TESTIMONY OF Kathryn Cameron Porter, President
Leadership Ccouncil For Human Rights, Washington, D.C.

SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD TO
United States House Committee on International Relations
Subcommitee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations

HEARING ON
Examination of a Fundamental Human Right:
THE 2006 INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT

December 21, 2006

Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. I would like to thank Committee Chairman Henry Hyde for his service in Congress on behalf of beleaguered peoples around the world. His commitment to justice and freedom is unparalleled. I have been proud to know him from the time he served in the Illinois State House of Representatives to this culmination of a life spent in service to others. I would also like to thank Subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith for his unrelenting commitment to human rights, particularly the right to religious freedom, and for his strong stance on the issue when others have not prioritized it in U.S. foreign policy.

The Leadership Council for Human Rights (LCHR) is committed to promoting and protecting human rights, religious freedom among them, throughout the world. Freedom of belief is the most fundamental human right, recognized as such in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; yet people of diverse religious traditions in many countries continue to be denied the right to practice their faith and worship as they wish.

The 2006 International Religious Freedom (IRF) Report is an important tool by which our government gauges the state of religious freedom in the world. It should and can provide a foundation for effective advocacy and action by the U.S. government with those countries who fall short of their international obligations; as important as the issuance of a timely, accurate, and complete report is that our government then uses the report to inform and support its proactive pursuit of improvements in the affected countries identified by the report. Without an Administration that is fully engaged in using the influence it wields in bilateral relationships to promote increased respect for human rights and religious freedom, the promise of the annual human rights/international religious freedom reporting mechanisms and the legislation which supports them cannot be realized.

New developments during the past year in two of LCHR’s countries of focus, Egypt and Vietnam, highlight both important progress and continuing problems with their governments’ respective approaches to religious freedom issues. While Egypt and Vietnam are vastly different countries and cultures, they share the common trait of having ethnic or religious minorities which have faced ongoing discrimination against or repression of their religious practices and been pressured to assimilate into the larger social or government culture in the name of “national identity” and unity. In both countries, the 2006 IRF report correctly identifies a mix of progress and continued problems.

In Egypt, the State Department cites continued restrictions on freedom of belief and the practice of religious rites, affecting both the country’s Christian and Baha’i communities, while also noting President Mubarak’s issuance of a decree loosening restrictions on church construction and repair. In Vietnam, the State Department describes significant improvements in long-standing strictures on religious organization and practice; these improvements were part of the rationale for the Administration’s decision early November, following the IRF Report’s release and on the eve of President Bush’s departure for Hanoi, to remove Vietnam’s designation as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC). This decision, however, was made in direct contradiction of the recommendation not to remove the designation by the U.S. Committee for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent and non-partisan U.S. government agency whose mandate is to research, report, and make such recommendations.

In recent months LCHR testified or submitted written testimony at various Congressional hearings on human rights, including the Subcommittee on Middle East and Central Asia hearing, “Review of U.S. Assistance Programs to Egypt, Part II,” and the Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing, “Human Rights in Vietnam Today.” In both of these forums, LCHR expressed serious concern about continuing restrictions placed on religious freedom in Egypt and in Vietnam, which include the following:

In Egypt:

Repression of ethno-religious minorities, specifically the Copts, is ongoing and significant. I traveled to Cairo, Alexandria, and the surrounding areas in June 2006, and experienced a situation so precarious that it reminded me of a 1980 fact-finding mission to the Soviet Union.

Restrictions on church repair and construction have improved in principle but remain problematic. While authority to grant permission for such activities has now been given to provincial governors instead of residing with the President, as was the case until late 2005, I visited a church outside of Alexandria where State Security agents had arrested workers for conducting routine maintenance. Security officials had surrounded the church, creating palpable fear in the local community.

Conversion from Islam is effectively denied, and forced conversion to Islam is occurring. I met with Muslim converts to Christianity who live in fear of being discovered, and heard firsthand from these individuals their belief that they would be attacked or even killed if their conversion was made known. I also spoke with Coptic parents whose teen daughters had been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam and marry their captors, and who were then allowed to contact their parents again only after they turned 18.

Coptic women who do not cover their heads, or who display a visible of their faith such as a cross, are targeted by extremists. I met face to face with victims of acid and knife attacks who suffered violence because they did not adhere to the traditional dress code of Muslim women.

In Vietnam:

In the wake of granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to Vietnam and its accompanying entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), it is essential that the U.S. continues and strengthens its engagement with Vietnam on religious freedom and other human rights issues. The increased pragmatism shown by Vietnam in its relations with the U.S. in recent years has benefited the state of human rights policies and practices promulgated by the Vietnamese government; with Vietnam’s PNTR/WTO goals having been achieved, and the Administration’s decision, against the advice of the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom, to remove Vietnam’s CPC designation, many informed advocates and observers do not see the continued incentive for good cooperation with the U.S. on human rights issues. The newly-solidified economic ties between the U.S. and Vietnam, and the full normalization of bilateral relations that they represent, should be viewed not as ending but rather a new platform for increased U.S. engagement with Vietnam and for continued expansion of the human rights/religious freedom “space” in Vietnam.

Of continuing concern is the credible threat of detention and forcible return to Vietnam of ethnic minority asylum-seekers from the Central Highlands who have fled to Cambodia fearing religious persecution. The Vietnamese and Cambodian governments, which coordinate closely on security and movement issues along their shared border, must both ensure that their treatment of those who seek asylum in Cambodia is in accordance with their obligations under international law.

UNHCR access to newly-arrived asylum seekers in Cambodia is intermittent and subject to delays imposed by the Cambodian government, and in Vietnam, UNHCR, diplomats and other interested observers have very limited access to repatriated or forcibly returned asylum seekers, requiring central government authorization for and facilitation of travel to the sometimes remote regions where these individuals are generally located. There are credible reports of the detention or arrest of persons attempting to leave Vietnam to seek asylum in Cambodia, a fundamental right which along with freedom of religion is enshrined in the most basic international human rights covenants to which both these countries are bound.

Recent Developments:

Since the release of the 2006 International Religious Freedom Report, developments in Egypt and Vietnam indicate the need for continued vigilance to promote freedom of religion for all, not just for some.

Last week, the supreme administrative court of Egypt denied Baha’is the right to state their religion on official documents, and in the ruling, Judge Sayed Nofal wrote: “The constitution promotes freedom of belief for the three recognized heavenly religions and they are Islam, Christianity and Judaism. As for the Baha’is, Islamic jurists have all agreed that the Baha’i faith is not one of the three recognized religions. Those who belong to this religion are apostates of Islam, because the faith’s principles contradict the Islamic religion and all other religions.”

This judgment could in effect make non-citizens of the 2,000 Baha’is in Egypt, and LCHR joins the human rights community in condemning the ruling.

As a regional leader, Egypt should strive to be an example for other Middle Eastern states struggling with sectarian violence. Instead, it continues to discriminate against members of religious minorities which comprise approximately 12 percent of the population. As noted above, conversion to Islam is encouraged in Egypt through discriminatory and sometimes criminal methods. Financial incentives and societal pressure (refusal to grant ID cards, exclusion from academic institutions and from promotion within government or military service, etc.), as well as kidnapping and forced conversions, are used to prompt Copts and other non-Muslims to convert.

We urge members of this Committee to continue to support secular channels and the broadening of a civic culture that promotes religious tolerance, as referenced by the 2006 International Religious Freedom Report. Public space for such dialogue does not currently exist in Egypt, and must be cultivated through grassroots civil society development networks.

With respect to Vietnam, on the same day that the State Department announced its removal from the list of “Countries of Particular Concern” and with an imminent vote in Congress on granting PNTR to Vietnam, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a UK-based human rights organization, released a translation of an internal government training manual issued by the central Religious Affairs Commission detailing government policies and practices relating to Protestant Christians in Vietnam’s Northwest Highlands. A stated objective of the manual is to curtail the propagation of Protestantism among indigenous tribes in this region. It lays out a new government policy whereby provincial authorities are given substantial autonomy to manage the alleged Protestant threat.

LCHR has verified the original Vietnamese-language document’s authenticity, and the English translation suggests conflicting directives on religious freedom coming from the Vietnamese government. The manual simultaneously acknowledges the need for greater religious freedom and authorizes the forcible restriction of this fundamental freedom - sometimes in the same sentence. For instance, the manual simultaneously sets out “to guarantee the right to believe or not to believe in religion for the ethnic minorities and to resolutely subdue the abnormally rapid and spontaneous development of the Protestant religion in the region.”

Language in the document links the spread of Protestantism to schemes promulgated by so-called “internal and foreign enemy forces,” and calls for a multi-tiered response to these alleged threats on the part of local governments, depending on the degree to which the religion has already infiltrated a specific locale. Where Protestant religious practice is already well-entrenched the approach described is relatively benign – calling for enhanced church registration initiatives, for example. Activities directed for those areas where Protestantism has not yet gained a firm foothold are more troubling, with officials in some cases being encouraged to attempt to secure renunciations of faith, and to “mobilize and persuade the people to return to their traditional beliefs.” This document confirms the extent to which the right to free religious practice, particularly for Vietnam’s indigenous peoples, continues to be limited as a matter of central government policy. The relatively wide latitude granted to local authorities to do as they see fit gives local official the discretion to decide who can and cannot participate in religious activities, a direct contradiction of central government decrees and instructions issued by Hanoi in its engagement with the U.S. on religious freedom issues over the past few years.

We urge members of this Committee to press the Bush Administration to set benchmarks for continued improvement of religious freedom and other human rights in Vietnam. The 2006 IRF Report cited extensive discussions of human rights and religious freedom issues between U.S. and Vietnamese government officials at multiple levels. However, during President Bush’s four-day visit to Vietnam in November 2006, the only known and visible gesture of support for human rights was a passing comment to international press about religious freedom as the President attended a prayer service in Hanoi. The Prime Minister of Canada, in contrast, also in Vietnam for the APEC Summit, prominently raised human rights issues and specific cases in his meeting with the Vietnamese Prime Minister. The United States should not be second to anyone in promoting human rights and religious freedom, in Vietnam or anywhere in the world. The Bush Administration should be called to account and required to set forth an aggressive and coherent human rights strategy for Vietnam and other countries of continuing concern for the term of the coming Congress.

Additional Recommendations:

The U.S. must continue probing religious freedom concerns and affirm to the world that protection of this fundamental human right is a top priority of its foreign policy. Tangible benchmarks are needed to encourage reforms where needed, and the Administration itself must be an advocacy target. It is the responsibility of individual Members of Congress to press the Administration to take stronger action to promote this inherent human freedom.

Action must accompany and match words. The State Department has condemned attacks against religious minorities in Egypt while the U.S. government continues to support the Mubarak regime. Meanwhile, Members of Congress and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom remain unsatisfied by the human rights situation in Vietnam, particularly its treatment of Christian ethnic minorities, yet the State Department removed it from the list of Countries of Particular Concern, just as the U.S. finalized a free trade agreement with Vietnam.

The U.S. must push for improved access of UNHCR and other monitoring groups to reach those populations most vulnerable to persecution and to “ground truth” allegations coming from the world’s trouble spots.