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88–022PDF 2014

PROTECTING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: U.S. EFFORTS

TO HOLD ACCOUNTABLE COUNTRIES OF

PARTICULAR CONCERN

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 22, 2014

Serial No. 113–194

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

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

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Robert P. George, Ph.D., chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom ...................................................................................................... 4

Mr. Kenneth E. Bowers, secretary, National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha ́’ı ́s 

of the United States ............................................................................................. 45

Mr. Amjad M. Khan, national director of public affairs, Ahmadiyya Muslim 

Community USA .................................................................................................. 53

Pastor Bob Fu, founder and president, ChinaAid Association ............................. 69

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Robert P. George, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ....................................................... 12

Mr. Kenneth E. Bowers: Prepared statement ....................................................... 48

Mr. Amjad M. Khan: Prepared statement ............................................................. 57

Pastor Bob Fu: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 73

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 104

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 105

Pastor Bob Fu: Report from 64 destroyed churches ............................................. 106

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

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

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: 

Statement from Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love .................................................. 110

Statement from Mr. Matteo Mecacci .................................................................. 117

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PROTECTING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: U.S. 

EFFORTS TO HOLD ACCOUNTABLE 

COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN 

THURSDAY, MAY 22, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.m., in 

room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. 

Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order, and I want to 

welcome all of you and thank you for being at this very important 

hearing and ongoing series of hearings concerning religious freedom, and with particular focus today on the Commission and some 

of the work that they have done, some of the outstanding and exemplary work they have done, and the state of religious freedom 

around the world. 

And we have some excellent witnesses who will be presenting 

testimony to the subcommittee. Hopefully it will be heard not just 

by Congress but also by offending countries and those who are on 

the bubble, about to be offending countries, but also by the executive branch which we hope will take clear note of what is said here, 

especially by our, like I said, very distinguished witnesses. 

The headlines are filled with examples of religious persecution. 

A 27-year-old expectant mother, Mrs. Ibrahim, is in prison and 

faces a death sentence today in Sudan because she refused to renounce her Christian faith. In like manner, Habila Adamu was 

shot in the head and left for dead, a man that I first met in September of last year when I was in Jos, a place in Nigeria where 

churches have been firebombed. 

I remember meeting with the archbishop there, Kaigama, who 

told me how he was working very closely with the imam and other 

top Muslim clerics to combat the persecution of Christians in particular, Muslims secondarily, who are not targeted as robustly as 

Christians, and unfortunately the situation in Nigeria as we all 

know with the recent abduction of the schoolgirls has gone from extremely bad to even worse. 

So here we are. We met with this man, Habila Adamu, who 

many of you have met. He testified before our subcommittee. And 

I will never forget when he told us that when the Boko Haram radVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:39 Oct 01, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\052214\88022 SHIRL
2

ical Islamists put the AK–47 to his nose and the top of part of his 

face, said that you renounce your belief in Jesus or else I will kill 

you, and you must convert to Islam, he said, I am ready to meet 

my Lord, and the man pulled the trigger and left him for dead. 

And he was quite disfigured by this attempted murder, this attempted assassination, but it was a clear, compelling example of 

courage, unbelievable courage, but also deep conviction in his religious beliefs which happen to be Christian. 

Anti-Semitism as well has resurfaced in many parts of the world. 

In some cases it never went away. And we are also seeing it now 

in Ukraine with a series of violent attacks following the ouster of 

former Prime Minister Yanukovych. 

Wednesday we received word that American pastor Saeed 

Abedini who is serving an 8-year sentence in Iran for his faith was 

severely beaten and returned to prison. He had been hospitalized 

due to internal bleeding from beatings previously received in prison. His wife, Naghmeh Abedini, testified before this committee, as 

well as before a committee convened by Frank Wolf, and begged 

that the administration make securing her husband’s release a top 

priority. 

Tragically, many countries of the world are a long way from recognizing the human right of religious freedom set forth by Article 

18 of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as 

the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In the 

United States we claim religious freedom as the first freedom because of its placement at the top of the Bill of Rights enumerated 

in our Constitution and because of its foundational role in the life 

of a free and democratic nation. 

Religious freedom is a constant reminder to governments that 

their power is limited, that governments do not create rights but 

merely recognize them, and that a man or woman’s first duty is to 

his or her well-formed conscience. 

The evidence bears out the importance of protecting and promoting religious freedom. As the Pew Research Center and Berkeley Center at Georgetown have shown, governments that protect 

and promote religious freedom have higher levels of social harmony. Just as importantly for national security, high observance of 

religious freedom is correlated with lower levels of religious extremism. 

In 1998, Congress had the foresight to make the protection and 

promotion of religious freedom a priority in U.S. foreign policy by 

creating an Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom, the Office 

of International Religious Freedom at Department of State, which 

authors the international religious freedom reports on every country in the world, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, with their watchdog report to Congress. 

Importantly, this landmark piece of legislation, the International 

Religious Freedom Act, authored by Chairman Frank Wolf of Virginia, created a system for naming and taking action against a 

Country of Particular Concern, the language that was included in 

the text, or as we call them, CPCs. Sixteen years later, the need 

for U.S. leadership on religious freedom could not be more critical, 

things have actually gotten worse in many parts of the world, but 

sadly the tools needed for the U.S. to lead are very lightly used. 

3

The administration recently announced its intention to appoint 

two new members to U.S. Commission on International Religious 

Freedom, but the post of Ambassador-at-Large is in its seventh 

month of vacancy. As a matter of fact, for more than half of President Obama’s tenure in office there has been no Ambassador-atLarge. A revelation, in my opinion, of priorities. The post, as I said, 

has been empty for a long time. 

Despite the fact that IRFA called for an annual review of CPC 

designations, the administration has not named CPCs since 2011. 

That is an outrage. There are countries, and I know the Commission has made recommendations for some eight countries that 

ought to be added to the list including the Government of Vietnam, 

and yet they are not, and they have not made designations since 

2011. 

What few Presidential actions, like sanctions, that have been 

taken in correlation with the 2011 CPC designation have now 

lapsed. History has shown that when the U.S. makes religious freedom a priority and that priority is conveyed to a Country of Particular Concern we have seen conditions have changed with minimal harm to security or economic cooperation. 

For instance, CPC designation worked as intended with Vietnam 

until it was removed prematurely, and that was under the Bush 

administration. In 2004, Bush designated Vietnam a CPC country 

as part of a larger bilateral relationship. Vietnam did take positive 

steps. And I traveled to Vietnam on a few occasions during that 

time period, and there seemed to be an easing and it was done in 

correlation with the bilateral trade agreement, but right after that 

they reverted right back to form and the repression has gotten 

worse ever since. It is time to redesignate Vietnam. 

Since 2006 USCIRF has made a compelling case why Vietnam 

should be designated as a CPC. I have read your reports. They are 

outstanding. Very incisive, and why that designation would again 

produce results and why it is in the U.S. interest to prioritize religious freedom in that bilateral relationship. Seven years later we 

are still waiting. 

Today’s hearing will take a close look at the ongoing need for the 

United States to actively pursue religious freedom as a priority as 

intended by Congress and as articulated in the International Religious Freedom Act. I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Mr. Meadows, for any comments he might have. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

your continued work on this. I will keep my comments very brief. 

We have two panels, we have votes coming up, and so we will get 

obviously to you first, Dr. George. Thank you for your work. Thank 

you for your passion for your work, And I look forward to working 

with you in a real way. 

I do want to share one personal story because I think it goes to 

the heart of what we are talking about here. Many of you that are 

here listening to this today are fighting the fight every day for religious freedom. You are here because you care, because you see the 

injustice of it. 

And yet last night I found a very interesting dichotomy, where 

my wife and I were traveling to see a new art exhibition from an 

Arab country where they were actually bringing artwork here to 

4

display it from a Muslim country. And yet as we were traveling 

there, my wife is reading an article about what is happening, tragically, to a mother and a child in Sudan. And so my wife says, you 

have to do something. You have to get on the phone. You need to 

do that tonight. 

And so here we are having this conversation going back and 

forth with real progress on one area and just a tragic circumstance 

on the other. And yet what we must do is make sure that religious 

freedoms are protected, not just for Christians and Jews but for 

Muslims and Hindus and all religions. When we really look at that 

and we see those protections taking place, then indeed we have a 

free society. 

So I thank each one of you for your work. Dr. George, I look forward to hearing your testimony, and I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

I would like to now introduce our first very distinguished witness, Dr. Robert George, who is the current chairman of the U.S. 

Commission on International Religious Freedom. In addition to his 

current chairmanship, Robert George is a professor at Princeton 

University and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Dr. George has also served on the President’s Council on Bioethics, the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and 

UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. Dr. George was also a former judicial fellow 

at the U.S. Supreme Court. 

And I would just note parenthetically that I read much of what 

Dr. George writes and rarely have I found anyone so interesting, 

incisive, and his speech last week to the Catholic Prayer Breakfast 

was a landmark speech that all should read. And I want to thank 

you for that extraordinary leadership. Dr. George. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT P. GEORGE, PH.D., CHAIRMAN, U.S. 

COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

Mr. GEORGE. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith. It is a 

very great honor to be appearing before your committee today in 

my role as chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. It is customary I know in these circumstances to begin not only by thanking the committee and its 

chairman, but by praising you and praising your work, and the 

rhetorical inflation that has come as a result of that custom sometimes robs words of their meaning. 

So I want to lay a special stress on the sincerity of my words 

when I thank you, Congressman Smith, and Congressman Wolf, 

and Congressman Meadows, and others on this committee, and others in the Congress who have taken the lead in defending human 

rights, and particularly our cherished right to religious freedom. 

When I say ours, I don’t mean simply ours as Americans. I mean 

ours as members of the human family. 

The work that you have done both here in the Congress and beyond has been vital to the progress that we have been able to 

make, and lays the foundation for future progress that not only 

those of us on the Commission on International Religious Freedom 

are aspiring to, but members of the human rights family, the 

5

human rights community, some of whom are in this room, are 

working day and night for. So please believe me when I thank you 

from the bottom of my heart for the work that you continue to do. 

I am also grateful for your very kind words about our 2014 report, our annual report from the U.S. Commission on International 

Religious Freedom. I want to take this occasion to say that the excellence of this report is mainly the product of our extraordinary 

staff. 

We at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom 

are truly blessed with an amazing, dedicated, gifted group of men 

and women with extraordinary knowledge of the circumstances of 

religious freedom around the globe, working on their particular regions, deeply committed as we are committed to religious freedom 

as a fundamental human right, and their dedication, their knowledge, their brilliance is what makes this report so good. 

So thank you for your kind words about the report, and thank 

you for all that you do to make our work more widely available, 

get it before Members of Congress, before the general public. Only 

good can come of that. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to serve as the Commission’s 

chairman, as a member of the Commission. I am grateful to Speaker of the House John Boehner for appointing me. I have just been 

appointed to a second term. Really, it is an honor to be able to 

stand up and speak out for persecuted people around the world. 

People persecuted for their religion or for their beliefs, whether 

they are Ahmadis, Baha ́’ı ́s, Jews, my fellow Christians, Rohingya 

Muslims or other minority Muslims in various places, Tibetan and 

other Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, people of all faiths and people 

who profess no faith are persecuted for their religion or belief 

across much of the globe today. And while that is a dreadful horror 

that we must fight against with all our might, for those of us who 

are committed to the cause it really is an honor to be able to provide a voice for these often voiceless victims. 

By any measure, religious freedom remains under serious assault 

across the globe. Our report reveals that a very substantial proportion of the world’s population live in circumstances in which they 

are either victimized by their own governments, or by mobs or terrorists who operate with impunity because of a government’s unwillingness or inability to do anything about it, including bringing 

perpetrators to justice—much less deterring the atrocities that are 

committed against them. 

And I request, Chairman Smith, that the full text of my statement, my longer statement, be included in the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. GEORGE. Simply stated, freedom of religion or belief is a pivotal, fundamental, central human right. It is central to our own 

history, and it is affirmed as well by international treaties and conventions and other obligations. And as Congressman Smith mentioned in his opening remarks, we have every reason to believe that 

this essential fundamental human right is crucial to our security 

and to the security of the world. 

Religious freedom should be promoted, advanced, protected, first, 

because it is the right thing to do because it is essential to the dignity of the human being. Secondly, because self-protection, security, 

6

requires it. If we want to combat terrorism, if we want to protect 

our own people from the kinds of atrocities that others have too 

often experienced, then one of the chief steps that we can take is 

to promote religious freedom abroad, especially in those countries 

where the absence of religious freedom contributes to an environment in which terrorism can flourish. 

In fact, religious freedom and religious freedom violations are 

central to the narratives of countries that top our country’s foreign 

policy and diplomatic policy and security agendas. Effectively promoting religious freedom can help the U.S. to achieve crucial goals 

by fostering respect for human rights while promoting stability and 

ultimately national security. 

So I hope that my testimony here today underscores the role of 

our Commission, the U.S. Commission on International Religious 

Freedom, in promoting religious freedom as a fundamental and 

universal human right, and that Members of Congress, Mr. Smith, 

will support H.R. 4653, the bill introduced by the great human 

rights champion, Frank Wolf, which reauthorizes our Commission. 

This Commission was created out of a concern about religious 

freedom, abuses, and violations abroad. Back in 1998, as you will 

recall, responding to religious persecution worldwide and the perception that the U.S. Government was neglecting to adequately 

support religious freedom abroad, the International Religious Freedom Act was passed to make religious freedom a priority in U.S. 

foreign policy, and to give it the place it deserved along with other 

considerations such as trade considerations, economic matters, 

geostrategic and military considerations. To give religious freedom 

a place at the table too when it came to the formation of U.S. foreign and diplomatic policy. 

The IRFA created government institutions to monitor and report 

on religious persecution abroad, an Ambassador-at-Large and an 

Office of International Religious Freedom within the U.S. Department of State, and our independent and bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. 

Importantly, the law also gave teeth to this effort by requiring 

the U.S. Government to identify foreign governments that engage 

in or tolerate, and I quote from the statute, ‘‘systematic, ongoing, 

and egregious violations,’’ which the statute calls of course Countries of Particular Concern, and to take appropriate action in response. Let me lay some stress on the fact that this is not optional. 

It is the law of the United States. It is required that these identifications and designations be made pursuant to the terms of the 

statute. 

IRFA created USCIRF as an independent bipartisan body distinct and separate from, and therefore independent of, of course, 

the Department of State. And we were given the task of monitoring 

religious freedom worldwide and making policy recommendations 

to the President, to the Secretary of State and of course to you in 

Congress. 

Far from duplicating the State Department’s work, our Commission’s independence allows it to speak publicly about violations 

while also developing concrete and constructive recommendations 

for new U.S. policies to address these concerns. The advisory role 

we play is really quite critically important. The independence that 

7

we enjoy under the statute enables us to perform that advisory role 

well. 

Now one of USCIRF’s chief responsibilities is to recommend to 

the State Department nations it should designate as CPCs precisely for their systematic, ongoing, and egregious abuses. In our 

2014 annual report we recommended that the State Department 

redesignate the following eight countries as CPCs: Burma, China, 

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

We recommended, as Congressman Smith pointed out, that eight 

other nations also be designated as CPCs, and we did that because 

they fully meet the requirements, the standard set forth in the law 

in the IRFA. And these countries are Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. 

We didn’t pull these out of a hat. We are urging the designation 

of these nations as CPCs precisely because upon rigorous examination they are guilty of systematic, ongoing, and egregious abuses. 

With the State Department religious freedom report itself soon 

to be issued and along with it we hope CPC designations, we entirely agree, Chairman Smith, that the making of these designations on a regular, indeed, annual basis, is critical. So along with 

it we hope that there will be CPC designations. 

We recommended that the CPC be expanded. It has been 8 years 

since any country has been added or removed. We are concerned 

that the designations that have been made in the past simply become, in the words of our vice chairman, Katrina Lantos Swett, the 

great human rights champion, part of the wallpaper that nobody 

pays attention to. 

We need people to pay attention. We need our Government, we 

need our citizens to pay attention to what is happening abroad so 

that our foreign policy can be formed in line with giving a high priority to religious freedom. And what that requires of course is that 

we regularly call attention to these abuses by making the designations on a regular basis. Conditions remain, alas, extremely poor 

in many countries with several nations meeting the statutory 

threshold, regrettably. 

Let me highlight two countries we believe should be added as 

CPCs, and I would single these out because of the singularly urgent nature of the situation in these countries. We have repeatedly 

recommended Pakistan, concluding this year in our report that 

Pakistan represents the world’s worst religious freedom environment for a country not currently designated as a CPC. 

Secondly is Syria. USCIRF recommended CPC status for the first 

time in our annual report this year due to the collective actions of 

the Assad regime, internationally recognized opposition groups, 

and extremists in U.S. designated terrorist groups in Syria. When 

we look at Syria, horrifically we see egregious, systematic and ongoing violations of basic religious freedom rights perpetrated by the 

government and perpetrated by the forces seeking to overthrow the 

government. It is a horrible and tragic situation. It is time for 

Syria to be designated as a Country of Particular Concern. 

To give policymakers advance warning of deteriorating conditions 

USCIRF also highlights other nations, those not recommended for 

designation as CPC status nations, what we call Tier 2 countries. 

And these are countries whose governments engage in or tolerate 

8

serious violations characterized by at least one of the elements of 

the systematic, ongoing, and egregious CPC standard. Tier 2 countries are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, 

Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Russia, and Turkey. 

Now the CPC designations take IRFA beyond naming and shaming by creating concrete incentives for governments to improve and 

disincentives for inaction. Unfortunately neither Republican nor 

Democratic administrations, since USCIRF was created and since 

the IRFA was enacted, have fully utilized the CPC mechanism as 

the key foreign policy tool it was intended to be. 

So we want to call on both parties to recognize the importance 

of this tool being used in the way it was meant to be used under 

the statute whether the President is a Republican or Democrat. It 

doesn’t matter. This is not a partisan question. And we, alas, find 

fault in administrations of both parties in failing fully to utilize the 

CPC mechanism. 

We also have praise for steps that have been taken by the Bush 

administration and by the Obama administration. There is much 

to praise in what has been done. But not enough has been done to 

utilize this tool so that it can have the maximum good effect for 

the persecuted people of the world. 

Now to be sure, religious freedom advocacies should not only involve naming countries to a list and imposing sanctions. USCIRF 

country recommendations also include constructive ways to advance religious freedom. Yet the designation process and the possibility of punitive actions can breathe new life into diplomatic efforts that should both precede and follow the designation and stimulate political will in foreign capitals. 

However, designating CPC countries without additional consequences limits the value of the tool, and if the timing of designating countries is erratic, if years and years and years go on without designations, well, the CPC process obviously becomes less 

credible. It loses its force. And we now know from experience that 

many, many countries including some of the worst offending countries really do care about the CPC designation. They let us know 

because they fault us for making those designations. They challenge the basis on which we make these designations. 

It is also important to know, again, from our experience that 

these CPC designations can also lift the spirits and encourage 

those human rights activists and persecuted communities within 

countries. It can serve, in the words of my daughter who is an 

international relations Ph.D. candidate at the London School of Economics who in her own writing calls this an anchor, the way U.S. 

actions including CPC designations can serve as an anchor that 

supports the work of dissidents, of human rights activists, of minority persecuted communities in countries to help them more effectively advocate for the cause of religious freedom. 

USCIRF strongly recommends the full and robust application of 

all of IRFA’s existing mechanisms. This would entail, for starters, 

annual CPC designations and congressional oversight hearings. 

That needs to become the standard. Annual designations. Not 

maybe once every 3 years or maybe once every 5 years, that creates 

the wallpaper problem. We need to press every administration. We 

don’t care what political party leads it. Every administration needs 

9

to make these designations on a regular and, we believe, annual 

basis. 

It would also mean that the CPC list will expand and contract 

as conditions warrant. While the current list of countries has remained unchanged for a decade except for the addition of 

Uzbekistan in 2006, the religious freedom environment has worsened in the past 10 years with a poor religious freedom environment in Pakistan; backsliding in Vietnam, a country that Chairman Smith in his opening remarks discussed; continuing and rising 

violations in Egypt, and serious descent into a horrible sectarian 

civil war in Syria with all sides, as I said a moment ago, perpetrating egregious religious freedom abuses. 

Yet despite that, no new countries have been added to the State 

Department’s CPC list. What that tells us is that the tool fashioned 

by the Congress, part of our law that is not optional, part of our 

law is not being used in the way it needs to be used to accomplish 

the goal that we all share. This is a bipartisan goal. It is shared 

by Congress. It is shared by people in the administration. It is 

shared by Democrats. It is shared by Republicans. Our Commission 

is bipartisan. Five of us were appointed by Democrats at the moment. Four of us were appointed by Republicans. We are all on the 

same page with this. 

So let us use the tool. Let us make the annual designations. Let 

us update the CPC list. Let us add Pakistan. Let us add Syria. Let 

us add the other nations that we have on careful review of the facts 

on the ground determined meet the standard for designation of as 

Countries of Particular Concern. 

And finally, better application of IRFA tools would include a 

more dynamic and strategic use of Presidential actions tailored to 

each situation and directly related to religious freedom violations. 

That is what Presidents can do. They can use the tool in a way to 

tailor their actions to have the maximum impact on offending nations to ameliorate and relieve the suffering, the persecution of people who are under severe pressure for their beliefs in those countries. 

Of the current eight countries designated CPCs, six had ‘‘doublehatted’’ sanctions for which the religious freedom basis is now expired, and two have indefinite waivers. Indefinite waivers is a 

problematic idea in itself. Yes, the statute does anticipate or create 

the circumstances in which, or the procedures by which, waivers 

can be granted in the case of CPC nations. 

But if they are to be granted, surely they should not be granted 

on an unlimited and unconditional basis. If we are to have teeth 

in our CPC designations, if our IRFA policies are to have any real 

effect, where waivers are granted they should be for limited terms 

and on conditions. We should require improvements if waivers are 

to be maintained. 

In addition, the IRFA toolbox also should be used in a continuum 

of actions including diplomatic engagement, consultations about 

possible CPC action, CPC designations of course, binding agreement negotiations with other countries, Presidential actions, and/

or a waiver for the narrowest circumstances of circumstances and 

not on an unlimited and unconditional basis. 

10

Besides making better use of the IRFA law, we should also consider amending it. That is a proposal that we have for you in the 

Congress this year. While times have changed since IRFA’s 1998 

enactment, the law has not changed. So it is time for some revision. The CPC tool should be broadened to allow the naming of not 

only governments of countries, but countries themselves where 

there is no effective government or government control, as is the 

case, for example, today, in Somalia and the Central African Republic. 

So Chairman Smith that is a request that we have for you in the 

Congress. And we have a second one. The State Department should 

also be permitted to designate transnational or local organizations 

that perpetrate particularly severe religious freedom abuses. In the 

world we find ourselves in today, very often the offenders or the responsibility or the locus of responsibility is with transnational or 

local organizations. We need to be able to take note of that. The 

State Department needs to be able to take note of that in making 

its designations. 

So it is simply updating in some limited ways the original IRFA 

law to accomplish the ends the law was designed to accomplish 

back in 1998. Not radical reforms, they are not necessary. It is a 

good law. Minor, limited adjustments to bring the law into line 

with the world. 

Now my written testimony includes other IRFA related recommendations, which I hope that you will consider, such as ensuring the Ambassador-at-Large has direct and regular access to the 

Secretary of State and more resources for the IRF office in the 

State Department. Also establishing monitoring mechanisms consisting of lists of persons believed to be imprisoned, detained or 

placed under house arrest for their religious faith. We are doing 

the very best we can on that on the Commission itself. We are communicating what we know to our leaders in Congress so that you 

can do your best on behalf of these people. 

Also expanding grant making and deepening the State Department’s training on international religious freedom. It is very important that our diplomats and others who are responsible for the formation and conduct of our foreign and diplomatic policy understand 

religious freedom, understand its centrality, understand how it 

works. 

There should also be greater efforts to increase strategic communications programs to counter violent extremism. And the Broadcasting Board of Governors and other U.S. Government entities 

should increase their broadcasts and Internet programs with information on religious freedom and related human rights. That again 

is updating things to put us in touch with the reality of what is 

happening in the world today. 

Other recommendations are included in my written testimony on 

how the U.S. can more effectively promote religious freedom: The 

need for the President, the Secretary of State and Members of Congress to demonstrate in words and deeds their commitment to 

international religious freedom; the importance of reinvigorating 

IRFA’s tools and creating new ones as I have suggested; expanding 

training, programming, and public diplomacy on religious freedom 

11

and belief; and expanding multilateral efforts, something that we 

at USCIRF are ourselves very much involved in. 

Over the past decade and a half, to conclude, USCIRF has played 

a unique role in developing policy recommendations in response to 

these difficult challenges and spurring our Government to greater 

activity. There is no entity quite like USCIRF anywhere in the 

world. We are trying to promote more USCIRF-type organizations 

in Europe, in our other ally countries, but there is nothing with 

USCIRF’s bipartisanship, its independence and its clout that we 

know of. So we are a singularly American institution. 

Thanks to the expertise of our commissioners, my colleagues on 

the Commission, and our wonderful staff, we have had an impact. 

We have worked well with Congress and administrations across the 

years. Considering how issues of religious freedom are more relevant than ever, more important than ever, so is the work of 

USCIRF. 

Congress has an essential role to play in promoting religious 

freedom and USCIRF urges members to undertake activities that 

reflect religious freedom’s vital importance to our foreign policy. We 

hope that such actions will include reauthorizing the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. 

We are grateful for today’s hearing, Congressman Smith, and 

urge that Congress support legislation that promotes freedom of religion and belief, hold hearings in support of international religious 

freedom. The holding of hearings itself is an act of witness and a 

way of getting the word out that is unique in its power. Also support civil society and prisoners of conscience abroad, and participate. 

We would like all Members of Congress to participate in the Defending Freedoms Project, a collaborative effort between the Tom 

Lantos Human Rights Commission, USCIRF, and another partner, 

whereby Members of Congress adopt prisoners of conscience and 

advocate on their behalf. Some of you have done that and we are 

grateful to you for doing that. It is an important way of bearing 

witness and calling attention to the plight of the persecuted, and 

we encourage you to encourage your colleagues to become involved 

in our Defending Freedoms Project and especially our Prisoners of 

Conscience Project. 

So by improving our use of existing tools for the job and creating 

new tools for a rapidly changing environment for religious freedom 

and related human rights, we can see constructive change. I believe 

we will see constructive change. We are on the right track. We 

need to make some revisions and adjustments. We need to rededicate ourselves. We need to reenergize ourselves, but we are going 

in the right direction. We just need to step on the pedal and move 

forward more forcefully, more smartly. 

If we renew our resolve, Chairman Smith, to integrate this fundamental freedom more fully into the foreign policy of our nation, 

I know we can bring genuine progress to those beyond our shores 

who yearn for the freedoms that we have so long enjoyed. I thank 

you very much for this opportunity to testify and I look forward to 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. George follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your excellent world look at religious persecution and the very real recommendations you have made as to what to be done. We do have 

a series of votes coming up. I am advised that you may be able to 

stay. 

Mr. GEORGE. I would be happy to come back after your votes. I 

will stay here. 

Mr. SMITH. There will be a Motion to Recommit which will give 

us about 20 to 25 minutes. Maybe we could ask all of our questions 

then. Maybe ask one or two now. But my friend Mr. Meadows is 

going to be presiding in the chair at the time, so he won’t be back. 

But Mr. Meadows, did you want to——

Mr. GEORGE. I am at your disposal all day, Congressman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. What I would, and we won’t because I think we 

are limited on time, but what I would like you to respond maybe 

for the record is how Members of Congress truly can follow up on 

the teeth that you are talking about. One is oversight, you mentioned that. I know a number of those what I would call Tier 2 are 

on-the-lookout countries that you have, there are three or four 

members of us that have great relationships with many of their 

ambassadors that are willing to work with you. 

So how we can get Congress, not just the State Department, to 

get actively involved in a very robust dialogue to address some of 

those things? I would look forward to see where we could be most 

helpful there. And I will yield back and we will go vote, and hopefully I can get out of my commitment in the chair and come back 

in. 

Mr. GEORGE. Yes. Well, I will respond to that when you return. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay, thank you very much. 

Mr. GEORGE. Yes, thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. And we stand in brief recess. And I apologize to all 

the other witnesses and guests here for this delay. We do have 11 

votes but they are 2-minute votes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will resume its sitting, and I again 

I want to apologize for that very excessive delay owing to multiple 

votes that were back to back. 

We are joined by, first, a member of the committee, the subcommittee, Mr. Marino from Pennsylvania who was the U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, a very effective prosecutor and a very effective Member of the Congress. And I would 

like to yield to him such time as he may consume. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you, Chairman. I apologize for not being 

here early on, but Chris asked me to stop over, and I work very 

closely with him and when Chris asks me to do something I do it. 

Just a brief statement, Doctor, and then perhaps you can expand 

on it somewhat, give us your insight. And what the United States 

needs to do more of or start doing to become effective in the issues 

concerning religious persecution in other countries. We have a law. 

We have a law that I think has some teeth to it if we enforce it, 

if we take advantage of the intent behind the law. 

Religious freedom and around the world from what we are seeing 

it is becoming more prevalent. We are seeing it in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. We are seeing it in Pakistan. We are seeing it in some 

32

countries on the continent of Africa, and we probably could name 

another 20 or 30 places where this is becoming more and more 

prevalent. 

One of my hobbies, interests, is I study the history of religions. 

And I cannot at this point quite put my finger on why we are seeing more and more religious persecutions other than the fact that 

politics is playing more and more of a role in it, and also when it 

comes right down to it, money and resources have a great deal of 

play in this. 

I am disappointed that the administration isn’t taking more of a 

role, let alone they are not taking an aggressive role that I would 

like to see. The United States has a great deal of trade around the 

world, and many countries around the world, almost all the countries around the world rely on the United States for trade and continual trade and know that they are doing business with someone 

honest. 

There is where we could use our influence by simply saying if 

you want to trade with us we will be a good ally, we have been a 

good ally in the past, but this is not only an economic issue. We 

are talking about a humanitarian issue, a religious issue. On one 

of the main reasons why the United States exists today that we 

claimed our independence 230-some years ago and one of the issues 

was religious freedom, whether we choose to participate in religion 

or not. 

So with that preface, could you please give me some insight 

where we should be headed and what more we can do and what 

else we can do? 

Mr. GEORGE. Thank you, Congressman Marino. I agree with 

those sentiments wholeheartedly. Our Commission has a very good 

relationship with the State Department. Part of our task is to advise the State Department and the President as well as the Congress on the situation with religious freedom violations in nations 

across the globe, and we value that excellent relationship. We are 

working together toward the same ends. 

I should also point out that I have high praise for the remarks 

that President Obama made at the National Prayer Breakfast on 

international religious freedom. I think all of us, those of us at the 

Commission, certainly, and you in Congress share the principles 

that the President articulated there and the goals that were articulated. But our Commission exists to push and to prod any administration and any Congress because there is more that can be done. 

Now you might say that there is always more that can be done 

and that is true. But there are some very specific concrete things 

that could be done. And in my prepared remarks and in the written 

testimony that Congressman Smith kindly agreed to have entered 

into the record we have proposed some specific revisions to the 

statute that we think will enhance the quality of the tools that are 

currently available to advance the cause of religious freedom. 

And I also very strongly recommended and called for some steps 

by the administration that I think really would make a difference. 

For example, making regular, preferably annual designations as 

countries as CPCs so that their status as offenders, the worst nation status as offenders, is constantly brought to the attention of 

policymakers and of the general public and doesn’t become, in the 

33

words of our vice chairman, Katrina Lantos Swett, just part of the 

wallpaper. 

Also waivers can be granted of course for CPC nations and sometimes there are reasons to grant those waivers. But we don’t think 

those waivers should be unlimited and unconditional. We should 

attach demands to those waivers for the amelioration of the suffering, the mitigation of the circumstances of people who are persecuted for their religion or for their beliefs around the globe. So 

there are some very concrete things that we can do. 

Among the revisions to the statute we are proposing are revisions that would bring the law into line with the contemporary 

world. Some things have changed since 1998, or some things have 

become clear. They have literally transpired since 1998. We now 

know better what our situation is. 

And among those is the fact that we have got some nations that 

really don’t have functioning and effective governments, but where 

religious freedom violations are being perpetrated by elements 

within these nations. We need to be able to name those elements 

and attach consequences for the violations. 

So we would like transnational organizations and other nongovernmental organizations as well as, in some cases, local sorts of 

governments not just national governments to be subject to designation as CPCs with all that that entails. So those are some very 

concrete steps that can be taken. 

And I will tell you some other things, and these will apply as 

much to you in the Congress as to the people over in the administration. 

Mr. MARINO. Let me clarify one thing——

Mr. GEORGE. Yes, certainly. 

Mr. MARINO [continuing]. If I may politely interrupt. I have been 

critical of previous administrations both Republicans and Democrats concerning this issue. 

Mr. GEORGE. And you are right to be. And we have been as well. 

The designations were permitted to fall off track during the Bush 

administration, if I can just be very candid with everybody. They 

started strongly in the Bush administration, but then at a certain 

point they fell off track and they needed to be prodded and pushed. 

And we have not had the regular designations with the Obama administration, and they need to be prodded and pushed. 

Mr. MARINO. Do you think it is a situation where we just have 

to become more aggressive? We, the organization has to become 

more aggressive and more vocal on these issues with the help of 

Congress? 

Mr. GEORGE. That is exactly right. And holding hearings in itself 

is a very valuable way of bearing witness and keeping the plight 

of persecuted people in the forefront of our policy agenda. And right 

in the line of vision of our policymakers and in the forefront of the 

public’s view so that they will help to put pressure on policymakers 

to do the right thing when it comes to coming to the assistance of 

people abroad. 

Now those are things that we can do. You in Congress, we are 

strongly encouraging everyone in Congress to participate in our 

Prisoners of Conscience Project, our Defending Freedoms Project, to 

34

adopt someone suffering persecution for his or her religion or beliefs somewhere around the world. 

For particular Members of Congress whether the House or the 

Senate who have particular connections with or interests in particular nations—it might be Iran, it might be China, it might be 

Egypt—adopting and thereby elevating the visibility of a particular 

prisoner is a valuable thing to do. We would like you to do that. 

We would like more hearings, Chairman Smith. The more often 

you can bring these matters to the attention of your colleagues and 

the public through hearings the better. Speaking out, taking advantage of the tools that you have to, in effect, designate particular 

people who offend, who are behind these religious freedom offenders persona non grata in the United States. 

There are some possibilities there with China. I recently had the 

occasion to transmit a list that we obtained from the great dissident, Chen Guangcheng, to Congressman Wolf. He now knows 

the names. And I know Congressman Wolf is the most aggressive 

defender of human rights I know, and so he will do what can be 

done to make sure that those people are designated under the law 

for the consequences that are permitted when we, in effect, designate a person as persona non grata. 

Mr. MARINO. I agree. Instead of just saying a specific country 

that we attach names to that. 

Mr. GEORGE. Yes. The more specific we can get with the names 

the better, whether it is the names of the victims such as Meriam 

Ibrahim whose name was called to the attention of this meeting 

today by Congressman Meadows, quite rightly, or is a person who 

is a perpetrator. Name the names. 

Congressman Marino, there is a place, it is rare but there is a 

place for quiet diplomacy when you don’t want to say too much 

publicly and you operate behind the scenes. But all too often that 

becomes an excuse for not doing what needs to be done to shine 

a spotlight on the abused, the abuse, and the abuser. More often 

we are going to get good results that way. For example, our CPC 

designations. We know from our experience that CPC designations 

have made a difference, for example, in Vietnam, in Saudi Arabia, 

and Turkmenistan. 

In the case of Vietnam I gave testimony, Congressman Smith 

might remember, for the Helsinki Commission where we also 

learned that when we attempted to encourage them by removing 

CPC, recommending removal of CPC status, there was some backsliding. So we know that what we do, using the tools of IRFA, can 

be effective. So let us just do it. Let us do more of it, let us do it 

more aggressively, and let us never lose focus or permit our friends 

in the administration, whether it is a Republican or Democratic administration, to lose focus. 

I think more often the problem is that our policy people lose 

focus than that it is bad will. Usually it is not bad will. They believe what we believe. Of course they do. They are Americans. They 

are our fellow Americans. They believe in our values but they lose 

focus. 

Mr. MARINO. There are so many things coming at us within Congress and I am sure——

Mr. GEORGE. Exactly. 

35

Mr. MARINO. That is why we need to do more of this. 

Mr. GEORGE. There are trade concerns. There are geostrategic 

concerns. You guys have a lot on your minds. But there is nothing 

more fundamental to America than religious freedom. There is a 

reason we call it our first freedom, and it is not just that it is first 

in the Bill of Rights, though it is. It is not just that it was at the 

cradle of basic liberty in our civilization. More than that it is just 

so fundamental to the dignity of the human being. When you lose 

religious freedom, it is the canary in the coal mine. When religious 

freedom is in jeopardy, all other civil liberties, all principles of decency are in jeopardy. That is why it has got to be first and foremost. 

Mr. MARINO. I couldn’t agree with you more. Thank you very 

much. I apologize. I have to be in my district in 5 hours and it is 

a 41⁄2-hour drive. So I am pushing the envelope here. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Marino, thank you so much. 

Mr. GEORGE. Make it a safe drive, Congressman. 

Mr. SMITH. I would like to now yield to the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, but also the chairman of the caucus here on international religious freedom, Trent 

Franks. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Of course I know 

that these hearings can sometimes be an exercise in mutual flattery, but I truly believe that Chris Smith is one of the great champions we have for the cause of human dignity and freedom in the 

world. He has been a hero of mine forever and I just have to say 

that. It might be a little bit of flattery but it is sincere. 

And Dr. George, I want you to know that maybe it is just my nature, but I truly believe that if you knew how many people behind 

the scenes hold you in the highest regard, especially with your acumen related to constitutional foundations and religious freedom, I 

just can’t express to you, sir, the weight of intellectual momentum 

that you give to any argument that some of us make. And we rely 

on you. We think you are a national treasure, and I really mean 

that. I just happen to have two heroes in the room at the same 

time and it is a little awkward, because I don’t hold everybody to 

be a hero, I promise. 

Mr. GEORGE. Well, thank you. I am very honored to have you say 

that and to be classified with Congressman Smith. That is about 

more honor than I can bear. 

Mr. FRANKS. That is good company for both of you. Actually, I 

should——

Mr. GEORGE. What you say about Congressman Smith has the 

additional virtue of being true. 

Mr. FRANKS. Has the advantage of being true. Well, let me just 

suggest to you that your recent, your statements just a moment ago 

are why so many of us see you as such an intellectual beacon. Because indeed our religious persuasion and convictions animate almost every other area of our either philosophical or political life. 

These are very important and basic things and indeed it is the 

cornerstone of all other freedom. If we fail religious freedom then 

there is really no foundation to build any notion that there is inherent human dignity. If we are all just intelligent animals, then 

we should just allow ourselves to be dragged kicking and screaming 

36

into that Sumerian night where the light of human compassion has 

gone out and the survival of the fittest has prevailed over humanity. It is a pretty dark, scary place to be. 

But apart from religious freedom we have no alternative from an 

intellectual standpoint. That is all we have to stand on. Because indeed if man is not created in the image of God, if he is not a child 

of God, then there is no inherent worth in this world and we are 

all worm food and we just proceed until it happens. So I am sure 

that is a real uplifting thought. 

But the bottom line is, I guess my question to you, I mean, the 

Countries of Particular Concern, my great concern here, and I hope 

I don’t overstate anything, I think America’s most powerful ability 

to export religious freedom is to be the world’s greatest example of 

religious freedom. And when we are starting to fight over that in 

our own country where we are confusing religious freedom and 

‘‘freedom to worship,’’ where as long the religious people stay behind doors and worship that is okay, but if they cannot live out 

their faith in the public square, then I think religious freedom has 

taken a terrible hit and we are not the example to the world that 

we need to be, which is our greatest ability, in my judgment, to 

persuade the rest of the world to embrace religious freedom at its 

core. 

So my question is two-fold, and then I have to do like the other 

gentleman did and I have to go. But I am really anxious to hear 

two things from Dr. Robert George. And that is, number one, what 

if you were the emperor of the world, what is one thing that you 

would help America do to maintain both our commitment to religious freedom and our living out religious freedom in the government and public square, all the things that are necessary for people 

like us to know? And secondly, what one thing would you do to see 

religious freedom maintained and catalyzed throughout the world? 

Mr. GEORGE. Well, thank you, Congressman Franks. The one 

thing that I would love to wave a magic wand and do for religious 

freedom is to have all of our own people here in the United States 

understand something that we at the Commission have repeatedly 

and unanimously pointed out in our press releases and in our 

statements and in our op-ed pieces and in our reports and in our 

dialogues with policymakers here in the United States and with 

ambassadors and others from foreign nations with whom we have 

had interaction, and that is this. The right of religious freedom is 

not some tiny cramped, crabbed principle of freedom of worship. 

Freedom of worship is part of religious freedom. It is an essential 

part of religious freedom. But it is only a part and indeed a small 

part. The robust and full right to religious freedom includes not 

only the right to do what we do in the temple or the church or the 

mosque or the synagogue or before meals around the table with our 

families at home or on our knees at bedtime. It includes the right 

to take one’s faith into the public square, to advocate for it, to persuade and be persuaded by others. The right to change religions if 

in conscience one’s views change perhaps under the pressure of argument, but without violence or undue pressure or coercion, physical or psychological. 

It must include the right, Congressman Franks, to act on one’s 

religiously inspired moral convictions about justice and the comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:39 Oct 01, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\052214\88022 SHIRL
37

mon good just as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King did to help 

end the monstrous horror of segregation and Jim Crow in our own 

country. 

Too often we fall into this idea that religious freedom is about 

what you do in church or synagogue or it is about what happens 

at the dinner table or on your knees before bed. That is true. That 

is part, but it is only a part. We need to persuade all of our people 

to understand, as our founders understood, religious freedom in the 

fullest and most robust sense. 

There are limits of course to religious freedom. There must be. 

Great atrocities can be committed in the name of religion and have 

been committed and are committed every day. Our Commission can 

tell you all about it. It is true that sometimes those atrocities committed ‘‘in the name of a religion’’ are really a pretext for an agenda driven by politics or tribalism or ethnic and sectarian hatreds 

or whatever. But sometimes they really are sincere religious beliefs 

that drive people to do terrible things, and we must never tolerate 

that. I mean it would be logically inconsistent to think you should 

tolerate that because then religious freedom could freely be violated 

in the name of religious freedom, and we know that can’t be right. 

So we on the Commission put it this way. That people must be 

free to practice their faith not only in the mosque, not only in the 

home, not only in the church, but in the public square and free to 

advocate and to persuade and to act as citizens on the basis of their 

religiously inspired beliefs so long as it is done without violence, so 

long as it is done without infringing on the equal rights of others. 

That is what I would, if I could have a magic wand I would dismiss from the minds of our people the idea that religious freedom 

is only about church or synagogue and put in its place the robust 

and full understanding of religious freedom. 

And then to your second question, again if I could do one thing 

I would activate everyone in Congress and everyone in the relevant 

policy positions in the administration to stay focused on religious 

freedom. Never let it fall out of view. Never let it take a secondary 

or tertiary position behind other legitimate concerns such as economic and trade concerns, geostrategic and military concerns. 

Make sure that it has the place at the table that it is supposed to 

have under IRFA. 

I would remind all our policymakers and our representatives that 

that is not just a nice idea, and it is certainly not just Robert 

George’s idea or the idea of my colleagues on the U.S. Commission 

on International Religious Freedom or the staff, it is the law. That 

is what we decided, what our nation decided, what you decided in 

Congress, what the President signed into law in IRFA. So let us 

do that. 

And if I can reciprocate your praise, do what you do and do what 

Congressman Meadows does and Congressman Marino does and 

what Congressman Smith does and what Congressman Wolf magisterially does which is to set an example for all of your colleagues 

of putting religious freedom at the top of the agenda. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, Mr. Chairman, I am so grateful that I got to 

attend this. Because a lot of us talk about religious freedom all the 

time but sometimes to come and hear it articulated so brilliantly 

and so accurately, it is an uplift again. 

38

And I suppose some of us are concerned about America becoming 

a Country of Particular Concern if we keep going the direction we 

are going, but thank God that is not going to happen, and I am 

grateful again for your input and just your voice into this debate 

into this human family that we all live in together. And it gives 

me great hope, it certainly does. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you. 

Mr. GEORGE. Thank you, Congressman Franks. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Franks, thank you very much for your 

questions and for your kind remarks, and believe me, I feel the 

same way about you. You have been a leader on behalf of human 

rights for so long, and I appreciate your tremendous contribution. 

I would like to just ask a few questions——

Mr. GEORGE. Sure, of course. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. Before we go to Panel II, I want to note 

for the record we did invite the U.S. Department of State to be 

here. They have deferred. I don’t think it was a denial although it 

could be. We will wait and see. They wanted to wait until the report came out. We have asked them before to come, so hopefully 

this time will be the charm. 

I would note also parenthetically that this is about my 40th hearing exclusively focused on religious freedom, and I have to tell you 

I think it is getting demonstrably worse in the world. I think 

Chairman Franks’ comment about the United States, while we may 

not look like some of the most egregious violators ever—hopefully 

that never happens—there is a shift and it is coming from the top, 

here, and I will say this absolutely publicly, from the President of 

the United States, that I find very disconcerting when it comes to 

religious freedom. And if we follow that pathway of worship as opposed to the free exercise of our religious liberties we are in very 

grave trouble, and the crowding out of the public square of religiously based voices will follow and is already at risk. 

I also want to point out again, and I think for the record that 

the largely forgotten rough road that IRFA took or traveled to enactment is remembered well by me as well as by the bill’s chief author Frank Wolf. Sitting right where you sat, as well as in 2172, 

Mr. Chairman, was, repeatedly, John Shattuck, the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the point person 

for the Clinton administration who was against, I repeat, underscore, exclamation point, against enactment of IRFA. He claimed 

that it would create a hierarchy of human rights. And frankly, it 

wasn’t until it passed the House and Senate, and almost died in 

the Senate because of White House opposition, when it was finally 

passed President Clinton did sign it. 

And a year later I asked the Ambassador-at-Large, is there any 

hierarchy of human rights? Any crowding out of other internationally recognized human rights? And he said absolutely not. So it 

was a bogus issue there, but I am concerned that that mindset has 

persisted in some quarters, in some political circles to this day. 

And when you have nonenforcement of a statute that says shall 

and shall and shall and we do not get enforcement of the law, it 

suggests that some of those old thoughts may still be very prevalent among people who are in policymaking positions. 

39

So we will do a hearing on nonenforcement, and when State finally comes I am going to ask a lot of pointed questions. I hope 

they have great answers. We all should be on the same team on 

this. There should be no divide whatsoever, but right now there is 

a divide. And again, John Shattuck sat where you sat, and on the 

record, because I held all the hearings that led to IRFA, every single hearing in the House of Representatives, and every single time 

the administration was against, until they were for and they were 

presented a fait accompli, an engrossed bill sent over by the Senate 

after the House has passed it, and it came back over here, I should 

say, and then down to the White House for signature and then he 

signed it. And we weren’t even sure up to the last moment. Elevenfifty-nine, the clock was ticking, we weren’t sure he did sign it. And 

we were grateful for that, but now implement it. 

A couple of questions, if I could. And you have been, all of you, 

so patient with all the delays today. But on Pakistan, one of our 

witnesses will soon testify, Mr. Khan, and he makes the point regarding Pakistan which, I agree with you, ought to be a CPC. It 

is amazing that it is not, although no one is being designated anymore. 

But he points out that the 50-word Penal Code ordinance called 

Section 295–C is such remarkably broad language that virtually 

anyone can register a blasphemy case against anyone else in Pakistan and the accused can face capital punishment. There needs to 

be serious pushback by the entire international community when 

those kinds of laws are used and people live in fear that any neighbor who may have a disagreement or any political figure or anyone 

could accuse you of something and your life is literally at risk, and 

that goes doubly of course for Christians. 

But he points out that two of the five anti-blasphemy laws explicitly target by name the activities of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. If you could speak to that. 

Mr. GEORGE. Yes, this is a matter that I am very, very concerned 

about and that our Commission is very concerned about. The abuse 

of the Ahmadis who are a peaceful religious group simply wanting 

to practice their faith in peace, respecting everybody else’s right to 

practice their beliefs and religion in peace, is one of the outrages 

of the world today. And Pakistan is in the lead. It is not the only 

country that persecutes the Ahmadis. We have had the same problem in Saudi Arabia, for example. But Pakistan is in the lead, and 

its oppressive blasphemy laws and the singling out of the Ahmadis 

is really behind this. 

So we want to put as much pressure as we can on the Pakistani 

regime to eliminate that practice, eliminate those blasphemy laws 

which are pretext for persecution, and particularly to respect the 

full citizenship, not only the rights to practice their religion, but 

the full citizenship of the Ahmadis and to not relegate them to second-class citizenship simply for expressing their faith in a peaceful 

way. 

Now of course Ahmadis are not alone in being persecuted by the 

Pakistani regime. We have got Christians who are persecuted. Of 

course you know all too well the case of the church that was 

burned back in September in Peshawar with, I believe, close to 100 

40

fatalities. There are Hindus who are persecuted. There are minority Muslims like Shias who are persecuted there. 

It is a very serious offender, and that Congressman Smith, 

Chairman Smith, is why we put Pakistan as number one on the 

list of offenders among those not currently designated as CPCs, 

and we strongly urge, I can’t emphasize enough how strongly we 

urge the State Department to list them as a CPC. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that very much. One of our other witnesses today, a man that you know very well—I have read his 

book, ‘‘God’s Double Agent’’ is Bob Fu. Unfortunately it appears 

that China, Vietnam, and North Korea are in a race to the bottom 

when it comes to religious persecution. And China, despite all of 

the happy talk between some of our diplomats, has upped the ante. 

It has been bad. It is actually getting worse under Xi Jinping. 

One of the other hats that I wear is chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and we will be having a 

Tiananmen Square hearing next Friday with people who were 

there. And I can already tell you, having talked to them and getting a sense of what they are going to talk about, all human rights 

in general have deteriorated significantly since Tiananmen Square. 

But on religious freedom, whether it be the Falun Gong, the underground Christian Church, the Catholic or Protestants, the 

Uyghurs, and of course the Tibetan Buddhists, there is a wholesale 

effort to eradicate the church. 

And I am wondering, I don’t know what it takes to get this administration to raise the issue. We had a hearing in this room, it 

was in 2172. We heard from five daughters, and we called it Their 

Daughters’ Appeal to Beijing: ‘‘Let Our Fathers Go!’’ all of whom, 

all of their dads are political prisoners. Gao Zhisheng is one of 

those, and he has represented Christians in the underground 

church, the Falun Gong. 

He has been tortured to the point where I don’t know how he 

survived the torture. His wife who has testified before, his daughter who testified at this one, and where is the press when we do 

any of these kinds of things? There seems to be a lack of concern 

about it, while the Washington Post, Fred Hiatt, wrote a brilliant 

essay, an op-ed on his own editorial page about the five daughters. 

And what their one ask was, one ask, can we meet with President Obama? He has two daughters. He will understand. We contacted the White House. We wrote. We never got a letter back. We 

did get a phone call that he is too busy, the President of the United 

States, to meet five wonderful, articulate, loving daughters of five 

political dissidents who are being tortured. 

What does it take to get this administration to focus on China, 

Vietnam, like I said, which is bad and getting worse? As you know 

we had Father Loi testify at the Lantos Commission hearing recently. You know that well because you were there. I met with Father Loi and I asked him a question. And he was under house arrest, same place. He Skyped in from that same location. 

When I was there last time he had bully boys outside of his 

small home, his mother’s home, and when he walked me out he 

said, that is as far as I can go because they will be nice seemingly 

at first and then they won’t be so nice as they push me back in 

with fists into the room. And I asked him a pointed question and 

41

he did answer it. It is far worse than it was even then. If you could 

speak to some of these Asian countries, especially China, Vietnam, 

and North Korea, I think, it couldn’t be clearer how bad that is. 

But certainly Vietnam is getting considered for TPP, and I have 

asked repeatedly, ‘‘Is human rights on the table?’’ We have had 

human rights dialogues but they seem to be cul-de-sacs, where an 

end game is to have a discussion but it is not connected to other 

foreign policy issues by trade. So if you could. 

Mr. GEORGE. Certainly, Congressman Smith. As far as Vietnam, 

is concerned it is a serious offender. It should be a CPC, and we 

have recommended it for CPC status. I should add something or repeat something I mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, which is that 

we know that Vietnam does respond to these pressures because we 

have seen it happen in the past and then they backslid when they 

were removed from CPC status. 

So the obvious answer is let us hit them again. Let us put them 

back on the CPC list and see if we can bring some more pressure, 

and get some more relief of the suffering of persecuted people 

whether they are Catholics, whether they are Buddhists, whatever 

their belief is, by the Vietnamese regime which is a world-class offender against religious liberty. 

Now you mentioned that the situation in China is deteriorating. 

This entirely squares, Mr. Chairman, with our findings on the 

Commission. And you also point out the wide range of different 

shades of belief held by people who are persecuted for those beliefs 

in China. China qualifies as an equal opportunity religious freedom 

abuser. There doesn’t seem to be any group whose religious freedom rights they will not trample upon. From the Falun Gong to the 

Uyghur Muslims, as you pointed out, to of course Catholics, Protestants, it doesn’t matter. 

Now I suspect that part of what is going on there is this, that 

China has learned all too well what they regard as the lessons of 

the fall of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union permitted in that, 

China’s view, imprudently, the Catholic Church to function as a 

refuge, as an alternative authority structure, as an independent institution of civil society in Poland, and that gave a base of operations for human rights activists and solidarity and so forth. And 

what began in Poland soon spread to the other countries of Eastern 

Europe and resulted in the collapse of the entire Soviet Empire. 

My own perception here, I speak for myself on this particular 

point, Congressman Smith, rather than the entire Commission, not 

that I think they don’t share my view, I just don’t happen to know 

what their view is. But to share my own personal view with you, 

I think the Chinese regime sees what happened there and they do 

not want to permit any alternative authority structures or independent institutions of civil society to exist, lest they provide the 

fertile ground and the support structure for human rights activism 

that will, in the end, topple the unjust, oppressive, undemocratic 

regime that the great hero Bob Fu has done so much to expose. 

So that is what I think is going on. It helps to explain why they 

seem to be so eager to stamp out and utterly control, if they can’t 

stamp out, any religious organization of any, even organizations 

that don’t seem to fit at least our Western classic ideas of religion, 

like the Falun Gong. They are brutal toward the Falun Gong. 

42

We have recommended designation of China for CPC status since 

1999, so this goes all the way back, really, to the beginning of our 

Commission. They were of course designated by the State Department. We renew that this year. Pressure needs to be brought on 

China. 

Let me urge you, Chairman Smith, to urge the five daughters 

and the people who are working with the five daughters to not give 

up on your request to meet, get a meeting for them with President 

Obama. President Obama does have daughters. I think he would 

understand. It is not my place speaking on behalf of the Commission to criticize the President. I will say this. What the President 

said about religious freedom throughout the world, including in 

China, at the National Prayer Breakfast are words that you or I 

would have been proud to say. 

I know the President in his heart believes those words, so let us 

just press every button we can to get the President’s attention. He 

has many, many things on his mind. It is a complicated world. He 

is the President of the United States. To get his attention focused 

on religious freedom abuses, especially in places like China. 

I think this is a case where, if I can quote the story in the Gospel 

that Jesus tells of the unjust judge. Remember, the woman before 

the unjust judge in the Bible was wanting justice, and the unjust 

judge doesn’t care for God or man and he is not going to give her 

justice. He is going to do whatever is convenient to him until she 

becomes so persistent that he decides to give her justice in her case 

because she just won’t give up and she is driving him crazy. Well, 

I think we should—I don’t want to analogize the President to an 

unjust judge at all. That is not my point here. But my point is to 

emphasize the need for persistence especially with leaders who 

have many, many different things on their mind. But I think it 

would be very important and valuable for the President to meet 

with the five daughters. Let their stories and the stories of their 

fathers resonate in the President’s ears. And I think that would 

move him to take some steps to at least at a minimum up the rhetorical pressure on China. 

Now we have to realize that China is a complicated case for U.S. 

foreign policy. Obviously there are important trade considerations. 

There are important geostrategic, military considerations that 

apply in any thinking about China. But that is why it is up to us 

to be so persistent in pressing our policymakers all the way up the 

line to the very top to keep the focus on the religious freedom 

abuses. 

We are never going to make any progress toward democratization 

and true respect for human rights in China until we address the 

religious freedom violations that are so rampant and have been, 

well, going all the way back, really, to the revolution that put Mao 

into power after the Second World War. 

Mr. SMITH. I do have many questions, but I will just ask one 

final. I have noticed that obviously you name Iraq as a country 

that ought to be a CPC. 

Mr. GEORGE. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. And obviously Iraq is a place where so many of our 

service members gave blood and have come home wounded. And it 

really is unconscionable that in a place that we liberated along 

43

with our coalition forces and the Iraqis themselves would become 

a bastion of intolerance toward religious freedom. And I am wondering if you might want to speak on that issue as well, because 

obviously that is an area where again we have paid such a price. 

Mr. GEORGE. My heart breaks for the victims of persecution and 

especially religious persecution in Iraq. Life has moved from one 

nightmare to another nightmare to another nightmare for these 

poor people. And they are people of different faiths. It is not just 

one community whose members are being victimized here. 

They suffered under the monstrous regime of Saddam Hussein, 

sadistic beyond belief. They suffered through a terrible war where 

everything did not go just as we would have liked and as we had 

hoped. And now they suffer in many cases under persecution. 

Can I call a particular attention, not because I am myself a 

Christian and not simply because I think the focus on Christians 

should be given priority. I don’t think that. I think we need to be 

even-handed in our treatment. But I must mention here the particular suffering of Iraqi Christians, many of whom were forced to 

flee after the fall of Hussein, and many of whom fled to Syria 

where they hoped to find some peace, even under the Assad dictatorship, some peace and the ability to practice their faith without 

being subjected to violence and persecution. And now what do we 

find? They are victimized again with violence and persecution in 

the Syrian Civil War and many of them are now having to flee a 

second time. It is horrific suffering. So that gives me another opportunity to emphasize our recommendation to list Syria, designate 

Syria as well. 

But you are absolutely right to point out that Iraq is a place 

where our young men and women spent their blood and where all 

of us spent our treasure in the effort to give them the freedoms 

that we cherish and enjoy. So we should be especially intolerant of 

any violations of basic human rights, especially the right to religious freedom, among those who have now gained power in Iraq. 

Mr. SMITH. I do have one final, if you don’t mind. 

Mr. GEORGE. Sure. 

Mr. SMITH. Like I said, I have many more. But more than 30 

years ago I joined Ronald Reagan at the White House ceremony 

when he raised the issue of the Baha ́’i in Iran. And it was a very 

momentous occasion, and he really helped bring focus for the first 

time, at least in this country, on the persecution of the Baha ́’i by 

Iran. 

And we know Iran does violate, you talk about equal opportunity 

in China, well, they violate the religious freedom of a whole lot of 

people including Pastor Abedini. And if you might want to spend 

a moment, we do have a representative of the Baha ́’i, Kenneth 

Bowers, who will be testifying with very strong insights as to how 

discriminated against and persecuted the Baha ́’i actually are in 

Iran. 

But if you would want to take a moment to just——

Mr. GEORGE. The persecution of the Baha ́’ı ́s around the world 

now is an atrocity of the very first rank. I fear, Chairman Smith, 

that the Baha ́’ı ́s are becoming the Jews of today. My great friend, 

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of England, points out that throughout 

much of history wherever there have been Jews, Jews have been 

44

persecuted. And now I fear we are seeing wherever there are 

Baha ́’ı ́s, Baha ́’ı ́s are persecuted. Thank God not in our own country, 

but in so many places around the world. 

And there is a sad and tragic irony here, because the Baha ́’i faith 

is a faith that includes centrally the beautiful teaching of the common brotherhood of all men. It is a beautiful teaching. And that a 

faith that makes that so central would be persecuted almost everywhere is a nightmare. But here we see it. 

And it is time for all of us, those of us in the human rights advocacy world, those of you in Congress, those in the administration, 

to take note of what is happening to members of this peaceful faith 

who do no one any harm, who seek nothing but brotherhood, and 

yet they are brutally in many places persecuted. So we need to elevate and make more visible this fact so that to the extent possible 

we can become agents for the amelioration and relief of that persecution. So this is a very high priority for me personally. I know it 

is a high priority for our Commission. 

Mr. SMITH. Dr. George, thank you, sir, very much for your incisive testimony. It will help inform our committee, and hopefully, by 

extension, the Congress. We will look very carefully at all of the 

recommendations that you have made, and I hope that we can look 

to move on them expeditiously, and thank you again. I appreciate 

your leadership. 

Mr. GEORGE. Thank you, Congressman Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. I would like to now invite our second panel to the 

witness table, beginning first with Mr. Kenneth Bowers who is the 

secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha ́’ı ́s of the 

United States which is an annually elected governing body representing the Baha ́’i in the United States. Prior to this position, 

Mr. Bowers owned and operated a shipping business in Atlanta, 

Georgia. He is also author of an introductory book on the Baha ́’i 

faith entitled, ‘‘God Speaks Again.’’

We will then hear from Mr. Amjad Khan who is the national director of public affairs for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, 

United States of America. Concurrent, Mr. Khan is a lawyer in the 

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a post-graduate research fellow 

at Harvard Law School, and the president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Lawyers Association of the United States. Additionally, he has 

dedicated many hours in legal aid in representing refugees and 

asylum seekers, especially those fleeing religious persecution 

abroad. Mr. Khan has frequently lectured and published articles on 

issues of religious freedom in the Islamic world particularly focusing on international human rights policy. 

We will then hear from Mr. Bob Fu who is founder and the president of ChinaAid Association, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the underground church in China, political dissidents, and 

activists who seek to defend them. A former dissident and pastor 

of an underground church, Pastor Fu and his wife came to the 

United States in 1997 as religious refugees. He also spent some 

time in prison as a political prisoner. 

He is now a professor or religion and public policy at Midwest 

University. Additionally, Pastor Fu is editor-in-chief of the Chinese 

Law and Religious Monitor, and I would note parenthetically has 

been of tremendous aid to a number of individual dissidents that 

45

this committee and this chairman has worked tirelessly to try to 

effectuate the release of, most notably I would have to say would 

be Chen Guangcheng. Bob played the most pivotal role, I think, in 

the world in bringing that blind activist lawyer to freedom. So I 

want to thank him publicly for that again. 

I would like to now go to Mr. Bowers, if you could begin. 

STATEMENT OF MR. KENNETH E. BOWERS, SECRETARY, NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHA ́ ’I ́S OF THE 

UNITED STATES 

Mr. BOWERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to 

testify on the topic of religious freedom, which is truly one of the 

most vital and pressing human rights issues of our time. And I 

would like to request that my written statement be included in the 

record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. BOWERS. Thank you, sir. I am the secretary of the National 

Spiritual Assembly of the Baha ́’ı ́s of the United States, which is the 

elected governing body of the Baha ́’ı ́s of this country. The Baha ́’i 

faith is an independent world religion with some 5 million followers 

in over 200 countries and territories representing virtually every 

racial, ethnic, and national group on the planet. 

The Baha ́’i community is the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran with over 300,000 members. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, religious minorities including Christians, 

Zoroastrians, Jews, Baha ́’ı ́s, and Sunni and Sufi Muslims have 

been subjected to persecution by this government. For Baha ́’ı ́s, the 

persecution has been both severe and systematic. It is official government policy to deal with Baha ́’ı ́s, and I quote from one of their 

own documents, ‘‘in such a way that their progress and development are blocked.’’

Unlike other religious minorities, Baha ́’ı ́s are not recognized 

under the Iranian Constitution. Their blood therefore is considered 

mobah, which means that it can be spilled with impunity. Over 200 

Baha ́’ı ́s have been executed and thousands more have been imprisoned, many of them tortured. They are arbitrarily arrested and detained, their homes are raided, and their property is taken without 

compensation. 

They are denied jobs and excluded from the nation’s university 

system, and they are surveilled and required to register with the 

government. Their marriages are not recognized. They cannot inherit the property of their deceased relatives. Their holy places 

have been destroyed and their cemeteries are desecrated. 

May 14, 2014, marked the sixth anniversary of the imprisonment 

of the seven former members of the ad hoc leadership group of the 

Baha ́’ı ́s of Iran who were sentenced to 20-year terms for their efforts to minister to the basic needs of the Baha ́’i community. There 

are also 12 Baha ́’i educators in prison for their efforts to educate 

Baha ́’i youth who were denied entrance into Iran’s universities because of their religion. 

With the election of Hassan Rouhani, a self-described moderate, 

to the presidency of Iran in June 2013, the Baha ́’i community held 

out some hope for an improvement, however modest, in the situaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:39 Oct 01, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\052214\88022 SHIRL
46

tion in Iran, but since his inauguration on August 4th the situation 

for the Baha ́’ı ́s has, rather, deteriorated. 

On August 24, 2013, a prominent Baha ́’i in Bandar Abbas was 

killed in what was by all indications religiously motivated, and in 

February of this year, a Baha ́’i family in Birjand, Iran, was stabbed 

by a masked intruder who broke into their home, though they fortunately survived. There has been no progress in the investigation 

of either of these cases. 

Two Baha ́’i cemeteries have been attacked in recent months. One 

is Sanandaj in December 2013 which was partially destroyed, and 

one in Shiraz which is currently being excavated. In November 

2013, President Rouhani issued a draft charter of citizens rights, 

a document that does not expand or strengthen the rights of Iranians, but instead appears to further entrench existing discrimination including against Baha ́’ı ́s. In January 2014, the number of 

Baha ́’ı ́s in prison in Iran reached 136, a two-decade high. 

In short, the situation for the Baha ́’ı ́s of Iran has worsened rather than improved since President Rouhani took office. But in spite 

of all of this there is a ray of hope. With the rise of the Internet, 

Iranians are increasingly able to access information from sources 

not controlled by the State. This, combined with the gross mistreatment of citizens of all backgrounds, has undermined the government’s attempts to justify its persecution of minorities and others 

and has fueled a burgeoning human rights discourse in that country. 

And in the last several years, numerous prominent Iranians have 

spoken out for the rights of the Baha ́’ı ́s, often at great risk to themselves, further contributing to growing support for the Baha ́’i community among Iranians. Just last month an extraordinary development took place when a senior cleric, Ayatollah Abdol-Hamid 

Masoumi-Tehrani, gifted to the Bahai’s of Iran a calligraphic work 

of verses from Baha ́’i sacred scripture. 

Earlier this month he participated in a meeting at which a number of human rights activists including the recently released lawyer, Ms. Nasrin Satoudeh, called for an end to discrimination 

against the Baha ́’ı ́s, and signed a photo of the seven imprisoned 

Baha ́’i leaders. And Mr. Chairman, if I may just show this photograph. This, a photograph of these people together. And you may 

not see it from here, but this is an Ayatollah, a very high ranking 

Islamic cleric, who has spoken on behalf of the rights of the 

Baha ́’ı ́s. 

And also in this picture, and I won’t bother pointing them out 

but just so that you will know, are Mohammad Nourizad who is a 

journalist and a former supporter of the regime but now is a reformist; Dr. Mohammad Maleki, the former president of the University of Tehran who publicly has apologized to the Baha ́’ı ́s last 

year; Narges Mohammadi, a prominent women’s rights activist who 

spent time in prison with some of the Baha ́’ı ́s; Nasrin Sotoudeh, a 

human rights lawyer whom I mentioned; Massoumeh Dehghan, an 

activist and who is also the wife of a prominent human rights lawyer who is now imprisoned for his representation of the Baha ́’ı ́s; 

and then finally, Zhila Bani-Yaghoub and Isa Saharkhiz who are 

two prominent journalists who have also spent time in prison. 

47

So this is an extraordinary photograph of an occasion where 

these people together have really gone out and taken a great risk 

on behalf of the rights of the Baha ́’ı ́s, and I thought that the subcommittee should see this. So we can see that we are now at a critical juncture because it is important to continue shining a spotlight 

on human rights and religious freedom in Iran. 

The Government of Iran is, despite its protestations to the contrary, very sensitive to international opinion. And so we believe 

that this spotlighting has prevented the persecution of the Baha ́’ı ́s 

in Iran from becoming much worse than it already is. And mounting international attention lends crucial support to the domestic 

movement for human rights within Iran. 

Critical to these efforts are the State Department’s International 

Religious Freedom Reports, the U.S. Commission on International 

Religious Freedom’s annual reports, public statements made by 

State Department officials and USCIRF commissioners, and op-ed 

pieces in major news outlets authored by USCIRF commissioners 

including, we would add, an op-ed on the persecution of the Baha ́’ı ́s 

of Iran published only this week in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Section in Europe. 

These put the Iranian Government on notice that it is being 

watched, provide other governments and civil society actors with 

the information they need to continue their work, and serve to 

highlight issues of human rights and religious freedom. We are 

hopeful that these rights and freedoms will be an important part 

of the U.S.’s current dialogue with Iran. 

The U.S. Congress has also consistently condemned the persecution of the Baha ́’ı ́s in Iran. House Resolution 109, now pending in 

the House with 113 co-sponsors, yourself among them, sir, condemns this persecution and urges the President and Secretary of 

State to utilize all available authorities to impose sanctions on Iranian Government officials and other individuals who are directly 

responsible for serious human rights abuses including against the 

Baha ́’i community. 

Resolutions like these constitute a strong statement from the 

U.S. Government to the Government of Iran and to friends and allies around the world, help garner media coverage, raise public 

awareness of the situation in Iran, and support accountability for 

human rights violations in Iran. We hope that those Representatives who have not yet co-sponsored House Resolution 109 will do 

so, and that this resolution will be passed with strong bipartisan 

support. 

I thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important 

hearing and for inviting me to offer my testimony. And we do hope 

that hearings like this will continue to shed a light on religious 

freedoms violation in Iran and will help to hasten the day when 

Baha ́’ı ́s and all the people of Iran are accorded their full human 

rights. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bowers follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Bowers, thank you so very much for your testimony, and I will wait for questions until everybody is done. Mr. 

Khan? 

STATEMENT OF MR. AMJAD M. KHAN, NATIONAL DIRECTOR 

OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, AHMADIYYA MUSLIM COMMUNITY USA 

Mr. KHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the other members of 

the subcommittee. It is an honor and a privilege to be back here. 

Mr. Chairman, you mentioned this is your 40th hearing that you 

have convened on international religious freedom. I have had occasion to come on two prior occasions at the Lantos Commission testifying about the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims, but I commend 

your leadership on this issue. It is extremely valuable to us as a 

community. 

I represent in my pro bono practice many, many refugees. I have 

represented Christians from Egypt. I have represented Jews from 

Iran. And I represent many Ahmadi Muslims who are fleeing persecution all over the world. Their stories are palpable and the persecution that many of these communities endure cuts very deep. 

So I am wrapped up in these narratives and restless because of 

them, and I come to you today to comment on the persecution of 

the Ahmadiyya Community, particularly, and to focus on Pakistan. 

I have a lengthier statement and I request your permission to submit this statement in the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, it will. 

Mr. KHAN. Thank you. I am going to really focus on two aspects 

and I want to talk about Pakistan particularly, although the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is quite global and in 

many countries Ahmadis are suffering, particularly in South Asia, 

in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, and Indonesia as well, and in 

the Middle East where there is a growing concern around the persecution of Ahmadis particularly in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. 

But Pakistan, I think, sir, for this hearing on this subject is a 

great case study. Before I do that, very briefly, the Ahmadiyya 

Muslim Community was founded in 1889. The Ahmadiyya Muslim 

Community is a revivalist movement within Islam. I want to make 

this point very clear. Ahmadis profess to be Muslim, so I will be 

using the phrase ‘‘Ahmadi Muslim’’ throughout my testimony. This 

is a critical distinction. 

I am very happy that the President of the United States, President Obama, in his remarks at the Prayer Breakfast also used the 

term ‘‘Ahmadi Muslim,’’ because it is our essential belief that is 

being challenged, our self-identification as Muslims is what is illegal in Pakistan. And as I will explain that really cuts deep in a 

very pervasive way. 

A central tenet of our faith is that our community rejects terrorism for any and all reasons. And when violent extremists label 

their acts of terrorism as jihad they do so wrongly, but it is our 

community that is usually the first and most forceful in its denunciation. We focus on the true Islamic teachings, and the founder of 

our community preached for a bloodless, intellectual jihad by the 

pen as the true jihad and denounced very strongly extremism. 

So our community has been suffering quite a bit and our religious leader—we are the largest Muslim community with a single 

54

spiritual leader, His Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad. He came here 

in a congressional reception, a bipartisan reception where 30 Members of Congress hosted him. And he spoke about the peaceful 

teachings of Islam and also commented on the persecution. The 

U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Lantos Commission co-sponsored his trip and his visit. 

So allow me to focus on Pakistan. There is a very rich legal history about the persecution of Ahmadis, and I will, for purposes of 

my testimony I will spare a lot of detail. But I will mention that 

Ahmadis by constitutional amendment are declared to be non-Muslim. The second amendment to Pakistan’s Constitution passed in 

1974 declares our community as a matter of law to be non-Muslim. 

So that is where we start. 

But it gets worse than that. And Chairman Smith, you mentioned about the 50-word Penal Code provision, section 295–C, a 

source of intense litigation. The anti-blasphemy laws which affect 

a broad range of minorities, particularly the Christian and 

Ahmadiyya Community, two of those laws explicitly criminalize 

Ahmadi activities. 

If we use the Islamic greeting, ‘‘As-salamu alaykum,’’ if we use 

Arabic script on a wedding invitation card—these are real cases—

those are arrestable offenses. And under these laws, witnessing our 

faith is a crime. And it is the legal apparatus that really intrigues 

me and gives me the most pause, how to dismantle that legal apparatus is the key question. 

Virtually anyone can register a blasphemy case against anyone 

else in Pakistan because of this very broad language under section 

295–C. Now we know the pernicious effects of these laws, and I 

wanted to cite a few high level statistics so you get a holistic picture of the persecution of our community. 

Many hundreds of Ahmadis have been murdered in Pakistan. In 

the past 4 years, 137 Ahmadis have been murdered, and the single 

largest attack on the Ahmadiyya Community, which is one of the 

largest attacks, terrorist attacks, in Pakistan’s history was on May 

28, 2010, when 86 Ahmadis were gunned down, many hundreds injured by the Pakistani Taliban, the TTP. That was one of the deadliest attacks, and since that time in the past 4 years there has been 

a devolving and deteriorating situation. 

It has always been bad, Representative Smith, but I hear the stories of so many Ahmadi refugees who are fleeing, hundreds, rather 

thousands, from Pakistan. And I know that in the past 4 years it 

has become extremely acute. I mentioned about the constitutional 

amendment. Every single Ahmadi man, woman, and child is declared to be non-Muslim by law, even though in the course of our 

beliefs we are Muslim through and through. 

Since 1985, millions of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan can’t vote. 

This is the eighth election. Last year was the eighth election, national election, where Ahmadis were not able to vote. In order to 

vote in Pakistan as an Ahmadi we have to declare ourselves to be 

non-Muslim which no Ahmadi would do. It is a remarkable situation that such a vibrant and literate community is disenfranchised. 

And almost 4,000 blasphemy cases have been registered against 

Ahmadis. Forty percent of all blasphemy arrests in Pakistan are of 

Ahmadi Muslims, and 90 Ahmadi Muslim mosques, and we can’t 

55

use the word ‘‘mosque’’ because that is an arrestable offense. They 

say houses of worship in Pakistan. Ninety of them have been either 

occupied forcibly, sealed, barred, or burned down. And the cemetery 

burial of Ahmadis, the bodies are being exhumed. We are being denied the right to even bury our own, and graves are being desecrated. So this is just a high-level situation. 

In the interest of time, I have many incidences of persecution I 

can mention but I will just focus on one. It was last week. And this 

provides a snapshot, a window into the nature of this persecution. 

Six Ahmadi Muslims saw that a shopkeeper had on his Islamic calendar an insult against Ahmadi Muslims. So they walked to the 

store and said remove this insult. 

The shopkeeper not only said no, but registered a blasphemy 

case against those six Ahmadis. They were put in a prison cell, this 

is in Sheikhapura in Punjab, and 3 days later while Khalil Ahmad, 

one of them who is 65 years old, a father of four, while he was in 

police custody a man walked in, asked to see Mr. Khalil, was given 

permission to see him, and shot and killed him, and he died. The 

community in Pakistan suspects that the police facilitated the killer’s entry and the lethal act. 

So this in a nutshell is just an example of how the persecution 

is not just by sectarian groups, but that the police are aware of 

what a blasphemy case means in society. We know some of the 

most courageous voices against the blasphemy laws, Minister 

Shahbaz Bhatti, Governor Salman Taseer, were assassinated for 

their opposition against these laws. But we see that now the police 

are also unable or unwilling to control the situation. 

Now what are the recurring patterns here? And this is really the 

key point that I would like to make. What we see in Pakistan is 

that police at the provincial and local levels routinely fail to provide adequate protection for vulnerable Ahmadi Muslims. 

Let us talk about the Lahore attack. Eighty six were dead. 

Months before that attack there was written correspondence at the 

highest levels in the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan saying 

that those attacks were imminent, and yet nevertheless the attacks 

took place and police didn’t provide protection. 

We know that Ahmadi physicians, lawyers, teachers, are particularly targeted. There are assassination hit lists with Ahmadi businesses and their addresses that are rampant all over Faisalabad. 

Billboards. If you drive through Lahore you will see billboards that 

say that Ahmadis are ‘‘Wajib ul Qatl,’’ worthy of being killed. They 

are funded by the government, those billboards, so the perpetrators 

of these attacks are not apprehended. 

It is just, I say, a Kafkaesque world where the perpetrators are 

permitted to do these acts with impunity and the victims suffer in 

prison. That is the reality on the ground in Pakistan. And we know 

about the effects of the blasphemy laws. But against that backdrop, 

Chairman Smith, and this is where I want to turn to, we know 

what we can do in the United States. 

The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 is not just a 

law on the books. This law has provided tremendous support for 

our community. I have been involved on these cases since I was an 

undergrad in 1997–1998 when the law was passed. I have seen its 

trajectory in 15 years. I have litigated these cases. I have lived 

56

these cases. I can tell you, Chairman Smith, that that act, and 

Congressman Wolf was the architect for it who is the chair of the 

Ahmadiyya Caucus, the newly-formed Ahmadiyya Caucus, that act 

has literally saved lives. 

And I want to comment briefly about some of the features of 

USCIRF, particularly, because the U.S. Commission which is an 

independent watchdog has been a leader on this front and I have 

worked with commissioners from both sides on this and most recently Chairman George. First, USCIRF, supported by a highly 

knowledgeable and dedicated staff, has consistently monitored and 

reported on the deteriorating conditions of religious liberty for 

Ahmadi Muslims in the Islamic world. 

Each year we know the Commission publishes an annual report. 

I am acutely aware as someone who lives in this space as an international human rights lawyer how hard it is to get reliable information on the ground. But USCIRF’s report provides that information. We use it in court. In the case of the Egyptian Coptic Christians, I submitted a USCIRF report to the ninth circuit which 

turned that case around. I use USCIRF materials in advocacy. 

Second, we know that the advocacy also consists of actually 

pressing our Government on these issues. We know that Dr. Robert 

George mentioned the case of two Ahmadi detainees in Saudi Arabia. In the recent trip of President Obama to Saudi we know that 

that case has taken traction because of USCIRF’s work. 

And I want to make this point very clear because it is a subtle 

point but it is very important. It is USCIRF’s independence that allows it to shine a spotlight on abuses of religious freedom even 

when other organs of our own Government are constrained by political considerations of foreign policy or national security. I know 

there is a discussion about CPC designations. But it is USCIRF’s 

independence that gives traction and allows us to be advocates on 

the ground. 

And I want to also focus on the missions that USCIRF takes. 

They have gone to Nigeria. They have gone to Saudi. They have 

gone to Pakistan, Pakistan particularly, and they have raised these 

issues. We feel we have a voice, an independent voice that is 

verifying this information on the ground. So this tireless work that 

the commissioners and the staff routinely exhibit is something that 

we as a community deeply appreciate and we absolutely need, and 

we absolutely support the reauthorization of USCIRF. 

Time is limited, so I want to conclude by again thanking you, 

Chairman Smith, for your leadership on this issue. The leadership 

in Congress has been terrific around the Ahmadi issue. We finally 

have now a caucus around our concerns and that is bipartisan, and 

we have, I understand, several dozen Members of Congress have 

joined that caucus. We hope that we can come into future hearings 

and talk about these issues. We have testified previously on Indonesia and other countries where Ahmadis are suffering. 

And I will say at the end that the primary source of our community’s persecution are religious extremists who espouse a militant 

perversion of Islam, and our community strongly believes that all 

such extremism must be cut at its root and we are prepared to 

work with you and others on this matter, and particularly 

USCIRF. Thank you. 

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[The prepared statement of Mr. Khan follows:]


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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Khan, thank you very much for your testimony 

and your extraordinary leadership. Pastor Fu? 

STATEMENT OF PASTOR BOB FU, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, 

CHINAAID ASSOCIATION 

Mr. FU. Mr. Chairman Smith, thank you so much for having me 

again. Thank you for your leadership again on not only protecting, 

advocating for the religious vulnerables, persecuted faithfuls, and 

also for other human rights abused. I also want to commend the 

excellent, outstanding work and leadership of Chairman George for 

your outstanding staff compiling and, really, for this annual report. 

And Mr. Chairman, as we have seen on these photos in the past 

few weeks about this recent escalation of persecution, religious persecution in China. We have documented in February an annual report about the persecution, just on the Christian persecution side, 

in 2013. We have seen compared to the year 2012, in 2013, the persecution against Christians in China alone had risen almost 30 

percent. 

And of the six categories ChinaAid uses to monitor the rate of 

persecution of Christians, all but one category increased from 2 to 

50 percent. And among the 143 documented cases, which obviously 

a tip of the iceberg because of the information censorship, with 

7,424 persecuted individuals, there are 1,470 people of faith, Christian, were detained in 2013 alone. 

Of course back to this year, after February we have seen a much 

more dramatic increase of the persecution in the Christian communities. And this time, even the government-sanctioned Three-Self 

Patriotic Movement churches have been subject to severe suppression and across-the-board restrictions. 

Since April this year, the Zhejiang Communist Committee of the 

province has planned and implemented some harsh suppressive 

measures against both the Three-Self churches and the independent house churches, forcibly demolishing the so-called illegally 

constructed church buildings and the crosses on the roof of churches throughout the province and forcing house churches to stop the 

so-called illegal gatherings, which has aroused many concerns and 

protests throughout the provinces. 

According to our own documentation and the statistics, these 

suppressive measures now against the house churches and to the 

Three-Self churches have been carried out across the board in Beijing, in Guangdong, in Guizhou, in Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, 

Anhui, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 

Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Sichuan, Tibet Autonomous 

Region, and Guangxi Zhuang Province. 

So it is not really just an isolated incident of some local officials’ 

abuse of their power or just about destroying some unauthorized 

buildings. In the past 2 weeks or so, almost every day we have documented, and we have received well-documented reports, there is 

one church, either it was destroyed or the crosses on that church 

was removed or destroyed. 

And we have also compiled a comprehensive report based on our 

independent investigation on the ground that shows up until May 

18th, just last week, we have documented 64 churches, both the 

government-sanctioned churches and house churches had either 

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been destroyed or their crosses were being forcibly removed. Like 

this one just happened on the end of April, and it was a church 

has been there for almost 20 years. 

And we just learned on May 18 that in 1 day alone, over 60 

crosses were forcibly removed. And as some, even the American 

church leaders, claim that this is only isolated incident caused by 

local government officials, and how about these crosses? I mean, 

how offensive are, how much of a disturbance to the public safety 

or social stability is a cross on the top of the church? 

So this certainly represents a major escalation of religious persecution, not only, of course, at the areas where the Tibetan Buddhists and Uyghur Muslims had been severely suppressed, but also 

in many other areas where both the house churches and the ThreeSelf churches has been targeted. 

And even those, the Christian-held businesses now are targeted. 

Just to give one example, on February 18, Ms. Cheng Jie, she is 

a director of a Christian kindergarten, which is a subsidiary of a 

house church called the Liangren House Church from Guangzhou, 

and this kindergarten was raided, and the director Cheng Jie and 

her fellow coworker Mo Xiliu, they were all criminally detained and 

arrested simply because they were found using part of the curriculum on character-building with the Christian content. 

And her lawyer, Ms. Chen Jie’s lawyer, just last week visited her 

from her prison. And you can tell she was locked up. And she is 

the mother of two children. The youngest boy is only 2 years old. 

So she is being held there for 3 months already and facing a long 

term imprisonment. So this is Ms. Chen Jie. 

And of course, in many other parts of China I can name on and 

on with these cases, like in Shaanxi Province, two believers were—

just for simply having some Christian hymnbook available in the 

bookstore—they were sentenced to 3 and 5 years, respectively, in 

criminal sentence last year. 

And of course in Pingdingshan, there are seven leaders who were 

also arrested and sentenced to 3 to 7 years for being accused of a 

evil cult as ‘‘The Shouters.’’ And in Nanle, in Henan Province, one 

of the government Three-Self Church pastors, who is the chairman 

and president of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, he was kidnapped and arrested along with 27 members and leaders of his 

church for simply advocating for social justice for the vulnerable of 

his believers. And many of his believers had been detained. 

Some were sent to simply black jails without any judicial process, 

and those believers were tortured and interrogated on producing 

evidence—so-called evidence—against their pastor, Pastor Zhang 

Shaojie, who is facing up to, maybe, 15 years sentence if he is convicted. 

In Beijing alone of course we have seen the increasing escalation 

of the persecution against the Shouwang Church. In the past 2 

weeks the escalations has reached to the level that five members 

of that church were sentenced to administrative detention for the 

first time. And in the past 3 years, every Sunday in that church 

there are from 2,000 to 200 members were detained for simply 

going to outdoor worship. 

And of course we have documented that report about the 64 

churches where the crosses were being removed. A number of 

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church leaders in Zhejiang Province were sentenced to criminal detention as well. So besides my written reports, and I also sent to 

the committee about that latest compiled report about 64 churches 

were being destroyed and crosses were being taken down, and you 

can tell it is still going on. 

And Mr. Chairman, I have a few recommendations I want to 

spell out. I think it is time for the U.S. Government and the international community to increase our effort to take action right away 

to stop this barbaric, Chinese Government-orchestrated, massive 

religious persecution in China, and, of course, I echo the call from 

my fellow witnesses today, along with the repressive governments 

in Pakistan and other countries. 

And we all know of course that, as Chairman George mentioned 

and articulated so well, that this religious freedom is our first freedom, and it is treasured in the fundamental human rights called 

into international norms. And China had been designated in the 

CPC list since the enactment of the International Religious Freedom Act, since 1999, just 2 years after my wife and I, with our 2-

month-old son, were granted as the first religious refugees to the 

United States. 

And I think, here are some of my appeals. The CPC designations 

are really not being utilized as intended. The consequences of the 

sanctions or visa bans are rarely, if ever, employed effectively. I 

think, as Chairman George said, that the double-hatting of sanctions and use of waivers weakens the CPC. I call Congress to, really, to make some modification or amendments so that there is teeth 

on this CPC to enforce the list with the two meaningful sanctions 

so that China won’t feel a free hand. 

The most urgent right now is for the U.S. Government to make 

a public statement on calling to the Chinese Government to return 

the properties of numerous house churches represented by, like the 

Shouwang Church and other churches, to restore the physical freedom of the church leaders, like the senior pastor Jin Tianming who 

has been under arbitrary house arrest for the past 3 years. He may 

be the house church pastor who has served the longest time in the 

house arrest in his own home. 

And to release these believers detained, really, in various black 

jails. I think the President, certainly, and the Secretary of State 

should step up and use the bully pulpit to just mention their 

names, and it will make a difference. I remember when we had, as 

you mentioned the blind, self-taught lawyer Chen Guangcheng at 

this room for the hearing, what a great difference that made for 

him and his family’s freedom. 

And I also suggest that the U.S. Government establish a database of the Chinese Communist officials violating religious freedom 

and implementing this religious persecution, and strictly bar them 

from visiting the U.S., and strengthen the cooperation with other 

nations and the United Nations in establishing an international coalition toward containing and sanctioning the Chinese Communist 

Government’s violation of religious freedom. 

And I also echo Chairman George’s recommendation on that 

front. I think when Chen Guangcheng just named these 33 names 

of the Chinese Government officials who were found violating the 

women and children rights by forcing the forced abortion practice, 

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I think his township and county officials after that hearing immediately convened an emergency meeting, talked about the 33 names 

because some of their names are on that list. The only sarcastic 

tone at that emergency meeting convened by the village and county 

officials was, ‘‘Are you planning to go to the U.S.?’’ And they said, 

‘‘No, we don’t care.’’ But that conversation alone means they do 

care. That means they do care about their children even coming to 

the United States. 

Finally, I think this CPC designation will be, I think, ten times 

or more effective, I think, if we help the Internet freedom to break 

or bypass the Internet firewall. I would call the BBG to increase 

its budget to develop more effective tools that can be achievable, I 

think, if more well-documented cases are able to be obtained. If 

just 10 percent of Chinese population, just 140 million Christians 

or Catholics are able to get access of the Internet without hindrance, we will certainly, I think, gather more information, and 

certainly the regime will not be sustainable for the continued religious persecution. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fu follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much, Pastor Fu. Just a few questions. And Dr. George, thank you again for your leadership and testimony today. 

Let me ask all of you a general question, first, what you think 

would happen if the USCIRF was not reauthorized. I mentioned before the hostility that is sometimes not even concealed toward 

IRFA in general, but the hostility toward USCIRF is even more 

profound. No one likes somebody looking over their shoulder. There 

are people, vested interests, who would rather that the religious 

freedom issue would just go away. It complicates other diplomacy 

and statecraft, and I think it is absolutely essential to it, something 

that it complicates it. 

And on the visa ban issue, if you could all speak to that one as 

well. The only person to my knowledge who has been sanctioned 

under the provisions of IRFA regarding the visa ban has been the 

new Prime Minister of India, Modi. That is it. In 2004, I sponsored 

a law called the Belarus Democracy Act. It provides that Belarus, 

because of its dictatorship and its repression of human rights, that 

a number of things take place, including a visa ban. It also holds 

Lukashenka and his cronies to task in terms of their ability to buy 

and sell and trade. 

But on the visa ban there are some 200, give or take, people that 

are on the list for small, little Belarus. In 2000, I authored a bill 

called the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act that included a visa ban for any country, 

and the focus is obviously China, where forced abortion and forced 

sterilization and those officials that are complicit in any of those 

crimes against women or children. And there have been, we asked 

the Congressional Research Service, years to date since 2000, 

under 30, under 30 people who have been denied visas pursuant 

to that legislation. 

So tiny little Belarus, which is a human rights violator, we have 

200. IRFA, we have one. And the Admiral James W. Nance and 

Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act, we have under 

30 for a crime against women that has religious freedom connotations as well, and it is horrific. I think we need to redouble our efforts on the visa ban side of it. I am wondering what all of you 

might think about that. 

It does get their imaginations going when they know they can’t 

send their kids, because it applies equally to the violator and to 

their families, the ability to send your kids to NYU or some other 

higher education or university here gets crimped if you are a religious persecutor. And our State Department, and it is already in 

the law, maybe we should look to ways to enhance it and to make 

it with exclamation points. But your thoughts on if there is no 

USCIRF, because again there are powers that be that want it to 

die when it expires, its authorization, and the visa ban in particular. 

Mr. KHAN. I will take a shot at it, Chairman Smith. Excellent 

questions. I commented a bit in my testimony about how USCIRF 

has been so valuable to the work we do as a community. If there 

is no reauthorization of USCIRF there will be direct consequences 

on our advocacy, and specifically the independence of USCIRF, 

which was the intent of the International Religious Freedom Act. 

95

The independent watchdog role that USCIRF plays is what gives 

it traction. 

And unfortunately, and we have seen this transpire in the past 

15 years under various administrations that sometimes the possibility of waiver at the State Department, even if there is a Country 

of Particular Concern that is violating religious freedom, there are 

exceptions built upon exceptions and there are national security 

considerations, and there are a whole host of considerations that go 

into enforcing the International Religious Freedom Act by the State 

Department. 

Those are constraints on the State Department. That is very legitimate. There are a lot of considerations that should go into that 

and frankly that is above my pay grade. But not having USCIRF 

means that you don’t have an independent voice that is checking 

what is actually happening on the ground, and the recommendations that an independent group is making must be taken seriously. 

So I fear that there will be uneven enforcement on international 

religious freedom issues if USCIRF is not reauthorized. That will 

have staggering implications on minorities who are particularly 

suffering, vulnerable religious minorities. I know from our community perspective we will lose the ability to have independent reports on very serious violations in countries that it is very difficult 

to get information about, for example, Saudi Arabia, and to have 

USCIRF as an ally on that is very critical. 

On the second point, on the visa ban it is interesting. As a community I don’t think we have a particular view on how that plays 

out in terms of an enforcement tool, but I will say this. That a 

country like Pakistan, it is quite difficult to point to specific perpetrators who are harming Ahmadis because it is so legally entrenched and it is so surreptitiously engineered and so cleverly designed that it is hard to point to a particular person who is authorizing these acts. 

It is police who are being given orders not to protect Ahmadis. 

It is individuals who are complicit in torture, rogue actors. It is 

hard to actually pinpoint individuals who are causing all of these 

problems. So I do think there is an inherent problem in a country 

like Pakistan or even Saudi where you can point to—and it is by 

design—where you can point to a specific person who is behind the 

wholesale international religious freedom violations. 

But there are many mechanisms under the International Religious Freedom Act, private enforcement, private demarche. I want 

to make this point that you don’t have to be a CPC to still be held 

accountable. I think for some reason, perhaps it is a mistaken view 

maybe in the State Department and in multiple administrations 

that somehow if you are not a CPC there can’t be any accountability for these violations. Obviously there can be more, but there 

can be a lot done even for a country that is not designated as CPC, 

like Pakistan. 

Mr. FU. If I, yes, also can make a comment. I agree with Mr. 

Khan’s comment about the necessity to reauthorize the existence of 

USCIRF. I mean just imagine, in the past 6 months in the State 

Department International Religious Freedom office, the Ambassador-at-Large is vacant. And if USCIRF, if there is no organizaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:39 Oct 01, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00099 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\052214\88022 SHIRL
96

tion like USCIRF to release a report what could have happened, 

right? 

And I think the State Department, of course, is a political body. 

And according to the Washington Post, when the Ambassador-atLarge was rejected for visa by China when she tried to travel to 

China last year, and she was even asked not to speak up about her 

visa being rejected by China, so without USCIRF then, the independent Commission, I think there is no authority, independent 

authority to address this issue. 

And on the visa ban, I can assure you that I totally support 

about your effort to double, triple the effort to find names. And in 

the Chinese civil society, in the Chinese communities, we can really 

make document and collect the most accurate names, the perpetrators, and supply their names. For instance, in this Nanle case and 

all the persecuted believers know who is responsible. This is the 

Party secretary of Nanle County, Henan Province, Mr. Huang 

Shouxi. And he was even in the court when the pastors were tried 

and was just behind the curtain, orchestrated the whole thing. So 

we certainly know his name, we know his family members, we 

know their cell phone numbers. So I think you can be assured we 

will get the job done. 

Mr. BOWERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that question. And 

I will only add to what has already been said by my fellow witnesses that I guess it comes down to competence, really. Who can 

name an organization that has done a better job in assessing the 

situation of religious freedom around the world? And with that 

competence has come a degree of credibility that is unmatched in 

human rights circles and influence, so that it is readily heeded 

whenever USCIRF submits an op-ed piece to major media outlets 

or in any way is involved in this work it has a very, very strong 

voice in that world. So I would add that to what my colleagues 

have said. 

And in terms of the visa ban, you may recall that Resolution 109, 

now in the House, does urge the President and the Secretary of 

State to impose individual sanctions on Iranian officials and others 

who are guilty of human rights abuses, and we certainly do support 

that. 

You mentioned the IRFA provision for that but the sanctions in 

this case could be brought also under the Comprehensive Iran 

Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010, and the 

Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, these 

also would be perfectly adequate to cover that. And we would support individual sanctions. And we in our case we could name and 

there have been names quite a number of individual officials who 

could be held accountable for their actions. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Can I ask you how helpful or less than 

helpful United Nations mechanisms have been, particularly the 

U.N. Human Rights Council? Many of us, and I was very loud in 

my dissent when the Commission was matriculating to the Council 

there were promises made that have been promises unkept, that 

this would be different than the original Commission because the 

Commission was filled with rogue nations that ran interference, 

tried to literally buy some of the votes with foreign aid, particularly 

China, and so that they would not be held to account. Even when 

97

they went through their periodic review, the softballs that were 

lobbed at offending countries—it was like T-ball. You could just hit 

home runs. Very, very weak. 

But I am wondering, yes, there are mechanisms. I mean the 

Human Rights Council could do much more than it does. Do you 

find the treaty bodies, I mean, some of these nations have signed 

treaties and they do have enforcement. The enforcement again is 

not binding but at least gives a platform to articulate the concerns. 

Mr. KHAN. In the case of Pakistan, Mr. Chairman, I think, absolutely. And in the case of, actually, many countries the U.N. can 

do much more. I mean, I have studied international human rights 

law and really am focused on enforcement mechanisms, and I can 

tell you that the—let us take Pakistan, for example. 

They have acceded to the ICCPR and significantly—and this is 

actually a positive step in the State Department; we brief the State 

Department regularly on these issues—withdrew reservations to 

Articles 18, 19, 20 and 27, those all pertain to religious freedom. 

Those reservations were swallowing their accession. They are basically saying that we won’t protect religious freedom if there is a 

public order and safety rationale or some other rationale that is a 

sufficient enough reason for Pakistan not to abide by their international human rights commitments. Those are gone. 

And now in Pakistan, the highest, the Pakistan Supreme Court 

in a case in 1993, it is mentioned in my testimony, Zaheeruddin, 

and the Federal Shariat Court, the highest courts have said these 

laws are constitutional. So there is no domestic recourse left. And 

we know that any type of marginal reform of the blasphemy laws 

in Pakistan’s Parliament is met with stiff resistance and some of 

the most courageous voices are silenced. 

So the international community can hold Pakistan accountable 

under the ICCPR. They have now withdrawn the reservations and 

the Human Rights Council, they can do a lot more to hold Pakistan 

accountable. They can’t conceivably have ordinance 20 and the 

anti-blasphemy provisions in section 295–C on the book and still 

say seriously with a straight face that they are abiding by international human rights commitments. 

The Universal Periodic Review, as the president of the 

Ahmadiyya Muslim Lawyers Association I submitted a very robust 

submission on the international human rights violations in the last 

review cycle. We have done it in prior cycles as well. And I share 

your view that the submission was quite hard-hitting, and I think 

the nation-states realized some of the questions to be asked. But 

there were some softball questions fielded and those were easily, 

readily dealt with and there were some obfuscation of the record 

on key issues too, and obvious just plain denial of the realities of 

what is happening on the ground in Pakistan. 

The Universal Periodic Review is an important process. The U.S. 

Congress can have a role. When the United States is there they 

can ask questions. The representatives from the United States 

should ask very probing questions. The stakeholders can submit 

submissions. The NGOs are permitted to give submissions. We routinely do that as independent bodies. 

So absolutely, the U.N. can do a lot more. So I hope that the 

U.N. isn’t just perceived as a body that can’t be effective. I think 

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there is maybe a view of that. I think there is a lot of improvement 

that can be done, but it takes a lot of will to focus on what are the 

existing commitments from these countries like Pakistan and how 

can they be held accountable. And I think, frankly, it is in Pakistan’s best interest to make sure that their withdrawal of reservations is met with seriousness in the international body. So I hope, 

particularly on the ICCPR, that there is more that can be done. 

Mr. BOWERS. Well, I don’t deal directly with the United Nations 

myself so I can only give impressions at a little bit of a remove, 

Mr. Chairman. I would say certainly we would all wish that the 

United Nations could be more effective in many different ways. But 

also though to give credit, it does seem as though that the work 

of the United Nations has been effective, I think, in mitigating the 

severity of what is going on with respect to the Baha ́’ı ́s in Iran, and 

one can partly tell that by the violent reactions of Iranian authorities every time there is a vote in the U.N. condemning their activities and so on, so one can see. And of course their very aggressive 

fight not to have a U.N. Special Rapporteur to be appointed and 

so on to go to Iran. 

So one can see that they are sensitive to even the fact of the discussion and these statements and votes that keep coming out. But 

another thing too that may also be important to mention here is 

that from what I understand the work at the U.N. also has paved 

the way for discussions in countries that have been slower to respond, or to lend their voices, I should say, to the persecution of 

religious minorities and others inside of Iran. 

Mr. SMITH. Can I ask you about the effectiveness of the U.N. 

Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Mr. Bielefeldt, 

how effective? 

Mr. KHAN. I am glad you asked that question. We worked with 

him directly just a few weeks ago. We had a very lengthy session 

and meeting with him in Germany where we talked about the situation of Ahmadis in Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and 

that is affecting, as you know, Mr. Chairman, a variety of religious 

communities. He has been quite effective. He is very vocal on these 

issues. He has taken clear stances on how religious freedom should 

be protected. Obviously the dynamics are such where it is a complicated relationship in terms of his authority, but I think the pronouncements publicly and privately have been very encouraging for 

our community and we continue to work with him directly. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask, if I could, Pastor Fu. It appears that 

there is a surge, the likes of which I have not seen before in China, 

against religious freedom. The demolishment of that large church 

that we all saw——

Mr. FU. Sanjiang Church. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. On YouTube, when it was replayed, was 

almost emblematic or symbolic of the all-out effort that Xi Jinping 

has embarked upon. We are coming up on the 25th anniversary of 

Tiananmen Square. I am very concerned that people have forgotten 

that China could have made a pivot toward democracy and freedom 

and chose tanks and brutality instead. 

But evil need not be forever, and the suffering believers in 

China—and I have met so many, many of them through your facilitation, frankly—are absolutely tenacious and courageous and longVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:39 Oct 01, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00102 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\052214\88022 SHIRL
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suffering. And I am wondering what is the mindset of the believers 

of people of various faiths, but you would know the Christian folks 

more than anyone else, are they discouraged? Do they feel that 

they have been abandoned? Obviously they look to God for help in 

sustaining grace and courage, but it would appear that the world 

has forgotten to some extent that China is an egregious human 

rights abuser and they stride the world’s stage as a superpower as 

if there is a legitimacy to their reign. It is a dictatorship. 

One of the most telling interviews that I have ever seen, and the 

Washington Post correctly pointed it out, when Hu Jintao was here 

he met with President Obama and was asked a good question by 

the Associated Press reporter about human rights in China. And 

Hu Jintao had a little bit of a problem with hearing the question 

or something, it seemed as bogus as a $3 bill, and President 

Obama stepped in and said, well, they have a different culture and 

a different political system. 

And as if to excuse, I mean the people of China know, understand and have paid with their blood particularly at Tiananmen 

Square, and all the other dissidents who have languished and suffered in prison, including yourself, understand what freedom is and 

want it, and want it desperately. The Washington Post did a scathing editorial when President Obama said this, and said, and the 

headline was, ‘‘President Obama makes Hu Jintao look good on 

rights’’ it was President Hu of course. And it was one of the most 

telling editorials, I think, of recent years, to take him to task on 

that. What is the feeling of the believers there? 

Mr. FU. Yes, the persecution as I just mentioned, it is intensifying, and especially after President Xi Jinping took power. It 

seems the real hardliner policy is in place. And not only, really, the 

religious persecution has increased dramatically, but across the 

board other human rights, fundamental freedoms, like the freedom 

of the press. 

A 70-year-old, China’s very well-known journalist, Ms. Gao Yu 

was also arrested and being humiliated, even put on the CCTV for 

admitting to leaking a national secret, and in fact just leaking, release the Communist Party’s secrets to crackdown the basic human 

rights. 

And of course the rule of law has been also seriously degraded. 

We have, of course, read and documented a number of lawyers 

were being detained. They are abused. And just last month, four 

lawyers including lawyer Jiang Tianyong, who testified before your 

committee twice in 2009 for rule of law and forced abortion issue, 

and he and three other fellow lawyers last month visited a black 

jail to represent several Falun Gong practitioners who were in that 

black jail. They were all just brutally tortured. And I mean the four 

lawyers all together, combined together, their over 20 ribs were 

broken because of the repeated torture. 

So this is a serious concern. I think, really, it represents of 

course the insecurity of the regime on the one hand, and on the 

other hand it also reflects the so-called, the kind of the green light 

the international community, especially I think the U.S. Government has taken, like these unhelpful comments. Almost like promoting a value of relativism, like you have your culture, I have my 

culture. 

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But human rights and this religious freedom and other freedoms 

are the fundamental freedoms recognized not only just American 

norms, it is by the United Nations and international treaties. And 

China has signed many, and even like freedom of religious belief 

is enshrined in the Chinese Constitution. 

So I think it is a major concern, and I would, I think I would 

advise that we as, of course, as NGO leaders, we will never abandon those persecuted faithfuls. Whenever there is a case of persecution, we take that seriously. And you as a champion of course have 

relentlessly, of course, by holding hearings, press conferences, and 

issuing press statements. 

And I really want to see the administration, I mean; it is not 

only just the State Department, ask the Embassy, raise a case 

issue, I think from the Secretary of State to the President should 

really take this seriously and make just public statements. I think 

the regime will take that as a serious reminder that American and 

the freedom-loving international community do care about them. 

In terms of the feeling of the church, the persecuted faithfuls, 

they were crying out. There is a major storm coming, and in the 

next few months maybe that will more arrests, more detention, 

more torture, but there is also a feeling of a revival coming. After 

all, as we all know, as the Church father Tertullian said, ‘‘The 

blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.’’ And we can anticipate there will be a bigger revival among the persecuted churches 

in China. So thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask you. Next week and especially the 

week after, the hope will be that the President and many others 

will speak out strongly 25 years later. My hope is, is that the statements that emanate out of Washington, and particularly the White 

House, are not empty calories where grandiose statements are 

made about human rights that are meaningless and in no way ding 

or affect Beijing, because they will say he is just doing what he has 

to do for public consumption. 

My hope is that there will be names named, that specific instances of religious persecution will be cited, and as specific as possible. Because what has happened post-Tiananmen Square, in a 

way, is Tiananmen Square happening over and over again, including as you pointed out in your testimony, the horrific abuse of 

forced abortion which is commonplace in China today. My hope is 

that it will be a very meaningful set of statements coming out of 

the White House, State Department, and from Members of Congress. 

Let me just ask Mr. Khan, one final question to you. In your testimony you talked about Mr. Ahmad who was in police custody, 

and a man walked in who shot, was that man then arrested and 

is he being prosecuted today? 

Mr. KHAN. No. At this point in time there has been an apprehension of the individual. I think he is going to be hopefully prosecuted, but there is no indication, and I haven’t seen the latest reports in the last 24 to 48 hours because this story is fluid, but my 

sense is or my understanding is he hasn’t yet been fully dealt with. 

And this wouldn’t surprise us because this has happened in the 

past. Why is it so difficult to figure out which individuals are responsible for these acts is because they are not arrested. The peoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:39 Oct 01, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00104 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\052214\88022 SHIRL
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ple who blew up 86 Ahmadi Muslims, or gunned them down, rather, when they had suicide vests and so forth, of the TTP, these individuals, their backgrounds were known and they were known at 

pretty high levels. 

And there was a letter sent by Asthma Jahangir, she was of the 

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, about an imminent attack. 

But the attacks happened, some police came and they were helpful, 

but there was no prevention and then there was no apprehension. 

So this is a vicious cycle. And in this Kafkaesque reality, the perpetrators then act with impunity and even get emboldened by their 

ability to do this under color of law and have legal sanctuary. The 

blasphemy laws permitted and the legal apparatus permits it, and 

yet the victims are made to suffer and then the widows and their 

families as well. 

So we don’t expect, we don’t hold much hope that there will be 

apprehension of people who commit acts of atrocity against 

Ahmadis. In this instance it was so brazen, we hope at least in this 

case of Mr. Khalil that this individual will be arrested and prosecuted. But our hope is that the security apparatus in Pakistan at 

the Federal and provincial level rise up and actually take these 

matters seriously, and that the Federal Government at all levels 

takes it seriously, particularly in Punjab where there is the worst 

violence. 

Mr. SMITH. Before I ask you if you have anything final you would 

like to say regarding, because you have said much in your testimony, I deeply appreciate it, I would ask unanimous consent that 

the statements from Dr. Maryann Love from Catholic University of 

America be included in the record, as well as from Matteo Mecacci. 

We will look to see if some of the photos that you have provided, 

all of you, or any additional extraneous materials you would like 

to add, if they could be included in the record, without objection, 

they will be included. Sometimes photos are a little more difficult 

but we will try. 

And also we are going to keep the record open. There is a possibility of receiving testimony from the Reverend Thich Quang Do 

from the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. I actually met him 

when he was under pagoda arrest. He is an unbelievably courageous man, like you, and has endured so much. We think we will 

be receiving a testimony from him as well. 

So would anyone like to make any final comment before we conclude the hearing? 

Mr. FU. Just want to mention, when I mentioned this lady, her 

pastor actually is in our midst. That is today, I just want to mention that. Pastor Wang Dao, he spent time in prison in Guangzhou. 

That is her pastor, he and his wife, of course, as they come over. 

Yes. Thank you so much. 

Mr. KHAN. Thank you for your leadership. 

Mr. BOWERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. And I can assure you, your testimonies 

will be widely disseminated. They will be used by not only me but 

many others to help propel USCIRF. The House is not the problem. 

We are very concerned about the Senate. And I have had at least 

30 of my bills die in the Senate. I have six pending over there right 

now. Sometimes it is very difficult to get bills out of the Senate. 

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But the hope is that it will, and it will be done in a timely fashion. Because this Commission is among the most important, I 

think, that has ever been created, and as you all said, it gives a 

sense of authority. They are accurate. They have excellent staff, 

great commissioners, now led so brilliantly by Dr. George. And it 

does help not only in foreign capitals, believe me, it helps here as 

well. And the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:09 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY PASTOR BOB FU, FOUNDER AND

PRESIDENT, CHINAAID ASSOCIATION


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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, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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