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71–266PDF 2011

THE 2011 INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS

FREEDOM REPORT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Serial No. 112–107

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

ROBERT TURNER, New York 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

ROBERT TURNER, New York 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

KAREN BASS, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Leonard Leo, chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious 

Freedom ................................................................................................................ 6

Fr. Ricardo Ramirez, Bishop, Diocese of Las Cruces, former commissioner, 

U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom ..................................... 31

Mr. Benedict Rogers, East Asia team leader, Christian Solidarity Worldwide .. 42

Rev. Majed El Shafie, president and founder, One Free World International ... 71

R. Drew Smith, Ph.D., scholar-in-residence, Leadership Center, Morehouse 

College ................................................................................................................... 105

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Leonard Leo: Prepared statement ................................................................... 9

Fr. Ricardo Ramirez: Prepared statement ............................................................. 33

Mr. Benedict Rogers: Prepared statement ............................................................. 45

Rev. Majed El Shafie: Prepared statement ........................................................... 74

R. Drew Smith, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .......................................................... 109

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 128

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 129

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, and Human Rights: Material submitted for the record ...................... 130

(1)

THE 2011 INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS 

FREEDOM REPORT 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:06 p.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. The subcommittee will come to order, 

and good afternoon everyone, and thank you for attending this important oversight hearing on the congressionally mandated International Religious Freedom Report and designations of Countries of 

Particular Concern for 2011. 

This is the first oversight hearing on the IRF Feport since I 

chaired a hearing on the 2006 report in December of that year. It 

is one of the series being held by this subcommittee that is examining the critically important issue of religious freedom. In June of 

this year, we held a hearing on prioritizing international religious 

freedom in U.S. foreign policy in the context of amending the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, also known as IRFA. We 

also examined freedom of conscience and religion in the context of 

China’s and North Korea’s overall abysmal human rights records. 

A study by Dr. Brian Grim of the Pew Forum on Religion and 

Public Life, who testified before our subcommittee in June, found 

that almost 70 percent of the world’s population lives in countries 

with high or very high restrictions on religion. Although this study 

was conducted between 2006 and 2009, it was apparent back in the 

late 1990s that the fundamental human right of religious freedom 

was under severe attack around the world. 

Congress gave expression to our commitment to international religious freedom with the passage in 1998 of IRFA, which concretely 

established the promotion and protection of religious liberties as a 

serious foreign policy goal. I was shocked at the time when IRFA 

was strongly opposed on the record by the Clinton administration. 

John Shattuck, then the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, 

Human Rights, and Labor, claimed right here in this room at that 

witness table that it would establish a hierarchy of human rights 

under U.S. law and, therefore, they opposed it. 

I chaired the hearings on the legislation and I, as well as others, 

pointed out that, for example, when we fought against apartheid 

and enacted laws to mitigate the abomination of racism in South 

2

Africa, we certainly did not detract from other human rights policies. Instead, it was always value added. Similarly, we took up the 

cause of Soviet Jewry, and the Jackson-Vanik amendment was employed with such effectiveness to help release Refuseniks, and we 

even risked superpower confrontation in order to release Soviet 

Jews who were being harassed and persecuted in the former Soviet 

Union. It did not detract from any of our other human rights laws. 

It was not a hierarchy of human rights. It was all value added. 

In like manner, the International Religious Freedom Act was an 

important—and I would say historic addition—to the overall efforts 

to defend and promote human rights by focusing the spotlight on 

one of the most fundamental of all human rights. We persisted and 

eventually the bill, authored by my good friend and colleague, 

Frank Wolf of Virginia, was signed into law. 

A critical component of the law is the requirement that the State 

Department review foreign countries each year and submit a report 

on the status of religious freedom to Congress. Those countries 

found to be engaged in or tolerating particularly severe violations 

of religious freedom during the preceding 12 months, are to be designated as Countries of Particular Concern, or CPC countries. 

In September, the Department of State issued its report for the 

last 6 months of 2010. The reason for the abbreviated report is to 

introduce a new reporting cycle that will be based on the calendar 

year instead of the previous July to June reporting period. 

The State Department also notified Congress in September that 

eight countries have been redesignated as CPCs: Burma, China, 

Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan. 

These are the same eight countries that previously had been designated by the Bush administration on January 16 of 2009. 

Pursuant to the IRF Act, the Secretary must impose new Presidential actions, issue waivers or authorize an additional 90-day extension for such actions against these eight countries by December 

12. I and other Members of Congress are strongly urging the administration not to double-hat sanctions against these countries as 

has been done previously, but to impose measures that have some 

teeth and that are likely to produce the desired results. Any 

thoughts from our witnesses about what actions should be taken 

would be both timely and most appreciated. 

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended several additional countries be added to that list. They 

include Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. I would also be interested in hearing from our witnesses as 

to whether they agree with the Commission that any or all of these 

countries should be CPC countries. 

Just 2 days ago, I chaired a hearing of the Helsinki Commission 

on the horrific plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt. In July, the 

Foreign Affairs Committee accepted two religious freedom amendments that I proposed to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, 

or H.R. 2583. One calls on the administration to include the protection of Coptic Christian communities as a priority in our diplomatic 

engagements with the Government of Egypt, and the other prohibits increased nonhumanitarian assistance to Vietnam until its 

government makes substantial progress toward respecting the right 

3

to freedom of religion, among other requirements, rather than what 

they doing now, which is serious regression. 

I was also deeply disturbed by the assassination of Pakistan’s 

Federal Minister of Minorities, as we all were, and joined by several people on this subcommittee and throughout the House, including Frank Wolf and so many other Members, when Shahbaz 

Bhatti on March 12 of this year died by assassination. 

I had met personally, on a number of occasions, with Minister 

Bhatti when he visited Washington, DC, and was extremely inspired, encouraged and nearly awed by his courage and by his commitment to promote the rights of religious minorities and harmony 

among all faiths in his country. His killing was a tragic loss for all 

Pakistanis, and the ongoing failure of the Pakistani Government to 

identify his assassins and bring them to justice is an ongoing violation of respect for the religious freedom. 

In closing, I would like to note that the State Department’s Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Dr. Suzan 

Johnson Cook, was invited to testify at this hearing and present 

the report written by her office. Unfortunately, the State Department refused to allow her to appear without another State Department official on her panel. Given the important responsibilities assigned to the Ambassador-at-Large pursuant to the IRF Act, including advancing the right to religious freedom abroad through 

diplomatic representations on behalf of the United States, our subcommittee looks forward to the opportunity to hear from Ambassador Johnson Cook when she is allowed to testify on her own. 

And I would point out parenthetically that time and again in this 

room we have had the Ambassador-at-Large sit right there and 

give a world view, country specific view, as to what the Bush administration, or what they were doing in the last year of the Clinton administration, to advance fundamental human rights relative 

to religious freedom. We hope that Ambassador Johnson Cook will 

be here at some point. 

I now yield to my friend, Donald Payne, the ranking member. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much and let me begin by thanking 

Chairman Smith for calling this hearing on the State Department’s 

2011 International Religious Freedom Report. This hearing follows 

a June hearing on the U.S. Commission on International Religious 

Freedom (USCIRF) 2011 report. 

I would like to thank our distinguished witnesses for being here 

today to shine light on religious freedom and justices throughout 

the world. Mr. Leo, you testified at the hearing as well at that 

time, and I thank you for agreeing to return again. 

According to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and 

Public Life, the majority of the world’s populations, some 70 percent, live under high or very high restrictions on religious practice. 

Some 2.2 billion people live in nations where government restrictions or social hostilities are increasing. A combination of religious 

discrimination, political exclusion and social unrest is dangerous 

for conflict and extremist groups, which often thrive under such circumstances by exploiting the grievances of disenfranchised religious minorities. Many times they do not really have the true concerns about the problem. However, they move in to exploit the situation, and that creates a difficult situation. 

4

Take Nigeria, where the nebulous Islamic extremist group Boko 

Haram has become increasingly active. This August, for the first 

time, the group attacked a Western target, the U.N. building in 

Abuja. This week Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, announced a special security fund to help the military tackle Boko 

Haram. However, to successfully limit the group’s recruitment 

base, social development and interface dialogue must be a priority. 

We note that Nigeria’s interreligious tensions stem from a myriad of nonreligious civilian grievances against the government, including the lack of basic social services and adequate distribution 

of wealth, corruption, and laws that allow discrimination in various 

areas, including employment and political participation, based on 

whether an individual was considered to be a native or a settler in 

a given geographic area. The addendum to the 2011 State Department report cites an example of a property dispute which ignited 

clashes between Muslims and Christians leaving 96 dead. 

So we see people move in to exploit some of the problems that 

the government has left unanswered, interfaith conflict resolutions 

and traditional community-based mediation mechanisms are key to 

addressing these tensions. But the Nigerian Government will need 

to do more through development and improved governance to tackle the root causes of grievances in the same way that they instituted initiatives in their government to successfully target human 

trafficking, making Nigeria, on the one hand the only African nation ranked as a Tier I country in the 2011 Trafficking in Persons 

report. The Nigerian Government can also use innovative approaches to address this challenge, on the one hand extremely successful, really have made tremendous strides. We heard that in a 

recent hearing that we had. Tier I, which is unusual for many of 

the developing countries in Africa, but in religious persecution we 

find just the opposite. So somehow we have got to be able to translate the same interests that we have and that area into this. 

As Dr. Smith points out in his testimony, many of the most atrocious violators of religious freedom are also the most authoritarian 

and oppressive dictators. In Sudan, Bashir’s attempt to severely restrict religious freedom were among the factors that fueled the 

country’s decade long civil war between the North and the South, 

4 million people displaced, 2 million people died since 1989 when 

the conflict began. 

I was in Juba at the joyful celebration of South Sudan’s independence this summer. However, since then there have been numerous clashes on the border area. Adding to his laundry list of 

gross human rights violations against his own people, Bashir continues to impose Sharia law on Sudan’s citizens and continues to 

discriminate against non-Muslims. 

I look forward to hearing from our panelists about how the 

United States and the international community can work to improve interfaith conflict resolutions in countries like Sudan by supporting U.S. and indigenous peace-building solutions. 

The United States Institute of Peace is making great strides in 

this area. Yet not everyone in Congress believes that investing in 

peace building is better than taking a military approach, and the 

organization’s funding is currently in jeopardy. 

5

For example, USIP’s religious and peacemaking center is promoting interfaith dialogue and mediation in combat zones. The center announced a 2006 study, authored a 2006 study which demonstrated that military chaplains as clergy and officers are well 

suited to serve as intermediaries between military and religious 

leaders in the area of conflict and post-conflict stabilization. 

A recent article in the Atlantic Magazine highlighted the story 

of a naval chaplain, Lieutenant Commander Nathan Solomon, an 

Afghan army captain and mullah, Abdul Khabir. The two sought 

to refute Taliban propaganda about Afghan soldiers and improve 

relations with the locals through both dialogue and service. The 

two managed to bring together local citizens and religious leaders 

from various tribes to discuss the negative forces that the Taliban 

is having on both Islam and Afghanistan. 

The article closes with Solomon, the noncombatant, who had perhaps shaped the battlefield as powerfully as any bullet fire or bomb 

dropped across Afghanistan that particular day. 

These innovative approaches are important in fighting religious 

persecution and resolving religious conflict globally. And we cannot 

focus on defending the right of only one or two religions when promoting religious tolerance. People of all faiths, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and all the rest deserve equal 

rights to practice their faith without persecution. 

I look forward to our discussion on how USCIRF is working to 

protect the rights of all faiths as well as hearing from our second 

panel of experts about how to improve U.S. programs aimed at 

eliminating religious persecution and promoting interfaith conflict 

resolution. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Payne. 

Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I have no comment. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Okay. Mr. Carnahan. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member 

Payne for holding this hearing about the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report. This really is part of the 

human rights jurisdiction of this subcommittee, so I appreciate the 

focus that is being given to this topic, and I really hope we can 

shed light on the serious human rights infringements that far too 

many around the world encounter. 

We have heard the daunting statistics: An estimated 6.8 billion 

people, 70 percent of the world’s population, live under high restrictions on religious activity. In countries around the world minority 

religious groups are targets of state sanctioned repression, while 

others go so far as providing safe havens for violent extremism, or 

suppressing religious expression virtually writ large. 

Evidence shows the U.S. has a strong interest in promoting religious freedom globally. As with other indicators of democracy and 

human rights, nations that respect religious tolerance generally 

enjoy greater economic prosperity and social stability. 

I look forward to hearing from the panelists on these trends 

along with the recommendations of the most strategic and effective 

means for the U.S. and the international community to influence 

6

governing systems to respect all human rights, including religious 

freedom, and foster attitudes of greater tolerance around the world. 

I am especially interested in how we might strengthen our efforts 

to support interfaith dialogue and public diplomacy tools that promote religious freedom. 

In closing, I would like to thank the panelists for their testimony 

and their time and expertise that you bring to bear today. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. 

Carnahan. I would now like to welcome to the witness table Mr. 

Leonard A. Leo, who serves as executive vice president of the Federalist Society, but he is here today as the chairman of the U.S. 

Commission on International Religious Freedom, and has served as 

commissioner for USCIRF since 2007. 

The Commission was created by the International Religious 

Freedom Act of 1998 and has the legislative mandate to review the 

facts and circumstances of religious freedom violations presented in 

the administration’s human rights and international religious freedom reports and to make policy recommendations to the President, 

the Secretary of State, and Congress with respect to international 

religious freedom matters. 

Mr. Leo is a prolific author, has published several articles on religious liberty under the U.S. Constitution. Among his many activities, he has served as U.S. Delegate to the U.N. Commission on 

Human Rights and is involved with the U.S. National Commission 

to the U.N. Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization. 

Mr. Leo received his undergraduate degree with high honors 

from Cornell University in 1987 and his law degree from Cornell 

Law School with honors in 1989. Mr. Leo, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF MR. LEONARD LEO, CHAIRMAN, U.S. 

COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

Mr. LEO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a privilege 

to be here. We are very grateful, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership 

on these issues involving the preservation of freedom of religion 

around the world. Mr. Payne, it is nice to see you again. We had 

a wonderful conversation about a number of African countries during the last hearing and we are very grateful for your leadership 

in Sudan and Nigeria, as you mentioned, and a number of other 

countries, and we are, as a commission, always interested in talking with you about your experiences in that part of the world 

where we have been spending a lot of our time and attention. 

Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I would like to have the 

full content of my testimony entered into the record, not the redacted version. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Without objection. 

Mr. LEO. Well, again, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Payne 

and members of the committee, on behalf of the U.S. Commission 

on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, I am grateful for 

today’s opportunity to testify about the State Department’s 2011 

Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, or the IRF Report, as it is known, and the critical role of the legislative and executive branches and USCIRF in promoting religious freedom abroad. 

7

Religious freedom, of course, is a fundamental human right and 

a key issue in countries that top our foreign policy agenda. From 

Egypt to China, Iraq to Sudan, Nigeria to Vietnam, Russia to Turkey, promoting and protecting this right has never been more violent or challenging. 

By any measure, religious freedom matters, and yet as you have 

noted, across the globe it is routinely violated. I know a number of 

you mentioned the Pew study, which was quite alarming and disconcerting. Members of the every religious community are being 

persecuted somewhere in the world, Hindus, Sikhs, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, evangelicals, Jews, Baha’is, Ahmadis, Sunnis, Sufis, 

Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, the Falun Gong, Jehovah’s 

Witnesses. It is truly chilling to see the number of religious minorities that are persecuted, and in some countries it is majority Muslim communities that are even persecuted by their own governments. And now this raises an obvious question, why should we as 

the United States care about this? 

Well, first of all, of course, we should care because first it is 

wrong to hunt down, imprison, torture, and kill people simply because they want to follow the dictates of their conscience. We also 

should care because every available study finds that religious freedom is correlated with stability and security in this world. Nations 

that fail to protect religious freedom and other rights are breeding 

grounds for poverty, war and violent extremist movements which 

give rise to terrorism, of course, Mr. Payne, Nigeria being a very 

perfect example of this right now. 

In the struggle for religious freedom overseas, USCIRF remains 

the world’s only independent government body fully dedicated to 

this cause, and through our work we spotlighted the world’s worst 

religious freedom violators. We have helped to get religious prisoners released in places like Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan. We 

helped lay the groundwork this year for the defeat this year at the 

U.N. Defamation of Religions Resolution, essentially a global blasphemy measure by partnering with Members of Congress, the 

State Department and specific U.N. member states. 

We raised the need to identify Iranian officials and entities responsible for severe religious freedom violations and imposed travel 

bans and asset freezes on such offenders. These sanctions are included in the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and 

Divestment Act, which requires the President to impose tough 

sanctions against Iranian human rights and religious freedom violators. 

As part of its continued concern about religious freedom in 

Sudan, USCIRF was the first entity to call for the U.S. Secretary 

of State’s direct engagement in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and was one of the first U.S. Government entities to meet with U.S.-Sudanese refugees who had fled 

aerial bombardments in the Nuba Mountains and were now at the 

Aida refugee camp in South Sudan. Our staff just came back from 

that area a couple of weeks ago and the situation is really concerning and chilling in the border region, as you noted, Mr. Payne. 

USCIRF recently released a landmark study, which I have here, 

detailing how Pakistan’s educational system, both its public schools 

and madrasas, serve as an incubator of intolerance and religious 

8

extremism, while also revealing some unexpected opportunities to 

pursue positive reforms. 

By any reasonable calculation, USCIRF is an effective and pivotal advocate for freedom of religion or belief, yet our commission, 

of course, cannot go it alone. Simply stated, we need both our legislative and executive branch partners to help us fulfill our mission. 

In September of this year, the full House voted overwhelmingly 

to reauthorize our commission. The Senate has yet to pass a measure reauthorizing USCIRF and USCIRF is on the verge of expiring. 

This must not happen. It would signal to the world that the United 

States is retreating from the cause of religious freedom. So our 

hope is that the Senate will act and hopefully can act this week. 

Clearly, we need Congress, and we also need the executive 

branch as full partners in the religious freedom battle. That includes the State Department—and let me commend the great work 

by Ambassador Johnson Cook and her team at the Office of International Religious Freedom in compiling the September 2011 IRF 

Report. We applaud the concurrent release of the IRF Report and 

the State Department’s designating the CPC status for the world’s 

worst religious freedom violators. 

While we are disappointed that our recommendations for CPC 

status for countries like Vietnam and Pakistan were not acted on, 

we welcome the Barack Obama administration keeping prior CPC 

mentions on the list. 

Make no mistake, religious freedom matters. As Elie Wiesel once 

said, and I quote, ‘‘I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must 

take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor. . . . Silence encourages 

the tormentor. . . .’’ What all victims need is to know that they 

are not alone, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them 

ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our 

freedom depends on theirs. Let us have a fully engaged U.S. Government dedicated to that proposition. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Leo follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Leo, thank you very much for 

your testimony. This report that your commission put out this year, 

if not the best is certainly among the best, but I would argue the 

best year’s to date. So thank you for a very comprehensive analysis 

of the problem. We have very concrete examples that hopefully 

Congress and the executive branch and all interested parties will 

take seriously and look to implement. But when it comes to legislation, obviously, that is here and at the White House that we need 

to be taking special note. 

You were too kind, I think, in suggesting that the existing CPC 

countries were retained. Of course there is always concerns that 

political issues will intervene and some of those countries might 

drop off. I think the shock value for China, for example, having 

been on it now virtually every year, they have realized that there 

is next to no sanction that follows. Therefore, my hope would be 

that the administration is serious, because just this morning I held 

my 33rd hearing on human rights abuses in China. As chairman 

of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. I see that 

things are getting far worse in China toward everyone who cares 

about human rights, workers rights, but especially toward those 

who manifest a belief in God, or, in the case of the Falun Gong, 

a spiritual exercise. The crackdown is pervasive and severe. It is 

not just ongoing, it is getting worse. And I would hope, as you have 

said and had said before, that we don’t just talk about double 

hatting sanctions that are preexisting, that there be some breakout 

and that these countries like China and Sudan and certainly Saudi 

Arabia, which has gotten away virtually scot free as well, when it 

comes to penalty are held to account. 

But the countries you did mention, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam, it is baffling as to why—when 

we did this legislation and all of the hearings were held in this 

room by yours truly on Frank Wolf’s bill and he testified, and he 

was obviously the author of the legislation, but we never meant 

that the designation should in any way be nothing but speaking 

truth to power, and yet these countries, which you so bravely, I 

think, put forward that should be on the list have been elusive in 

terms of the State Department putting those countries on the list. 

It is baffling, and I do hope we can get some answers from the administration as to why, because what they do in terms of penalty 

and the next step, you know, may go through an additional process 

of what is the most efficacious way of advancing the ball, but just 

tell the truth. If they are a Country of Particular Concern, put 

them on. 

Maybe you might want to speak to some of those countries. 

Egypt, we just had a hearing, as you know, on the forced abduction 

of Coptic Christian girls. Michele Clark testified, a great leader at 

the OSCE for years on human trafficking, and she has done great 

reporting, working with Christian Solidarity International on these 

young teenagers who are first abducted, and then forced into Islamic marriages when they turn 18, abused along the way, and yet 

our administration says these are just allegations. It is time, she 

said, we are beyond the allegation stage, it is real and it is pervasive. 

20

Egypt—you might want to speak to some of the issues that you 

believe ought to have been placed on CPC status. 

Mr. LEO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, first as an institutional matter, there is a real problem with passing over certain 

countries for CPC status, just as there is a real problem with not 

imposing sanctions or always double hatting sanctions. Eritrea is, 

I think, the only country that has direct sanctions under the IRFA 

on it. 

The problem with not designated countries—there clearly should 

be—and the problem with not having a sanctions regime that really works—is it sends a terrible message to (1) some of the countries 

that are on the list because they believe being placed on the list 

really doesn’t have any impact. And (2) it sends a very strong message to other countries that we are not serious about bolstering 

preservation of freedom of religion around the world, so why should 

they do anything to improve conditions there back at home. 

And so it is very, very important and I think that the creators 

of the IRF Act understood this. The CPC designation process itself 

be very rigorous, and that similar countries be treated alike, and 

that they be placed on the list and that when you are placed on 

the list, there is some, there is some force that comes to bear on 

that country to ensure compliance with international human rights 

standards. 

And with regard to the particular countries you mentioned, Mr. 

Chairman, that are not on the list, for example, Pakistan and 

Egypt, conditions in Pakistan, as you well know, are horrific. In addition to various forms of state-sponsored repression, one of the 

most serious problems of Pakistan is impunity, private, sectarian 

violence that is unchecked by the government, and that is caused 

by a number of factors. For one thing it is caused by a blasphemy 

law which incentivizes people to take matters into their own hands 

and to seek to punish individuals who they believe are not treating 

religion properly. 

Secondly, as we noted in the report we just issued on Pakistan’s 

educational system, the madrasas and public schools in Pakistan 

are teaching a level of intolerance that is just unacceptable, and 

that level of intolerance affects not only minority Muslim communities and Christians but also Hindus in Pakistan, and that is a 

very, very serious problem. 

Egypt, you know, Egypt you see a lot of the same problems, Mr. 

Chairman. You see, again, impunity, a situation where violence 

perpetrated against the Coptic Christian communities remains unchecked. This was a problem during the Mubarak administration, 

but it is a problem now just as well and there doesn’t seem to be 

any end of it in sight. 

We have also seen very significant repression by the state of various religious minorities, including the Baha’i community. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Without objection, I would like to 

add the summary, multi-page summary of ‘‘Connecting the Dots: 

Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan,’’ the excellent 

study. I know it is much longer, but this is the shorter version in 

which your office has looked so carefully into the educational system. If you want to just further elaborate on that briefly, because 

this is a very, very troubling report. 

21

Mr. LEO. Sure, be happy to. We commissioned a study to look at 

a number of public schools, as well as madrasas around Pakistan. 

And the idea behind the study was (1) to see what kinds of things 

are being taught to these children regarding various faiths in Pakistan, and then (2) to see what links existed between the education 

they received and the kinds of intolerance and extremism we see 

in Pakistani society right now. 

And much to our dismay, what we found was that there are elements of nationalism and prejudice that cause teachers to teach 

students in these schools that those who are religious minorities 

are not full citizens in Pakistan. All of the normal prejudices about 

Jews and Christians and Hindus are perpetrated through the curriculum, and what we found, through the focus groups and other 

studies that took place here over the course of the year, is that this 

discrimination and these pejorative references end up creating a 

young citizenry in Pakistan which is very intolerant of religious minorities, doesn’t understand what they believe in, view them as a 

threat to Pakistan’s culture, and that is a very, very serious, a very 

serious problem and, we believe, and I think the study bears this 

out, that that kind of extremist intolerant education creates great 

instability in the country. 

It fuels extremism, it causes Pakistan to be a breeding ground 

for violent extremist ideology that is exported throughout North 

and sub-Saharan Africa. Mr. Payne, if you go to northern Nigeria 

you will find pamphlets and leaflets that were sent over from Pakistan that are quite extremist in their orientation. So we think the 

educational system in Pakistan needs great improvement. 

Fortunately, the madrasas in Pakistan, the private schools, many 

of them actually want to reform the curriculum. But the stumbling 

block is that that would require a change in the rules or laws by 

the Interior Ministry of Pakistan and until the Interior Ministry responds and starts to change the rules of the game, those private 

madrasas can’t change their curriculum. And so one of our objectives is to try to have the United States put as much pressure as 

possible on the Pakistani Government to change those rules so that 

those madrasas can reform their curricula which we believe in turn 

would put competitive pressure on the public schools to do the 

same. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Very briefly on Vietnam because 

then I will yield to my colleagues for any questions, and I am going 

to submit several questions because time does not permit asking all 

of them. 

But would you briefly touch on what was clearly an about face, 

what looked like some progress was being made in the lead-up to 

the trade agreement between the U.S. and Vietnam and most-favored nation status being granted. Almost to the day there was a 

U-turn and people espousing human rights in general, and religious freedom in particular, have been rounded up and have been 

harassed, clearly indicating that CPC status ought to be imposed 

upon Vietnam. 

And secondly, in Sudan, with Bashir and Khartoum contemplating a new Constitution that would be very exclusionary toward 

people of other faiths and even some Muslims, many people are 

22

leaving, some going to South Sudan. Could you just touch on that 

very briefly? 

Mr. LEO. Well, as you point out, Mr. Chairman, the situation in 

Vietnam took an about face after WTO accession. The Vietnamese 

wanted WTO accession. Once they got it they walked away from 

the table on religious freedom. It is just that simple. There was a 

carrot and a stick around prior to WTO accession. When that went 

away there wasn’t much left. 

And this is one of those instances where we believe that CPC 

status would really be a game changer, because we know that that 

kind of pressure has worked with the Vietnamese in the past and 

we are at a stage in our relations with Vietnam where there are 

bilateral negotiations on a lot of fronts involving trade and the 

economy and culture. And to have, you know, that leverage again 

would be extraordinarily valuable. 

You are quite right. The situation in Vietnam is getting worse, 

not better. You have public order, regulations and rules that are 

being used in a very arbitrary and abusive way to put away and 

detain people of faith, oftentimes Catholic priests. You have communities in Vietnam that have had their cemeteries and religious 

grounds bulldozed so that the state can erect resorts. This is a 

very, very serious problem. 

With regard to Sudan, where to begin. You know, all of us saw 

July 9 come and go, and there was a lot of fanfare in the press 

about Sudan’s independence. 

Where is the press now? Mass graves of more than 5,000 Christians and other Southern Sudanese, aerial bombardments at night 

of refugee camps, every single church and clergyman in Southern 

Kordofan is gone, they have left. There is not a single church in 

the entire state. When you combine all of that which is happening 

on the border region with the so-called constitutional reform, which 

is going to be taking place in North Sudan, where President Bashir 

has said he wants to create an Islamist state, you have an extremely unstable set of regimes and you have a set of regimes 

where human rights abuses will continue to be perpetrated in a 

way that it should be of enormous concern and alarm to the United 

States, but it is not making the pages of the New York Times, the 

Washington Post. It is not capturing the attention of most world 

leaders. It is a very, very serious situation. 

We met just a couple of weeks ago with the Deputy National Security Adviser to the German Chancellor and he wasn’t aware of 

the mass graves in the border region of South Sudan. He wasn’t 

aware of the area of bombardments, the refugee camps. It is terrible, absolutely terrible, and we must stand up and do something, 

and I think the first step that we should take right now is tell the 

North Sudanese that if they want debt relief, which is something 

they are trotting the globe trying to get right now, it should be conditioned on them creating a pathway for humanitarian assistance 

to the refugees in the border region and the cessation of aerial 

bombardments. 

And if they are not willing to undertake those two humanitarian 

gestures, which will not only protect people of faith but all peoples, 

then we should not bargain with Khartoum. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you. Mr. Payne. 

23

Mr. PAYNE. Once again, thank you very much, Mr. Leo, for your 

continued strong positions on this issue. I too am very disturbed at 

what is occurring in Sudan. We, as you indicated, thought July 9 

would be a new time, a new day. The Government of Sudan has 

actually even had some of bombings across the border into South 

Sudan recently it has been reported. And the situation in Southern 

Kordofan is just untenable. As you know, there was supposed to be 

an agreement since Southern Kordofan was incorporated into 

Sudan although Southern Kordofan, as you know, fought with the 

South Sudanese and were part of the SPLM and SPLA. And so the 

fact that they have been incorporated in another country really 

makes them captives in Sudan where they really should be a part 

of South Sudan. 

And so I too agree there has been in the past several months, 

it seems, you know, a feeling on the part of some in the administration that because Bashir went along with July 9 that there should 

be some carrots that should be given. 

But I agree certainly, I certainly concur with you that I think 

that there are too many unresolved issues, there is no question 

about Darfur. Darfur is even not discussed very much. People living out in desert conditions in Chad and refugee camps are going 

to be going on 8 years with no plans for Sudan to talk about a right 

to return for people in Darfur. They are just there. 

As a matter of fact, as you may recall, they even had the humanitarian food delivery interrupted about a year or so ago where they 

were excluding human rights organizations attempting—and decided which NGOs would have the right to give relief to the 

Darfurians. And so we have a very serious situation there. 

In your opinion, since the separation, and I know it has only 

been a short time, do you think that in the North things have in 

general have worsened or is there more unity in Sudan, Khartoum 

Government? 

Mr. LEO. Thank you, Mr. Payne and, again, thank you very much 

for your leadership on these issues as part of the caucus. 

Unfortunately, things have deteriorated in the northern part, in 

North Sudan on a couple of fronts. First of all, President Bashir 

has tried to snuff out all political opposition. And in the absence 

of that sort of diverse political opposition, there is not going to be 

a full throttle debate about what kind of constitutional government 

Sudan should have and whether freedom of religion will be an integral part of it. Because as you know, some of that political opposition is grounded in other nonconforming views of Islam. And so in 

the absence of that, you won’t have the kind of diversity of opinion 

that would lead to a Constitution that had greater protections for 

religious minorities. 

Secondly, you know, there still have, in addition to certain nonconforming Muslims, there are still some Christians who live in the 

North and they are very, very concerned for their well-being because the kind of Islamist state that President Bashir has promised 

to create would be wholly consistent with their long-term wellbeing and survival in North Sudan, part of the reason why so many 

of them have fled to South Sudan. The problem, of course, is that 

things are not a whole lot better there for them because South 

24

Sudan doesn’t have the capacity to care for these people. So they 

are in a no-win, they are in a no-win situation. 

And, then, finally, because the North never really created a 

media law that allows for a vibrant press, there is very little sunlight cast on what is going on there, and so much of the world, the 

EU and other parts of the world, really don’t fully comprehend the 

extent of the repression. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. Getting to the State Department, I understand that the State Department has labeled eight 

Countries of Particular Concern. In the report produced by 

USCIRF you identified an additional six. Is there any way you 

could determine what factors factor into the way that CPC looks 

at it as opposed to the State Department? 

Mr. LEO. Well, some of it, Mr. Payne, is institutional. I mean 

USCIRF’s mandate is to look solely at religious freedom violations. 

So when we look at a country, you know, that is our single-minded 

focus by the terms of our statute. Obviously the State Department 

has to look, does look at a broad range of factors when it decides 

how to deal with a country. 

So even though, you know, oftentimes our findings and the State 

Department’s on a country might be very similar in terms of religious freedom violations. They may make the determination that 

naming them a Country of Particular Concern or imposing certain 

sanctions is not going to have the intended effect on improving conditions. Now, we often disagree with that. 

So in the case of Pakistan, I suspect what the State Department 

would tell you is naming Pakistan a CPC will hurt rather than 

help. That will be their argument. We respectfully disagree. We believe that there is not going to ever be a perfect time to name Pakistan as a CPC, but that in fact we are at a point in Pakistan’s cultural life where there are a sufficient number of imams and 

madrasas who believe in reform that naming Pakistan as a CPC 

and then being very strategic in terms of the way we dialogue 

about various kinds of reforms, we could actually help to embolden 

communities in Pakistan who could sort of start to move the ball 

in a positive direction. 

Similarly, what you have been told about a country like Vietnam 

is that there has been some progress made and we are having 

human rights dialogues with them. Again, we understand that argument, but we respectfully disagree. Our view of the history is 

that Vietnam has only responded and responded favorably when 

they have had a lot of pressure come to bear on them as a country. 

So to some extent it is institutional. You know, we look at one 

issue, they look at a basket. To some extent it is situational. You 

know, we sometimes gauge the cultural factors differently than the 

State Department does. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. Since we are going to have 

votes, I agree that they tend to, even in dealing with Bashir, when 

I would be pushing for very hard sanctions they would say, well, 

you know, there are some other leaders in Sudan that could be 

worse, and so we have to be careful so it doesn’t get worse. I agree, 

you know, I have never heard anyone being able to predict, or predict the unknown. I mean, you can’t validate the unknown, you 

don’t know what the next leader would be. 

25

So I have the same kind of problems with some of their findings 

that you probably have in your capacity. Thank you very much, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Payne. 

Mr. Carnahan. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I had a couple 

of issues I wanted to cover with you, Mr. Leo. Again, thank you for 

being here. 

I wanted to really talk about the importance of interfaith dialogue. In Nigeria, there is a model program there, the mediation 

center, we have heard good reports about. I wanted to ask how important this interfaith dialogue is in promoting religious freedom. 

Number one, what is USCIRF doing to promote this and is there 

anything more that can be done? 

Mr. LEO. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan. Interfaith dialogue is obviously very important, and you mentioned Nigeria, where there has 

been an infrastructure for interfaith dialogue between the Muslim 

communities and the Christian communities there, oftentimes led 

by the Sultan of Sokoto and Archbishop of Uwe Akan of the Catholic Church and the Sultan of Northern Nigeria, a leading member 

of the Muslim community there. 

But, you know, in recent months and in the past year, we noticed 

in our trips to Nigeria, we have been there about four times in the 

past 2 years, that things are really starting to break down and the 

interfaith dialogue isn’t working as well as it used to. 

And I think the reason that is the case is because you need to 

buttress interfaith dialogue with a strong set of enforcement mechanisms when extremists break the law. So in Nigeria the problem 

and, Mr. Payne, you mentioned Boko Haram, the problem in Nigeria right now is there that there are a bunch of extremist, Boko 

Haram among them, that are perpetrating an enormous amount of 

violence in the middle belt region of Nigeria. And the Nigerian 

Government is doing very little, if anything, to investigate, prosecute and bring to justice the people who perpetrate that violence. 

Well, what does that do? What it does is it breaks up that discussion at that interfaith table. Because suddenly, the people who 

have friends and relatives who have been killed and that no justice 

has been done to sort of, you know, punish the perpetrators of that 

violence, they don’t want to talk anymore. They don’t want to find 

common ground. They want vindication that what was done to 

their community is wrong. 

And so what I think in terms of what more can be done to bolster 

interfaith dialogue, first of all you have to find the kinds of talented leaders that Nigeria has, like the Sultan and the Archbishop, 

but then also the government has to be committed to enforcing the 

law when violence takes place or no one will sit down and dialogue. 

And we have seen that in country after country after country, although Nigeria in recent years has been the most, the most recent 

example. 

The U.S. has dedicated, I think, a significant amount of aid in 

various countries toward this dialogue. I think that is a good thing, 

Nigeria being one of them. But I think we need to probably combine that kind of aid with aid to train prosecutors and law enforceVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:45 Feb 23, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\111711\71266 HFA PsN: SHIRL
26

ment officials about how to deal with the perpetration of religiously 

related violence in a way that is consistent with human rights. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. If we have time, Mr. Chairman, I will try to get 

one more in before we have to go vote. I wanted to ask about the 

role that the Internet and social media are playing either in a 

harmful way or a positive way within the context of religious freedom. Certainly we have seen it have a dramatic impact across the 

Middle East and North Africa during this Arab Spring, but in particular how are those tools being used in positive or negative ways 

to promote international religious freedom? 

Mr. LEO. There is no question that the Internet and social media 

has been very empowering for human rights defenders and religious minorities around the world. You have seen some of it in the 

Middle East, you see some of it in China and Vietnam and that is 

very, very important. So Internet freedom is a very important policy issue for the United States in this regard because it really does 

empower and bolster those human rights defenders and those people who want to defend religious minorities. 

But at the same time, Mr. Carnahan, the Internet and social 

media can be a tool used for violence and for evil. And so what we 

have seen in northern and sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is that 

the Internet has been a tool for the Taliban and other extremist 

groups to shift their ideology to groups and individuals in north 

and sub-Saharan Africa for example. Boko Haram, for example, 

gets a lot of its material off the Internet. 

When we met in Nigeria with the head of security services, they 

said that the Internet is probably the number one thing that sort 

of perpetuates the sort of violent extremism amongst members of 

Boko Haram. And that is the case in other countries, too. We see 

that in Indonesia where there are extremist elements that get a lot 

of extremist ideology through the Internet from Pakistan and Saudi 

Arabia. So it is a wonderful tool and resource for human rights defenders, but it can also be used for evil purposes. And so we need 

to probably complement our Internet freedom efforts with a campaign against the exportation of extremist ideology around the 

world. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan. Let me 

ask three final questions, and I will keep the record open even if 

we all have to leave here, and I would hope, Mr. Leo, you would 

answer the questions in full. 

With regard to India, Bishop Ramirez has made a very interesting point in his testimony that the State Department doesn’t 

designate India as a CPC country, has no watch list. India is one 

of the few countries where USCIRF has not been able to arrange 

even a delegation visit despite several attempts to obtain visas. The 

failure seems to be particularly unusual in light of the fact that the 

U.S. entered into a strategic dialogue with India in 2009, and there 

have been several high-level visits exchanged. Religious freedom 

does not appear to have been a topic of discussion in this strategic 

dialogue. 

Secondly on Iraq, as the Bishop points out again, Bishop Ramirez, these are my words, we kind of own Iraq in a sense that we, 

by being involved in the war, which was opposed by the Church, 

27

there is a responsibility now, a heightened responsibility in the 

U.S. to ensure that the minority religions that are a millennium 

old go back to the founding of the Church, are facing extreme pressures, discrimination and murder. If you want to speak on Iraq, I 

would appreciate that. 

And finally, the Bishop makes another very important comment, 

many important comments, that there is little, too little public evidence, he writes, that protection of religious freedom is factored 

into major bilateral foreign policy decisions on a day-to-day basis. 

The strategic dialogues with several key countries seldom mentions religious freedom in public records of discussions. The issue 

may have been raised in private, but there needs to be a more 

overt recognition of the importance that the U.S. places on protection of religious freedom. Otherwise, it may appear that our Nation 

is going through the motions of satisfying a congressional mandate 

of not following up by making religious freedom an integral part of 

the foreign policy decision-making process. 

As you know, that is why we passed this law in the first place, 

because religious freedom was always relegated to the back of the 

talking points, if that. And if you could speak to that issue, if you 

would, because, you know, how many years after, since 1998, since 

enactment of this law, and we are still having this discussion 

where this has not been mainstream and made an integral part of 

our foreign policy. 

Mr. LEO. Well, His Excellency Bishop Ramirez is, as he always 

was as a commissioner of USCIRF, you know, spot on. These religious freedom issues are not adequately factored into our bilateral 

discussions and we are constantly pressing for those issues to sort 

of come to the surface and be higher priorities. That has especially 

been the case recently with a number of Southeast Asian countries 

where in the case of China and Vietnam, for example, we are just 

not seeing freedom of religion reach that level. 

My hope is that over time the IRF office and the IRF Ambassador can inflict more pressure within the State Department system to sort of try to make those issues a higher priority. We have 

hopes that Vice President Biden, in his upcoming visit to Turkey—

I think he is leaving very soon—will engage the Turks on the issue 

of freedom of religion and particularly the reopening of the Halki 

Seminary. 

So I think having the Vice President engaged in that way would 

send a very, very strong signal to the bureaus in the State Department that religious freedom needs to be critical on a bilateral basis. 

You mentioned India and Iraq, very different countries in a lot 

of ways, you know, but the one common element there is impunity. 

And what you see in India and in Iraq is just a situation where, 

you know, there needs to be as much as possible an effort to prosecute religiously related violence. Obviously the situation is very 

different in India, where there have been investigations and prosecutions. The question is the extent and speed, and that is something we are looking into and trying to engage with the Indian 

Government on. 

The situation in Iraq is much worse. I mean there, there is almost a total breakdown in prosecution of religiously related vioVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:45 Feb 23, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\111711\71266 HFA PsN: SHIRL
28

lence and it is causing the extinction of the Christian community 

in that country. 

Mr. TURNER [presiding]. If I may, another question on—if we can 

get back to Pakistan for a moment. I might catch my breath. The 

madrassases. I understand there is funding from Saudi Arabia. Do 

you feel that has an impact? And does our own foreign aid, which 

is probably not used as leverage, kind of counter it; are we doing 

what we can and should? 

Mr. LEO. First of all, there is no question that the Saudis are responsible for the exportation of an enormous amount of extremist 

ideology. Their textbooks and educational materials have not been 

reformed as they should be. They speak of spilling the blood of the 

infidel. That is Christians and Jews. There are a lot of other very 

concerning passages throughout their materials. 

When we visited Saudi Arabia recently and met with the Minister of Religious Affairs, we were not satisfied with the responses 

he or the Administrator of Education gave in terms of the extent 

to which they are trying to clean up their educational and other 

materials. But the bottom line is because Saudi Arabia is, if you 

will, the Vatican of Islam. Their educational materials serve as the 

basis for a lot of education elsewhere in the world. So they are exporting a brand of extremism often which is very toxic. 

And we have seen that in Pakistan, Mr. Turner, with a number 

of the madrassases where there are a lot of pejorative commentaries about Hindus and about Christians and about Jews. And 

that is helping to perpetuate some very negative stereotypes 

amongst the young people in Pakistan, which breeds violence. I 

mean, Pakistan is a little bit more complicated than that, though, 

in the sense that there are some madrassases in Pakistan—we 

were talking about this earlier—that do want to reform their curriculum. This is, I think, due in part to the fabulous work that was 

done by the late Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister of Minority Affairs 

who was violently assassinated on his way to his first cabinet 

meeting. He brought together quite a number of imams in and 

around Islamabad and Pakistan who wanted to see reform. They 

control some of those madrassases and others. And some of those 

madrassases do want to reform their curricula, but that is going to 

require new rules and laws that could be handed down by the Interior Ministry in Pakistan. And they haven’t done that. Until they 

do that, those who do want to reform their curricula within the 

madrassases won’t be able to. 

Now, our hope is that if we can get the Pakistani Government 

to change those rules, that some of these madrassases can actually 

change their curricula, that will begin to put valuable competitive 

pressure on other madrassases and, by extension, public schools in 

Pakistan so that some of them will begin to think about whether 

they should be changing their curricula as well. There are signs of 

hope here. 

There are some young people and there are some teachers who 

want to reform education in Pakistan, who are more broad-minded 

about the role that minorities play in their country. But a lot of 

work has to be done and that is going to require both the Pakistani 

Government to change some of its rules and, frankly, on a global 

scale, the Saudis to begin to take more seriously their obligation 

29

to clean up their own educational materials which do get pushed 

around all over the world, including here in the United States at 

the Islamic Saudi Academy just across the river in Fairfax. 

Mr. TURNER. As far as United States leverage is concerned, are 

we exercising that properly? Are we exercising it at all with both 

the Saudis and with Pakistan? 

Mr. LEO. The Commission’s position is that we are not exercising 

our leverage sufficiently. In the case of Saudi Arabia, though, we 

have named Saudi Arabia as a Country of Particular Concern for 

years. Years. We have had an indefinite Presidential waiver on any 

sanctions. The Commission’s position is that basically there should 

be a time period within which that Presidential waiver remains, 

but that if certain reforms are not achieved within that time period, the waiver ceases to exist and sanctions begin to come down 

hard on the Saudi Government. 

Where they really need reforms are in terms of their educational 

material, in terms of their religious beliefs and a couple of other 

things under Saudi law. 

With regard to Pakistan, I would say the same thing. You know, 

there is never going to be, as we said before, never going to be a 

good time to name Pakistan or any other country as a CPC. But 

the bottom line is that in our view, now is the time to name them 

as a CPC. Conditions are worsening. The blasphemy law is being 

applied in terrible ways. There are over 100 individuals, and we 

can supply you with a chart, there are over 100 individuals, Christians, nonconforming Muslims, Hindus, who are imprisoned under 

their blasphemy law. And that, by the way, breeds enormous violence and hostility in the country, and the United States is doing 

nothing to really sort of try to put pressure on the Pakistanis to 

try to change that. 

Mr. TURNER. The final question. You noted in your testimony 

that a political issue in the Senate, unrelated to the Commission, 

is holding up the Commission’s reauthorization, which technically 

expired in September, although the continuing resolution is providing temporary funding for the Commission and we hope another 

CR is passed tomorrow, and that will take the Commission at least 

through December. The failure of the Senate to pass USCIRF’s reauthorization is extremely problematic. Could you tell us how it is 

affecting your operation? 

Mr. LEO. Well, it is very hard for the Commission to do any longrange planning when we are not sure of our continued existence. 

And when we live from CR to CR—in a way it is different from 

most other Federal agencies, because we are not an executive 

branch agency that has the benefit of longevity. So basically we 

have had a very hard time mapping out a longer-range agenda. 

There have been a number of missed opportunities in terms of putting pressure on various countries. But, you know, our hope is that 

the Senate will act on a piece of free-standing legislation that is at 

the Senate desk right now. We are hoping it gets done this week 

and that that legislation gets sent here to the House and we can 

resolve this issue, you know, before long. It should have happened 

over a month ago, but it didn’t. 

Mr. TURNER. Indeed. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony, 

Mr. Leo. 

30

And at this point, we would like to seat—call the second panel. 

And again we thank you. 

We have Bishop Ricardo Ramirez. Bishop Ricardo Ramirez is a 

Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico. He 

served as a commissioner in the U.S. Commission on International 

Religious Freedom from 2003 to 2006. Bishop Ramirez was ordained to the episcopacy in 1981 and has lived in Canada, Mexico 

and the Philippines. He is a member of the International Justice 

and Peace Commission within the United States Conference of 

Catholic Bishops. 

Mr. Benedict Rogers of the Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Mr. 

Rogers is the East Asia team leader for Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Mr. Rogers specializes in human rights in Burma, Indonesia, 

and North Korea and oversees CSW’s work in China, Vietnam, and 

Laos. He has traveled extensively in the region and regularly publishes articles and books about human rights in these countries. 

Mr. Rogers serves as the deputy chairman of the Conservative 

Party Human Rights Commission in the UK. And in 2005, he 

served as special advisor to the Special Representative of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Freedom of Religion panel. 

We have Reverend Majed El Shafie. How is that, bad? 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Very bad. But that is okay. 

Mr. TURNER. Very bad. Okay. Would you please say it for me? 

Majed El Shafie. 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Majed El Shafie. You did a good job. Thank you. 

Mr. TURNER. A little better. All right. Well, thank you. From One 

World International, Reverend El Shafie is the President and 

founder of the One Free World International, a human rights NGO 

dedicated to securing the rights of religious minorities around the 

world. The reverend is both an ordained minister and an Egyptian 

lawyer by training. After converting from Islam to Christianity, 

Reverend El Shafie was arrested by the Mubarak regime in 1998, 

tortured and sentenced to death. He escaped, fled to Israel and finally settled in Canada in 2002. He has been interviewed by numerous media outlets and has advised the Canadian Government 

on religious freedom issues. Thank you. 

And finally we have Mr. R. Drew Smith, Center for Church and 

Black Experience of the Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. 

Dr. Smith is the director of the Center for the Church and the 

Black Experience at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in 

Evanston, Illinois. He is also scholar in residence at the Leadership 

Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Smith has 

taught at several major institutions of higher education and has 

traveled widely in Latin America and Africa. He served as a Fulbright professor in South Africa in 2005 and as a Fulbright senior 

specialist in Cameroon, and has lectured in Brazil, Ghana, Lesotho 

and Israel. He has published widely on religious and public life, including numerous articles and book chapters. Thank you very 

much. 

Bishop Ramirez, would you please open and proceed? 

31

STATEMENT OF FR. RICARDO RAMIREZ, BISHOP, DIOCESE OF 

LAS CRUCES, FORMER COMMISSIONER, U.S. COMMISSION 

ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

Bishop RAMIREZ. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for advising the U.S. Conference of Catholic 

Bishops to offer testimony under the protection of religious freedom. 

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate your leadership on this issue. I am, 

as you said, Ricardo Ramirez, the Bishop of Las Cruces. I currently 

serve on the Committee of International Justice and Peace of our 

Bishops Conference. I also had the honor and pride of serving on 

the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 

2003 to 2007. I will summarize our testimony and ask that the full 

written testimony be entered into the record. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY [presiding]. Without objection, yours 

and those of all who would like to submit their testimonies will be 

made a part of the record, as well as any extraneous materials you 

would like to add. 

Bishop RAMIREZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. According to the 

Catholic teaching, religious freedom rooted in the dignity of the 

human person is a cornerstone of the structure of human rights 

and is closely tied to freedoms of speech, association and assembly. 

Religious freedom is not solely freedom from coercion in matters of 

personal faith, it is also freedom to practice the faith individually 

and communally in private and public. 

Freedom of religion extends beyond freedom of worship. It includes the freedom of the Church and religious organizations to 

provide education, health, and other social services, as well as to 

allow religiously motivated individuals and communities to participate in public policy debates and thus contribute to the common 

good. 

Unfortunately, as has been mentioned before today, religious 

freedom is under attack in many countries around the world. In 

China, the police crack down on the faithful who simply want a 

place to worship. In Egypt, extremists burn churches, and Christians are persecuted in Eritrea, Baha’is in Iran, Ahmadiyyas in Indonesia, and Christians and Muslims in Uzbekistan. The New 

Year’s Day bombing of a Coptic church in Egypt, the Christmas 

Eve bombings of churches in Nigeria, and the October 2010 attack 

on the Syrian Catholic Church in Baghdad are grim reminders of 

what is at stake. 

While the annual State Department’s International Religious 

Freedom Report for 2010 is commendable and fairly thorough, let 

me offer brief comments on a few countries. Our staff met on several occasions with Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistani Minister for Minority Affairs who was assassinated in March 2011. This followed 

the January 2011 assassination of Punjab Governor Salman 

Tasser, a Muslim. Both were targeted because of their support for 

changes in blasphemy laws that are often used to justify acts 

against religious minorities. Our Bishops Conference asked the Department of State to consider whether these assassinations and 

other issues warrant designating Pakistan as a Country of Particular Concern next year. The State Department report documents 

32

a number of abuses of religious freedom in India; however, there 

are undoubtedly other instances not documented. 

Our staff visited India in March 2010 to look into the 2008 attacks of Christians in the State of Orissa. While the report does 

refer to the incident, there is no mention, as you said, Mr. Chairman, of the ongoing suffering experienced by Christian villagers 

whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed. Many remain displaced, fearful of returning to their homes. The State Department 

report on forced conversions makes scant mention of Christians 

being forced to convert to Hinduism in order to return to their villages. The U.S. entered into a strategic dialogue with India in 

2009, but religious freedom does not appear to have been a topic 

for discussion. 

This October, two of our bishops made a pastoral visit to Baghdad. The ancient Christian communities in Iraq have been decimated. The State Department report does not highlight the fact 

that high levels of violence have led to a disproportionate number 

of Christians, many professionals, fleeing abroad as refugees are 

being displaced internally. 

As the U.S. withdraws, we must work with Iraqis to improve the 

rule of law, security and economic opportunity. We must also help 

refugees and internally displaced persons. This will require continued U.S. international assistance. 

We have several recommendations. First, the Congress and the 

administration need to place a higher priority on religious freedom. 

There is too little public evidence that protection of religious freedom is factored into major bilateral foreign policy decisions. 

Second, the State Department needs to give greater consideration 

to designating countries of particular concern. The Commission on 

International Religious Freedom’s list is longer, adding other countries such as Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Turkmenistan. USCIRF 

also maintains a watch list of countries where trends indicate the 

predisposition toward severe violations of religious freedom. Countries on USCIRF’s Watch List change from year to year. We are 

concerned that the State Department list may not adequately reflect changing conditions. 

Third, the President and the Secretary of State should consider 

more closely actions that might be applied to those states where 

particularly these severe violations of religious freedom occur. 

Fourth and finally, the Senate should move to reauthorize the 

U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom whose mandate expires tomorrow. It would be tragic if this vital institution 

were to cease its promotion of religious freedom around the world. 

Let me close by commending the distinguished members of the 

subcommittee for holding this hearing and for raising the profile of 

religious freedom in our Nation’s conscience and in its foreign policy. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very, very much, Bishop 

Ramirez, for your testimony and for your leadership and that of the 

Catholic Bishops Conference. 

[The prepared statement of Bishop Ramirez follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And I would like to now ask, Mr. 

Rogers, if you could present your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MR. BENEDICT ROGERS, EAST ASIA TEAM 

LEADER, CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY WORLDWIDE 

Mr. ROGERS. Chairman Smith, distinguished members of the 

committee, first of all may I thank you very much indeed for this 

opportunity to submit evidence to this very important and timely 

hearing. And thank you also for your leadership and many years 

of dedicated hard work on behalf of those who are persecuted for 

their faith. 

With permission, I will focus on the countries for which I am responsible; namely, Burma, China, Indonesia, North Korea, and 

Vietnam. And I will attempt to do so in just as many minutes. 

Let me start first with Burma. Many Buddhist monks, including 

U Gambira, a very prominent monk, remain in prison. The plight 

of the Muslim Rohingya people remains unchanged. In the predominately Christian Kachin state, which I have visited several 

times, the regime has launched a new military offensive, resulting 

in very grave human rights violations, including attacks on churches and new restrictions on religious freedom. There is some talk of 

change in Burma. However, as long as the regime holds Buddhist 

monks and other prisoners of conscience in jail, attacks civilians in 

the ethnic states, and violates religious freedom, the United States 

should maintain pressure on the regime and redesignate Burma a 

CPC. 

Briefly, Indonesia. In July, the European Parliament passed a 

resolution expressing grave concern at the incidence of violence 

against religious minorities. A similar resolution from this Congress would be very welcome. In May, four Ahmadiyya Muslims 

traumatized, terrorized and stigmatized, sat in a Jakarta apartment and described to me how they were almost killed by an extremist mob. One man had been stripped naked, beaten to a pulp 

and a machete held at his throat. Another fled into a fast-flowing 

river pursued by attackers throwing rocks and shouting kill, kill, 

kill. Churches are also coming under increasing pressure in Indonesia. This year alone so far, at least 30 churches have been attacked. There are serious concerns over the rule of law in Indonesia, and I have detailed these concerns in my written submission. 

But I would like to draw your particular attention to the case of 

the GKI Yasmin church in Bogor, which I visited just a few weeks 

ago. Increasing intolerance toward religious minorities poses significant challenges to Indonesia’s tradition of religious freedom. 

The failure of the government to protect minorities and uphold the 

rule of law has encouraged extremists. I hope that when President 

Obama visits Indonesia in the next few days, he will appeal to the 

President of Indonesia to uphold religious freedom and the rule of 

law. 

I turn now to North Korea. I visited North Korea in October last 

year with two British Parliamentarians, Lord Alton and Baroness 

Cox. North Korea is clearly one of the worst violators of human 

rights, including religious freedom, in the world. An estimated 

200,000 people, some of them Christians, are trapped in a brutal 

43

system of political prison camps. Just a few days ago, I received 

from a trusted source a story of a young female North Korean teenager who had engaged in evangelism which was eventually discovered by the regime. She was executed. Where else in the world are 

teenagers, minors who share their faith, executed for doing so? 

Alarmingly, the reach of the North Korean regime’s brutality extends even beyond its borders, involving assassinations or attempted assassinations of South Korean Christian missionaries 

working with North Korean refugees. 

Earlier this year, CSW, along with 40 other organizations, 

launched an international coalition to stop crimes against humanity in North Korea. And we believe that these violations, including 

violations of religious freedom, do amount to crimes against humanity, that it is time that impunity in North Korea be ended, 

crimes investigated, and Kim Jong Il’s regime brought to account. 

As you said, Mr. Chairman, religious freedom in China has severely deteriorated. A widely publicized case is that of the 

Shouwang church in Beijing, which has faced continual pressure to 

stop meeting. They have been denied access to their building and 

have been meeting outdoors, facing arrest and detention. Pastor 

Shi Enhao was arrested in May of this year and sentenced to 2 

years reeducation through labor. Alimujiang Yimiti, a Christian 

Uyghur from Xinjiang, was sentenced in 2009 to 15 years in prison, 

the harshest sentence in a decade for a Christian. Finding a lawyer 

to represent such cases is increasingly difficult. Lawyers increasingly face intense pressure from the authorities. 

One lawyer, Dr. Fan Yafeng, has been under house arrest since 

December 2010. Another lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, disappeared and 

has not been heard of since April of last year. China is now considering amending the criminal procedure law to effectively legalize 

forced disappearance. Currently there is no basis for house arrest 

under Chinese law, but these amendments would legalize this and 

allow police to hold individuals in secret locations without informing their families. China should certainly remain a CPC. 

Following the removal of Vietnam from the CPC list in 2006, the 

religious freedom situation has indeed deteriorated, as other speakers have said. Several Christians remain in jail. These include the 

Catholic priest, Father Ly, and two Protestant lawyers. Father Ly 

remains in extremely poor health and has been returned to prison 

after medical parole. A U.S. diplomat who tried to visit him earlier 

this year was physically harassed. 

Some of the most severe violations affects ethnic minorities. In 

September this year, 11 protestant families in the Dien Bien province were forced to renounce their faith. A major impediment to religious freedom in Vietnam is the registration system. Vietnam 

should be urged to redraft legislation to update Decree 22 to ensure 

the recognition of denominations and congregations continues. 

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, of these five countries, three are 

listed as Countries of Particular Concern. One is a former Country 

of Particular Concern that, as others have said, ought not to have 

been removed from that list and ought to be returned. And one is 

the world’s largest Muslim majority country, the third largest democracy with, until recently, a great tradition of pluralism and a 

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rying signs of failing to face challenges to religious freedom and the 

rule of law. There is therefore much work for all of us who are concerned about freedom of religion or belief in the East Asia region 

still to do. 

I want to express my appreciation to the U.S. Commission for its 

work, and I hope very much it is able to continue its work. And 

I welcome and appreciate this committee’s efforts as well. Thank 

you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Rogers, thank you so very much. 

As a matter of fact, on your last point, a mere matter of lifting 

a hold that Senator Durbin and apparently one other Senator has 

on the reauthorization of the Commission would bring it to the 

floor and it would pass, I believe, unanimously in the Senate. So 

there is only one obstruction and the hope is that that obstruction 

which is totally unrelated, we are told, to religious freedom be lifted. 

You know, the Senate, as you know, has arcane rules that allows 

one Member to throw a monkey wrench into the process which is 

archaic, and most outsiders can’t believe the U.S. Senate operates 

under those rules. But Senator Durbin has a hold on that bill. We 

hope that he lifts it. It would be totally unjust if he allows this 

Commission to expire. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogers follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would like to now have Reverend 

El Shafie, if you could proceed. 

STATEMENT OF REV. MAJED EL SHAFIE, PRESIDENT AND 

FOUNDER, ONE FREE WORLD INTERNATIONAL 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Thank you, Chairman Smith. And I would like 

to thank as well Ranking Member Donald Payne, and I would like 

to thank Mr. Turner and the rest of the members and the staffers, 

thank you so much for your hard work. Mr. Chair, I will ask my 

full written statement to be included in the record, please, if possible. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Without objection, so ordered. 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Thank you. 

One Free World International is a human rights organization 

based in Toronto, Canada. We have 28 branches around the world. 

Most of our branches operate as intelligence branches, which 

means that we collect information about the persecution that is 

happening to the minorities. We deal with many minorities, we 

help many minorities—Christians, Falun Gongs, Uyghurs, Baha’is, 

Ahmadiyya and many more—and as well we stood against the rising of anti-Semitism in many countries. 

After fact-finding missions that I took personally, we confronted 

many governments. And usually in our delegation to meet with 

many governments such as the Government of Iraq and Pakistan 

and Afghanistan, we were accompanied by a Canadian Member of 

Parliament and Canadian Senators. 

Today I will be speaking specifically about two countries, which 

are Egypt and Iraq. And I will be just briefly will be talking about 

the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

After the so-called Arab Spring—and I have no idea who called 

it Arab Spring—today the world is waking up to find it is not Arab 

Spring, it is a cold, deadly winter on the minorities in the Middle 

East. 

If we talk about Egypt, since the starting of the revolution in 

January 25 until now, there are 12 attacks on the Christian Coptic 

minorities in Egypt. These 12 attacks are the major attacks. According to our sources on the ground, there are more than 36 attacks. But the ones that we are aware of are the major attacks. 

Now, if I spoke specifically about one specific attack that was on 

October 9th, the massacre of Maspero. Now, if we track a little bit 

before October 9, in September 30, there is over 3,000 Muslim extremist mobs that they attack a church in Aswan; after these attacks in October 9, the Christian Egyptian community went into 

demonstration, a peaceful demonstration—I repeat, a peaceful demonstration—in Maspero and Cairo. The Egyptian military responded back by firing live ammunition on the demonstrators, 

armed cars and the tanks run over the people. Basically over 26 

people were killed, 300 were wounded. Not only that, but basically 

the Muslim hospitals in Cairo refused to receive the 300 wounded. 

Only one hospital accepted to receive the Muslim. It was the Coptic 

hospital in Cairo. After that, the Egyptian police arrested some of 

the wounded from this hospital and until now they are prisoners 

in the Egyptian prison. 

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All that we are seeing right now, according to our sources—this 

is just some of the pictures that we basically—from the demonstration. Mr. Chair, after that on October 16th, 5 days, a young man 

by the name of Ayman Labib, 17 years old, was asked to remove—

he is a student in the school. He was asked to remove his cross. 

When he refused, his teacher and a student beat him to death. 

Just yesterday, on the remember day of October 9th, 40 days of 

the memory yesterday, over 30 people were hurt trying again to 

demonstrate in Maspero. This happened just yesterday. 

We talk about Iraq. I visited Iraq 2 months ago. In my visit to 

Iraq, I was accompanied by one Member of the Canadian Parliament, Mr. John Weston, and one Member of the Canadian Senate, Don Murdoch, as observants in my mission. And they were 

part of my delegation. I was able to visit with the Vice Prime Minister of Iraq, the Vice President, the Deputy Prime Minister, the 

Minister of Human Rights in Iraq. 

By the way, in any country, if you found a Minister for Human 

Rights, that means that they have no human rights at all. It is a 

ruse, more or less. 

So the difficult part that I found in Iraq is the massacre that is 

facing the minorities. Not just the Christians, but the minorities in 

general. Right now the Christians in Iraq—half of the Christians 

in Iraq was forced to leave or was killed. This is a massacre. This 

is a genocide. This is not just ethnic cleansing. This is a genocide 

when you are forcing half the community to be killed or to leave 

your land. 

And I visited a church by the name of Our Lady of Salvation. It 

is a Catholic church that on October of last year was attacked by 

five terrorists. They entered the church and over 54 people were 

killed. Four hours that Iraqi police did not interfere to save these 

people’s lives, 4 hours. I met with some of the victims. 

Mr. Chair, what I am holding here is the bullets from the bombs 

and the shooting that took place in Our Lady of Salvation. Some 

of them still have blood from the victims. When the police entered 

after 4 hours into Our Lady of Salvation, the police did not—I repeat, the Iraqi police did not help the wounded. The opposite. They 

started to take the gold and the money from the pockets of the victims. And I have an eyewitness and I spoke with a priest of Our 

Lady of Salvation. 

And not only the Christians are facing persecution. I will mention as well the Sabean Mandaeans and the Yezidis. The Sabean 

Mandaeans, there were 50- to 60,000 in the country. Now there are 

3,500 to 7,000 of them. The solution—and I know that I have 5 

minutes. The solution—thank you, Mr. Chair. If you read my written statement, there are many solutions that we propose. But because of time, I will just focus on one of them, connecting the 

American aid and the international trade with improvement of the 

human rights situation record in these countries. I don’t know until 

when we will keep giving them blank checks. I don’t know until 

when we will keep giving the American people money to the people 

that goes over these crimes. This is not the government money. 

This is the American people money. 

Right now, in October 10, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, 

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tary. Now, the United States, they give $1.9 billion to $2 billion to 

Egypt; 1.3 of that is military aid. And she said—and this was written in the Web site of the State Department—that they will continue supporting the military. This is the military that killed innocents, who killed the minority. 

The Iraqi Government is asking for $2 billion for security sanctions and the United States is—according to the media, that they 

are willing to give them this money. The State Department in October of 11th, the day after—after the massacre, she had the phone 

call with Mohamed Kamel, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Egypt, 

and she supported him or she encouraged an investigation that is 

made by the army. Now, can you explain to me how come the army 

can investigate themselves if they are the criminals? 

And here, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, he 

issued a statement that the President is deeply concerned about 

the violence in Egypt that led to the tragic loss of life among the 

demonstrators and the security forces. The American President is 

concerned? It was a massacre. Concerning is not really—did anything to the people on the ground. And at the same time, they said 

that he feels the tragic loss—he feels sorry for the tragic loss of life 

among demonstrators and security forces. You make them equal. 

When you put the demonstrators and the security forces that were 

firing on them, you make them equal. You make both of them victims. No. One is the persecuted and one is the persecutors. Do not 

give them the same moral equality in your press release. 

Mr. Chair, forgive me for taking very long time from you. In closing, Mr. Chair, the reason that I am very passionate, I am not just 

the head of my organization or NGO, I used to be a prisoner. Until 

now, if I took off my jacket, you would find scars on my body. Until 

now I have nightmares in the night from the torture that I suffered. But, Mr. Chair, there is only one thing that I know in the 

middle of all of this. I know that the persecuted people that believe 

in faith are dying, but they still are smiling. It is a very deep dark 

night, but they still have the candle of hope. I know by fact that 

our enemy, the enemy of democracy and freedom, have very strong 

army, have very strong weapon, but we have the Lord Almighty. 

I know for a fact that they can always kill the dreamer, but no one 

can kill the dream. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. El Shafie, thank you, Reverend, 

for that very powerful testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Reverend Majed El Shafie follows:]

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would like to now yield to Dr. 

Smith. 

STATEMENT OF R. DREW SMITH, PH.D., SCHOLAR-INRESIDENCE, LEADERSHIP CENTER, MOREHOUSE COLLEGE 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Payne, distinguished members of the committee. I am honored to 

be asked to bring perspective on the important matter of religious 

freedom, especially as it relates to the sub-Saharan Africa context. 

I appreciate the very important and vital work that has been done 

by this committee and by the State Department and the Commission on this very important topic. I would like to summarize and 

ask that the written testimony be included in the record. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. SMITH. The first thing I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, is 

that I would like to draw attention to a broader range of government intimidation and coercion of the religious sector, which is 

really on a less severe scale than many of the countries that are 

designated as CPC countries. But religious repression exists in 

multiple African countries where civil and political freedoms have 

been significantly constricted in general. And I would like to suggest that some of these cases may help to ground the U.S. discussion on religious freedom in slightly broader perspective, not to 

take anything away from the urgency of the cases that have been 

legitimately at the center of the discussion. But I believe that the 

issue of religious freedom transcends some of the ways that it typically is discussed in official circles. 

One example from the African context is Zimbabwe, ruled by 

Robert Mugabe for 31 years. Mr. Mugabe’s repressive response to 

challenges to his continued rule have been well documented. But 

less well known has been his targeting of the religious community. 

Especially during the past several years, the Mugabe regime has 

unleashed violence on church persons or intimidated them by other 

means for being insufficiently supportive of his leadership and his 

ZANU–PF political party, or because they supported the leadership 

of his political rival, Morgan Tsvangirai who has been in a powersharing arrangement with Mugabe since 2009. For example, persons affiliated with the Johane Masowe Apostolic Church, one of 

Zimbabwe’s largest denominations at roughly 1 million members, 

have been murdered, tortured, assaulted or arrested primarily because of their political inclinations and disinclinations. 

One church leader, a prophet, Patric of Machaya, was purportedly killed for not allowing access to his church for campaign meetings by ZANU–PF. Two other church members were beaten to 

death in 2008, including the son of a church leader. The homestead 

of a church leader, Prophet Obey Mapuranga, was burned down for 

supporting Tsvangirai’s MDC political party. Another church leader, Prophet Wainege, was beaten, tortured, and his home burned 

down for supporting the MDC party. Yet another church leader, 

Apostle Harrison Chimutsimhu was beaten and tortured for attending church on Friday rather than ZANU–PF campaign meetings. 

106

There are also quite a few additional incidents reported of church 

members who were beaten, tortured, or detained for presumed disloyalty to ZANU–PF. 

Mugabe’s demands for allegiance have been forcefully imposed on 

other churches and church leaders as well. A Catholic priest was 

arrested in April 2011 for holding a memorial service in remembrance of 20,000 Zimbabweans from the Ndebele ethnic group, 

massacred by Mugabe’s troops shortly after he came to power in 

1980. The priest was charged with ‘‘communicating false statements against the state’’ by referring to the killings and stirring 

‘‘offense to a particular tribe.’’

In another 2011 incident, police in Harare used tear gas to disperse groups of churchpersons gathered for a peace vigil. Thirteen 

of the worshipers were arrested, including four clergymen, on 

charges related to fomenting public violence. 

But there has been a particularly systematic effort to politically 

reorient if not expel the majority of the Anglican Church in 

Zimbabwe, a church that has been a consistent promoter of political reform. When the former head of the Anglican Church in 

Zimbabwe, a pro-Mugabe bishop named Nolbert Kunonga was excommunicated by the church in 2007 for inciting violence through 

his sermons, he and his followers took over the main cathedral, the 

church’s bank accounts and dozens of Anglican schools and properties with the help of Mugabe’s police force. 

Meanwhile, it is reported that the Anglican majority in 

Zimbabwe are being prevented by Bishop Kunonga and his followers, with the assistance from the police, from accessing many of 

their church buildings in various parts of the country. Where access to church buildings may still exist, priests and church leaders 

have been arrested with some regularity and held in jail over weekends so as to prevent them from holding worship services. Anglican 

bishops have received death threats. An elderly Anglican member 

was found murdered after repeatedly refusing demands to join 

Bishop Kunonga’s church. 

The result of these repressive measures is that many Anglican 

churches lie empty on Sundays. These and other intimidation attacks were reported in the media and itemized, and a report delivered to Mr. Mugabe in October 2011 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who traveled to Zimbabwe for an urgent 

meeting with Mr. Mugabe. 

Another country where the government has curtailed religious 

freedom through intimidation and coercion is Cameroon, a country 

ruled by the same President, Paul Biya, for 29 years. The country 

engages in periodic multiparty elections and has a Constitution 

that enshrines civil liberties and religious freedom; nevertheless, 

the power of Biya’s regime is essentially without challenge and the 

regime’s capacity for manipulating or cowing opposition is extensive. 

The religious sector has not been especially politicized within 

post-colonial Cameroon, but in recent decades there has been a 

cadre of religious leaders that have openly criticized the Biya regime for policies and practices that continue to mire the country in 

poverty, especially the Anglophone population, as well as in a culture of corruption. One of the most consistent critics has been 

107

Christian Tumi, a Roman Catholic cardinal whose outspokenness 

has sometimes encouraged other Catholic leaders to speak out 

though apparently not without consequences. Cardinal Tumi has 

endured death threats, government surveillance and the Catholic 

radio station—Catholic Radio Veritas was banned. Also in the last 

25 years, a number of Catholic religious leaders have been killed 

in Cameroon under suspicious circumstances. I itemized the names 

and the locations of these Catholic leaders that includes seven 

priests, two nuns and one Archbishop. Pope John Paul II in 1995 

asked the Cameroonian Government to investigate these unsolved 

deaths of Catholic clergy and religious leaders, but his request did 

not produce results. Nevertheless, according to a 2009 report on 

challenges faced by churches in Cameroon, ‘‘Catholics are broadly 

convinced these killings were an effort to intimidate the Church to 

keep it out of politics.’’ As startling as the killings are, the numbers 

still pale in comparison to the scale of religious violence in countries such as Sudan, Eritrea and Nigeria which partly explains why 

Cameroon and countries like it have not received as much attention in discussion on religious freedom. What also explains Cameroon’s omission is the difficulty of seeing past constitutional and 

governmental declarations of religious freedom to the actual constrictions and constraints endured by religious communities on the 

ground. Let me skip, Mr. Chairman, to a second point that I really 

want to make in the remarks, which we can—and we can return 

to the other point in a question and answer session. I would like 

to suggest that there are a number of factors, including social inequality, interethnic grievances and governmental manipulation 

that contribute to religious conflicts and demand attention in efforts to resolve these conflicts. Religion features prominently and 

religiously explicit forms of mediation I think are very much required in trying to mediate these. So the second point I would like 

to make is to emphasize the important role interdenominational 

and interfaith organizations should increasingly play in mediating 

these conflicts. The All-Africa Conference of Churches is an ecclesiastical network extending across sub-Saharan Africa that is developing ever stronger partnerships with national and regional council 

of churches and with the African Union on social development matters, but also on peacemaking, which is its primary objective, especially in Sudan, the Great Lakes and the Horn of Africa. Also, each 

region in Africa has a regional fellowship of Christian councils and 

churches. And there are at least two regional interfaith networks 

in Africa. Both of those are located in East Africa. Moreover, national church councils and interfaith councils exist in many African 

countries, including Sudan, Nigeria and Eritrea. Although the impact of these various types of councils on conflict resolution has 

been debated and the impartiality and diplomatic skill sets of religious leaders questioned at times, some of these councils have been 

very strategic to mediation and peacemaking. These religious councils have demonstrated a number of significant strengths that 

uniquely position them for effective mediation and peacemaking, 

including extensive deep rooted relationships with localized constituencies in situations where there oftentimes is a scarcity of 

local civil society infrastructure, capabilities to reach beyond culturally confined localisms and politically constricted local context 

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so as to facilitate broader collaborative platforms for expression 

and action. And thirdly, an ability to speak to religious struggles 

with the religious authority that comes from theologically and ecclesiastically positioning responses to social problems. In building 

consensus around the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, 

the Sudan Council of Churches, the Sudan Catholic Bishop’s Conference and Sudan Interreligious Council works systematically to 

increase support for CPA among their local constituencies and to 

leverage local pressure on governmental parties while deriving support from regional and international religious councils in the form 

of materials, resources, insertions of skilled personnel and 

leveraging of pressure from other governments and multilateral organizations in support of CPA. But without the credibility local 

councils had with their Sudanese constituencies across denominational and religious lines, the external support for CPA may not 

have been sufficient to keep the process from collapsing. These 

local, regional and international faith-based collaborations are continuing to evolve in East Africa in response to ongoing problems in 

Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and elsewhere. The Religious Leaders 

Peace Initiative, for example, a multilateral interfaith initiative involving faith leaders from various denominational and conciliar 

bodies as well as staff from the Intergovernmental Authority on 

Development are facilitating broad-based dialogue and research 

and training in response to conflicts in the region. With increased 

capacity, the contributions by these religious councils to mediation 

and peacemaking can be expanded. Unfortunately, expanding mediation and peacemaking activities of religious organizations seemingly has not been a U.S. foreign policy priority. There has been 

a policy interest in faith-based organizations within the context of 

the AIDS relief prioritizations within U.S.-Africa policy, but very 

little attention to the strategic positioning of faith-based organizations for crucial mediation and peacemaking work. So my recommendation is that more attention be given within the overall 

government strategy to utilizing and helping to expand the mediation and peacemaking capacities of religious councils. To cite one 

other piece of information related to this, Mr. Chairman, the 

PEPFAR program, as you know, is the most extensive operation 

that the U.S. Government has affecting African countries, with $15 

billion allocated in 2003 for disbursal over 5 years and another $48 

billion allocated in reauthorization in 2008. Ten percent of those 

monies went to FBOs, faith-based organizations, but only $220 million has been allocated in the USAID’s 2008 budget for democratic 

reform. So the very real gap between the monies allocated toward 

PEPFAR versus the monies allocated for democratic reform in 

which many of these interfaith and interdenominational groups 

could play a role in mediation and reconciliation work is underfunded and certainly needs to have more attention. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman and committee members, for allowing me to share a few 

perspectives on these issues. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Dr. Smith, thank you so very much 

for your testimony and for bringing very close scrutiny on the issue 

in Cameroon, which this committee is deeply concerned about. But 

you have highlighted that, particularly with your listing of priests 

and nuns and bishops who have been killed there. We have not 

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spent, frankly, enough time on this committee focusing on that in 

Cameroon. So I thank you for that and for the other very fine 

points that you made. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]


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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Payne does have to leave. So I 

would like to yield to him first if he could——

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. Of course several members 

have been waiting for me for about half an hour, so I really have 

to leave. But let me just thank all of you for your testimony. 

The situation must improve. I just might ask you, Dr. Smith, it 

seems like it is a new phenomena so far as I know that the extremists—that there has always been this conflict in Africa. However, 

it seems to me to be only in the last decade, or less even, that we 

have seen this question of phenomena of suicide bombings. This 

was not African. I mean, they might have been at war, but as we 

have seen in Somalia now and everyone in Nigeria, we have seen 

this phenomena of suicide bombing. And I wonder—and they are 

doing it under these people who are taking advantage of Islam. 

Have you—do you know when this change occurred? And have you 

noticed the fact that there is an increase in that, when in the past 

it seemed to have been absent? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Payne. I cannot date the exact time 

in which that form of activity gained the kind of prominence that 

it has. I would say in response to your question that one of the 

things that is important to note in the discussion of religious freedom and the denials and the declines of religious freedom in many 

contexts is the extent to which governments and opportunistic 

groups can manipulate perspectives and ongoing grievances within 

context and move them in directions that had not necessarily been 

the role religion played within those particular contexts. 

So in these countries and where these types of activities—the 

suicide bombing activities are taking place, that would certainly be 

an instance where these situations of religion are being manipulated by nonreligious groups who really have issues in mind and 

concerns in mind that are not specific to the religious community, 

manipulating religion for purposes that are political in nature. 

So I don’t think that you would necessarily find that kind of activity taking place in countries that are not border countries to the 

Islamic world, where some of these things have occurred with more 

frequency, the ability of governments and other groups to manipulate that particular fact. It would probably be far less in countries 

where it has not been an inherent part of the culture or at least 

a growing part of the cultural milieu within those contexts. 

Mr. PAYNE. And you raise a point about comparing the amount 

of funds that we have for PEPFAR and the very small amount for 

democracy and public diplomacy. So in your view, you know, what 

is the role of public diplomacy in promoting religious freedom? And 

I think it is clear from your previous comments, but is the U.S. 

doing enough to work with indigenous community-based interreligious mediation organizations, such as the internationally acclaimed Interfaith Mediation Center headed by Imam Mohammed 

Ashafa and the Pastor James Wuye in Nigeria? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, thank you, Mr. Payne. The short answer to the 

question is that I don’t believe enough is being done to engage the 

very vital resources both in terms of moral resources, relational resources, and infrastructural resources that are embodied by interfaith groups and interdenominational councils across the African 

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ran Africa there is a very rich network, a very rich infrastructure 

of these organizations. As I mentioned, there are not only local 

councils, both interfaith and interdenominational, within many 

counties, but there are regional councils in every region of Africa, 

east, west, southern and the Horn and the Great Lakes region. 

There is also the All-African Conference of Churches which is 

continent-wide in its impact and its involvement on various issues, 

particularly peacemaking issues. 

So there are significant resources and possibilities for involvement by these structures and by these religious leaders to engage 

in the very important work of mediation and reconciliation and 

peacemaking within these contexts. 

Not all of these situations of religious conflict are necessarily susceptible to government mediation or demonstrations of hard power. 

Some of these situations can be perhaps prevented or mediated in 

some way by more soft-power diplomacy skills. And I think that is 

precisely what these faith leaders and faith organizations can bring 

to the table. They have credibility with local populations that has 

been demonstrated in a number of instances. 

The All-African Conference of Churches has worked very closely 

with the African Religious Leaders Council in East Africa on Interfaith Dialogue related to Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, the ACC, and 

the Africa Religious Peace Council has also worked closely with the 

Africa Union who understands the importance of those infrastructures and those leaders to the mediation process, to the peacemaking process. The African Union combined efforts with the Africa Religious Peace Council in the Abuja initiative, a dialogue that 

took place not too long ago, to bring faith leaders around the table 

to discuss the issues of religious violence in Nigeria. 

So I think the African Union is demonstrating, as well as IGAD, 

the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the importance 

that they place on the religious community for mediation and 

peacemaking. I think the U.S. Government through the State Department and other mechanisms can make much better use of 

those resources. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. I just want to let—I appreciate your comments. And since time is short, I won’t ask any other 

questions. 

But I do want to say to Reverend Shafie, I will be visiting Egypt 

in the next week or so. And I will look at your testimony and raise 

some issues with the authorities there, although it is not on the 

agenda. We are there to observe the elections coming up. But I 

think that these issues are important and if we get an opportunity 

to—and I know there will be an opportunity to be before some of 

the government authorities—I will certainly raise those issues. 

And secondly, if you have any other issues you would like to 

highlight, I will be leaving tomorrow, the last day, but you certainly can feel free to get anything to my office. But I do have your 

testimony in full that I will review and will take points from that. 

So thank you very much. 

Let me thank all of you. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Let me just ask some questions. 

Thank you, all four of you, for your very, very decisive testimonies. 

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Bishop Ramirez, in your testimony, you, I think, provided a very 

robust and rich and deep definition of religious freedom. When the 

Church speaks, you write, about religious freedom, it is not arguing 

solely for freedom in matters of coercion of personal faith and conscience, it is also advocating for freedom to practice faith individually and communally in both private and public. Freedom of religion extends beyond freedom of worship to include the institutional 

freedom of the Church and religious organizations to provide education, health, and other social services, and it then goes on from 

there. 

You also point out some very disturbing Pew studies that shows 

that 70 percent of the world’s population have high or very high 

governmental or societal restrictions on religion. And you point out, 

most ominously, that as recently as August 2011, a Pew study 

found that between 2006 and 2009, in some of the most populous 

countries affecting about a third of the world’s population that 

China, Egypt, France, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam and the 

United Kingdom as eight countries where government or societal 

restrictions increased substantially while religious restrictions in 

countries such as India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Bangladesh, 

Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Burma remain very high, I mean, a 

very serious erosion of religious freedom that you have highlighted 

which I think has been underscored by each of our witnesses, and 

I thank you for giving that broad sweep of the world. 

I don’t think we are doing enough, I don’t think Congress is 

doing enough. The fact that the Commission has been stymied over 

on the Senate side thus far underscores a lack of prioritization, and 

I think your point and others’ points about the administration more 

fully integrating the irreligious freedom message in all of its rich 

manifestations has not happened so far. Hope springs eternal, 

hopefully they will, but it has not happened in my view. 

If I could specifically in Iraq, because I know the Church, all the 

churches have been extremely concerned about what happens when 

U.S. and coalition forces leave, it has been a dismal record while 

we were there, what happens when we leave? Do you have any recommendations, any of you, perhaps Bishop Ramirez, starting with 

you, on what we should be doing to ensure that as the baton is 

passed, the situation does not deteriorate further? 

Bishop RAMIREZ. I mentioned in my testimony, my oral testimony, that we had two bishops visit Iraq very recently, just 2 

weeks ago they were there, and they were pressed by the Christians whom they visited that they are concerned about what would 

happen, what will happen when the U.S. troops leave, will there 

be any kind of protection. So we would hope that the U.S. would 

continue to monitor the situation and provide as much assistance 

as it can. 

On the issue of what can, what actions the President and the 

State Department could take against some of these countries that 

are egregious violators of religious freedom, some of these we might 

suggest are something like travel restrictions for some of the government leaders, arms sales, a restriction of arms sales to those 

countries, the sales of materiel that might eventually be used for 

torture. 

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When I was in the Commission, we made an issue of that in certain countries that we not export certain materiel that could eventually be used as torture. Also, perhaps, economic sanctions aimed 

not at everybody in that country but especially at the elite so that 

we wouldn’t hurt the vulnerable people in their particular country. 

So we do have those recommendations to make, and we would reinforce the recommendations of the Commission on taking these 

various actions on behalf of the President and the State Department. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much. Yes, did you 

want to touch on that? 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Now, when I visited Iraq, Mr. Chair, the major 

thing that took my attention is the Iraqi Government completely 

trying to blame Syria, the old regime, but they wouldn’t touch on 

the persecution that is happening to the Christians there. They 

wouldn’t touch on Iran. 

The major thing that took my attention is the increase of influence of the Iranian regime in Iraq. 

Let me put it in a very simple way. I spoke with one of the Iraqi 

officials in Iraq who indicated to me in private, I will not mention 

his name to protect him, but with me was one MP and one Senator 

that was witness to the conversation, John Weston and Bill Meredith, that when the Iraqi Government choose an administrator in 

Iraq the Iranian regime has to approve first. That is what was said 

to me in front of a Canadian Member of Parliament and a Canadian Senator, some very high official Iraqi. 

Now, here is the problem with that. If United States did not prevent Iran from taking over Iraq or to have an absolute increase of 

influence in Iran, as we can see, even Jaish-al-Mahdi, the Mahdi 

Army, which is very responsible directly on the persecution of a lot 

of Christians in Iraq, such as Utra Conyerkos, who was kidnapped 

and tortured by them. And now he is 20 years old and he cannot 

even walk because they broke his back. 

Jaish-al-Mahdi start to integrate them in the Iraqi Government, 

the influence of Iran is increasing. And here is the problem, Mr. 

Chair. The United States, more than any other country in the 

world, paid very heavy price to free Iraq from dictatorship. To be 

exact around 5,000 American soldiers, around 52—American soldiers were wounded—5,000, almost 5,000 American soldiers were 

killed. I will not even talk to you about the finance that the United 

States put in Iraq, I will talk to you about the blood. Because the 

blood you can’t replace it, money you can. Blood you can’t. 

Mr. Chairman, if we did not protect the Christians in Iraq, if we 

did not prevent Iran from increasing their influence in Iraq, our 

American soldiers, our American children, their blood, will go in 

vain. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Rogers, have I asked you, I know 

you recently visited Pyongyang with Lord Alton and Baroness Cox. 

As a matter of fact I was in email contact with Lord Alton prior 

to his traveling there most recently. 

Could you give us—you mentioned 200,000 people in camps. 

There is one show church, I understand, in Pyongyang, and if that 

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is still up and running, what is the state of religious persecution 

in the Hermit Kingdom? 

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Just before I answer that 

question could I correct one omission from my oral testimony where 

I neglected formally to request that my written testimony be included. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Without objection, all of the testimonies will be put in the record. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you very much. In answer to your question, 

I think one can say about North Korea, and it is not something one 

can say about too many countries, that there is no religious freedom in North Korea. There are actually three show churches in 

Pyongyang, one Protestant, one Russian Orthodox and one Roman 

Catholic. 

And we did visit all three of them, but I think it is fair to say 

that all three of them are show churches. The Catholic Church in 

particular is—the other churches have a veneer which can be deceptive. The Catholic Church has clearly no veneer because it does 

not have a priest. And we have raised this consistently with the 

North Korean authorities that there is no Catholic priest in the 

Catholic Church in Pyongyang. 

Instead there is actually a party cadre who looks almost like a 

stereotypical party cadre in a mouse suit with not even much of a 

smile. So the situation there was, really there were Potemkin style 

churches. Outside Pyongyang, to my knowledge, there are no 

churches permitted by the authorities. We believe that there are 

gatherings of Christians who meet at significant risk if they are 

caught. 

It’s my understanding that anyone engaged in religious activity 

ends up in one of the prison camps and in some cases, not all, but 

in some cases they face execution for their religious faith and activities and particularly anybody who has been repatriated by 

China, people who have gone across the border to China, perhaps 

converted in China or had contact with South Korean Christian 

missionaries in China, if that is discovered or if they are discovered 

bringing Bibles back into North Korea, they face death or certainly 

extremely severe penalties. 

And just one final point, in relation to China’s policy of repatriation, I think that is a really serious situation that so far the international community, including the United States, has failed to 

properly address for China. And I would want pressure to be put 

on China to stop repatriating North Koreans, some of whom are 

Christians and some of whom face severe penalties and violations 

of religious freedom. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much. I know, 

Bishop Ramirez, you have to leave for a flight, so I thank you on 

behalf of the committee for your testimony and very wise counsel 

and insights. 

Bishop RAMIREZ. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Just a few final questions, I know 

it is getting late, and we will submit some additional questions if 

you would as quickly as you can turn those answers around. 

Reverend El Shafie, if I could just add and reiterate something 

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tober 10 the President of the United States said that he is deeply 

concerned—or the White House said, the President is deeply concerned about the violence in Egypt that has led to a tragic loss of 

life. Now that is fine of course. 

Now is the time for restraint on all sides so that Egyptians can 

move forward and forge a strong, united Egypt, clearly conveying 

a quality of culpability on both sides as if they weren’t a victim and 

aggressor. Your point was, I think, very well taken and it is something that I raise as well. 

There is an aggressor. And as a matter of fact the Supreme 

Council of the Armed Forces, their staff, routinely come here and 

into the Pentagon. And to the best of my knowledge, we are saying 

investigate, but investigate yourself. It does raise very serious 

questions about credibility. 

And I do think it is time to look at that $1.3 billion and all 

money flowing to the country of Egypt because of this heightened 

crackdown on the Coptic Christians, as well as other religious minorities, but no one seems to be suffering more than the Coptics. 

So your points, I think were very, very, well taken. 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Could I just add one point before we move? 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Sure. 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Sorry, forgive me for interrupting you. 

I found that very disconcerting that this administration is missing the care and missing that action when it comes to freedom of 

religion. I am not just talking about that it was Egypt or the Arab 

Spring where you cannot expect that there is a democracy between 

them. When they are basically without education, democracy dies. 

Thirty to forty percent of the Egyptian population is illiterate. This 

means they cannot read or write their own name. So no matter 

how much you reform the Constitution, they still will not understand what is in it. So you have to start by education before you 

start by democracy. 

The support of some of the people in this administration, that 

they believe that Muslim Brotherhood is a peaceful organization, 

that is shocking to me. Muslim Brotherhood is the foundation of alQaeda, of Hamas, of Hezbollah, and they—and some of them, talking with them the—our Secretary of State went to meet with them 

in Cairo. After the meeting they came out of the meeting and they 

completely dismissed her. They actually spoke about her with disrespect. 

And not only Egypt or Iraq, Mr. Chair, but even in Iran, when 

President Obama gave his speech in Cairo in June 2009, a week 

later the Green Revolution has started in Tehran and nobody did 

anything from the American administration. And this is a fact, the 

fact that we cannot even stand against China. 

We know that China is killing the Uyghurs and the Falun Gong 

and the Christians and the Tibetans, and we cannot do anything 

because our financial and our economy depends on them. The truth 

and the reality that even the Ambassador-at-Large, Dr. Suzan 

Johnson Cook, is not here, that tells you something. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Just a few, couple final questions. 

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Dr. Smith, the Department of State seems to view the NorthSouth conflict in Nigeria as primarily political in nature and not 

religious. Do you agree with that and why or why not? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that clearly there 

are more than religious dimensions to the conflict, but religion is 

also a verifiable part of the conflict. One of the things that I think 

is important to do in order to—because there are clearly tensions 

within official circles about where the conversation on religious 

freedom fits with overall government U.S. policy in various parts 

of the world, and I think it is important that as we pursue the conversation on religious freedom that we are careful to emphasize not 

only the religious freedom dimensions but to emphasize those within a larger conversation about denial of civil liberties and political 

freedoms in general. 

I think to tie the religious freedom discussion to a very, very 

clear and detailed concern about impediments to religious or to 

freedom of expression, impediments to freedom of assembly, gives 

the religious freedom discussion a kind of breadth. 

And in the Nigerian context I think it is quite important to place 

that in context and Nigeria would not be the only African context 

where there are some concerns about the real agenda behind the 

discussion of religious freedom. I think in a number of African contexts there are concerns that the way religious freedom is being 

discussed, it is being discussed as sort of an extension of the global 

war on terror or perhaps even as an extension of the ecclesiastical 

expansion concerns of American churches and proselytizing concerns of American churches. 

I think to tie the religious freedom discussion more closely to 

these very real and legitimate political and civil liberties issues 

helps to ground the discussion so that we don’t have the kind of 

pushback on our religious freedom issues. Clearly Nigeria is about 

more than just the religious freedom issue, but it is very much a 

part of the conversation as well. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. If you could on Eritrea, we know that 

some Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses have been locked into 

containers and died when put out into the desert. 

How widespread is that? We know others have been killed, obviously in jail and tortured to death. And who has leverage with the 

Eritreans, with their leadership? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think, unfortunately, 

with the Eritrean situation, what we have is the context of virtually a failed state, a failed state and the virtual absence of a civil 

society sector. And so in the absence of any kind of civil society 

groups that can really challenge the government on these issues, 

I think the situation is bound to continue and to grow worse. 

The pressure, I think, will have to come from outside of Eritrea 

to a great extent, not necessarily outside the continent or the region. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Like the AU. 

Mr. SMITH. Like the AU and like some of these regional and continent-wide interfaith and interdenominational groups as well as 

U.S. Government, the European Government, the pressures on the 

Eritrean situation. There is virtually little that is going on inside 

of Eritrea that is going to provide the pushback that is needed. 

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Bishop Ramirez said, and I meant 

to ask him before he left, that the greatest number of religious persecutions and discriminatory activities is directed at Christians. 

Would you all agree with that in terms of numbers? 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Yes. 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, I would. 

Mr. SMITH. I think the numbers probably stack up that way. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And it is in his written testimony, 

so it is part of the record. 

Let me just ask a couple of final questions before we conclude. 

Mr. Rogers, can you explain why you think concerns exist over 

the rule of law in Indonesia and exactly what you saw when you 

visited GYI, Yasmin Church in Bogor, and secondly, you mentioned 

new restriction of religious freedom in the Kachin State in Burma, 

and maybe perhaps you could elaborate on that for the committee. 

And Reverend El Shafie, if I could ask you, we focused on this 

committee in the past on the UNRWA textbooks that the Palestinian Authority uses that are rife with anti-Semitic statements as 

well as anti-American with the rise in Hamas, which was very 

much responsible for that anti-Semitic hatred, as well as antiChristian and anti-Americans and anti-Israel. Have you seen any 

abatement with any of that, have you followed that closely at all? 

Because it seems to me, as has been said, and it is in the report 

that the Commission put out about the absolute essential character 

of teaching. If you teach young people to hate, they will hate, and 

it is very hard to change that behavior when it has been so indoctrinated into a young man or a young woman. 

I remember in one of my previous hearings, we had a man from 

Saudi Arabia whose brother had been imprisoned who brought the 

textbooks and read from them and said this is what a little 8-, 9-

, 10-year-old is subjected to in terms of hate formation, and I am 

just wondering if you might want to speak to that as well. But then 

if you could start and then we will go to——

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In relation to serious 

concerns of the rule of law in Indonesia, I think there are two clear 

examples that illustrate this. One is the DKIS in the case of 

Charles Kamanti because you specifically referenced that. 

But the other is the trial earlier this year following a very brutal 

attack that I described very briefly in my opening statement, attack on the Ahmadiyya community, in a town called Cikeusik, a 

mob of about, of more than 1,000 people attacked a community of 

21. Of the perpetrators who carried out that attack, only three individuals were arrested and put on trial. 

During the trial, one of the Ahmadi survivors was subjected to 

the most extraordinary verbal harassment by the judge, and that 

is actually available on YouTube, it was captured on video. And the 

three perpetrators were sentenced—and these were people who carried out murder and other really, really seriously violent acts—

were sentenced to between 3 and 6 months in jail. And one Ahmadi 

man, who had simply been there to try to protect his community—

he hadn’t actually engaged in any violence—but he was sentenced 

to 6 months for disobeying police orders to leave his home. To me 

that says something is wrong with the rule of law when people who 

carry out these kinds of acts receive those kinds of light sentences. 

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The case of GKI Yasmin Church also illustrates a breakdown in 

the rule of law because this is a church that some years ago secured all the necessary permissions and licenses to set up as a 

church. The local mayor actually approved the construction of the 

church. The local mayor then came under pressure from extremist 

groups and reversed his decision. 

The church challenged this decision in the courts at every level, 

a local court, district court and all the way to the Supreme Court. 

And then we staged the court rules in the church’s favor all the 

way out to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has ruled that 

the church should be allowed to open, is legal, and the mayor is 

still refusing to allow it to open. 

When I visited the church for its Sunday service just a few weeks 

ago, they are worshipping in the street outside the church building 

because the church building is locked and sealed. They are surrounded by rows of police for their own protection, because there 

is a mob of extremists on the other side of the police, and it is the 

first time I have ever worshipped on a Sunday morning in the 

streets surrounded by police, who in this particular case were there 

to protect the congregation. But nevertheless the church should be 

allowed to open, and it is now a rule of law issue because the 

mayor is in defiance of the Supreme Court ruling. 

In answer to the situation in Kachin, just in recent weeks—the 

Kachin are a predominantly Christian people along the border with 

China. And in recent weeks Burma army soldiers have attacked 

several churches. They shot at worshippers in an Assembly of God 

church, injuring several people, including the pastor and the deacon. And they also seized control of a Catholic Church where they 

shot at the congregation during a Sunday service and beat the 

priest assistants with a rifle butt. 

They have introduced legislation in one particular township. We 

don’t know yet whether this is being applied in other parts of the 

country, but in one particular township in Kachin State on the 

14th of October, an order was sent requiring Christians to seek 

permission from the local authorities at least 15 days in advance 

and with several letters of recommendation from government departments, require 15 days in advance if they want to pray, read 

the Bible, carry out Bible studies, carry out Sunday school or fast. 

And I have never seen that in Burma before that one should apply 

15 days in advance simply to pray or read the Bible. But that is 

a new order in one locality at least. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Reverend. 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, what we are 

seeing right now in the Palestinian territory is not only happening 

in Gaza, it is happening in the Palestinian Authority areas, which 

are supposed to be the ones that are less extremist in education. 

But what we are seeing right now in the Middle East when it 

comes to schoolbooks with regard to anti-Semitism is what we call 

this in the free world, it is in essence the new kind of anti-Semitism. Now the old kind of anti-Semitism is basically that you attack the Jewish people. Here is a Jewish person. So kill the Jewish, 

or no Jewish allowed and all of the stuff. 

Now the new anti-Semitism is not necessarily pointed at the 

Jewish people, but pointed at Israel, that they exist in Israel as a 

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nation and the people who live in it. Now, I am not saying that we 

were not allowed to criticize Israel. Israel is a country like any 

country, has its good, has its bad, of course, but I am seeing once 

you cross this line of just useful criticizing to denying their existence or denying the right to defend itself, this becomes anti-Semitism. This becomes a new kind of anti-Semitism. That is in my 

opinion. 

And right now we are seeing these books not only in the Palestinian areas, not only the Palestinian territory, even in Egypt, for 

example, a country that has a peace agreement with Israel for 62 

years. 

So basically what we are seeing right now is that what I can say 

is preparing a new generation for hatred and war and the only solution that we can do right now with this regard is basically that 

our aid, to aim more on the programs in these countries that basically would promote harmony and interfaith and will put some 

pressure on the governments to change these textbooks. 

And you are right, once the child learned this in his young age—

sir, I mean to tell you, when I was in Egypt, 9 years old, I was in 

a school in Egypt. One day I went to my history teacher and I ask 

him why do we hate Israel in the schoolbooks, in the history books 

while we have peace agreement with them? I was 9 years old and 

I received 10 beatings from a stick on my hand. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Just for asking. 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. Just for asking this question, and the stick—it 

took very long time for the teacher to understand the truth, but it 

is never too late. That is what I know, it is never too late to act 

now. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. You know Natan Sharansky made a 

very famous speech where he talked about how you recognize when 

it is not just disagreeing with an Israeli policy, and he calls it the 

three Ds definition. The first is demonization of Israel, second 

delegitimization, and the third denial of Israel’s right to exist. So 

it certainly comports with exactly what you just said. 

Rev. EL SHAFIE. What we are seeing right now in the Islamic 

faith, if I may, the biggest dilemma that Islam as a faith is facing 

is not rising of the extremists but is the silence of the moderate 

Muslims. What I am really saying here is, sir, can I be just not politically correct just for half a minute and after this I will be politically correct again if you want to. 

What we are facing right now is when you sit down with a Muslim community that is supposed to be—really the key thing teaching the children and supposed to improve their ideas about Jewish 

people and Christians, they will ask from us not to judge them on 

the actions of the extremists and they will tell me that the extremists did hijack the religion. Well, why did you let them hijack it? 

Is this not a Christian question? Why did you let them hijack it? 

It is not—the dilemma of the Islamic faith is not the rising of the 

extremists, of the moderate Muslims who remain silent on the 

crimes that happened to the Jews and the Christians. 

Thank you, sir. 

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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Dr. Smith, I have one final question 

and then any final comments any of the three of you would like to 

make. 

In your discussion about Cameroon you point out that in the last 

25 years a number of Catholic leaders have been killed in Cameroon under suspicious circumstances, and you list a number of 

those who have died. From reading it correctly, the last was in 

2006. And in your statement you say according to a 2009 report on 

challenges faced by churches in Cameroon, ‘‘Catholics are broadly 

convinced these killings were an effort to intimidate the Church to 

keep it out of politics.’’

When you say war, do you mean is it truly past tense or is it 

past tense and present tense as well? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, I definitely am alluding to a fact that it is an ongoing problem. In 2009 that was a report and that was reported during that time. But when I was actually in Cameroon in 2010, I believe it was as a Fulbright professor, 

the kinds of concerns that are itemized in the report came out very 

clearly from many of the students, religious leaders around the 

country about the ongoing intimidation, coercion, repression of 

Christian churches, particularly in—and also Muslim groups—and 

particularly in the Anglophone section of Cameroon, which is the 

least developed part of the country, sort of the minority population 

within the larger Francophone context, and the extent to which the 

national government has manipulated leaders even of religious 

communities within the Anglophone section as a means of suppressing the voices of resistance. That was quite extensive and to 

the point that I think many of the religious leadership that I spoke 

with felt that they had very little ability to truly express their 

point of view, their interests, their concerns and in some respects, 

even, to truly express matters that they felt were at the heart of 

their faith experience. 

Their religious experience was not just an individualistic concern, 

their religious experience was about community and the ability of 

community to be able to form freely and to represent an embodied 

interest of constituencies that they represent. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Any final comments from any of our 

witnesses? Yes. 

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to firstly thank you 

again very much and other members for your leadership on this 

issue. 

I would like to just make a couple of final points. On the positive 

side, coming from the United Kingdom, not being a U.S. citizen and 

not being embroiled in domestic politics in the United States, we 

really appreciate the United States’ leadership on the issue of 

international religious freedom, the leadership that you have given 

them, other Members of Congress, but also the leadership that the 

State Department and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have given over the years. 

I think the United Kingdom is perhaps trying to catch up, and 

I was in Europe also. There was a recent conference in the United 

Kingdom on international religious freedom and the new government, I think, is prioritizing it much more than they used to. But 

over the years the United States has given this issue real leaderVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:45 Feb 23, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00129 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\111711\71266 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ship, which those of us who work on international religious freedom in other parts of the world deeply appreciate. 

However, in recent months I think we have been very concerned 

by some of the trends in the United States, the serious delay in the 

nomination and appointments of the Ambassador-at-Large. It is 

concerning that the Ambassador-at-Large was not here today and 

also the issues regarding the reauthorization of the Commission, 

and I hope very much that all those concerns that have arisen in 

recent months will be addressed and that the United States will 

really continue and increase its important leadership on this very 

important issue. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One brief comment. First 

of all, again, thank you for the opportunity to be here and share 

perspective on this important issue today, and I think it is a very 

important issue. I think that the ongoing work around religious 

freedom is vital and the work of this committee, the work of the 

Commission, the work that other sectors of the U.S. Government 

is doing on this important topic, and I would hope that there would 

be ways to really have bipartisan cooperation around these issues 

so that the important issue of religious freedom does not somehow 

get lost in the politics. 

And I think what I tried to do here today is to suggest that there 

are some mechanisms for bridging that may draw a wider level of 

support for the issue of religious freedom, not only within U.S. Government conversations, but also with our partners around the 

world on these issues. And I think that one of those ways is to 

demonstrate that religious freedom is an issue that transcends 

some of the kind of divisions that we have in our conversations 

about that by situating that more in a larger conversation of civil 

liberties and political freedoms. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. And on those fine comments, the 

hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS


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