http://www.uscirf.gov/countries/publications/policyfocus/Russia.pdf