115th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 

1st Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Religious Freedom Violations

in the OSCE Region

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

Briefing of the 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington: 2018


CSCESeal.EPS
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Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

234 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515

202–225–1901

csce@mail.house.gov 

http://www.csce.gov 

@HelsinkiComm

Legislative Branch Commissioners

HOUSE 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY

Co-Chairman 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, TEXAS

STEVE COHEN, TENNESSEE

RICHARD HUDSON, NORTH CAROLINA

RANDY HULTGREN, ILLINOIS

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, TEXAS

GWEN MOORE, WISCONSIN

SENATE 

ROGER WICKER, MISSISSIPPI, 

Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. MARYLAND

JOHN BOOZMAN, ARKANSAS

CORY GARDNER, COLORADO

MARCO RUBIO, FLORIDA

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THOM TILLIS, NORTH CAROLINA

TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND

Executive Branch Commissioners

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 

1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of 

January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and 

meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior 

Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. 

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military 

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian 

concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage 

and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys 

numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the 

Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. 

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki 

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage 

compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 

emphasis on human rights. 

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of 

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the 

Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff 

assists the Commissioners in their work. 

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that 

reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details 

about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating 

States. 

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy 

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with 

parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission 

is: <www.csce.gov>. 

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Religious Freedom Violations

in the OSCE Region

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

Page 

PARTICIPANTS 

Nathaniel Hurd, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe ........... 1

Ambassador Michael Kozak, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State ............................................................................................................................... 3

Dr. Kathleen Collins, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota ......... 9

Philip Brumley, General Counsel, Jehovah’s Witnesses ............................................................. 10

Dr. Daniel Mark, Chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom ............... 10

Stacy L. Hope, Director of Communications and CSCE Liaison to the Chairman’s Communications Staff, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe .................................... 15

APPENDIX

Prepared Statement of Philip Brumley ......................................................................................... 33

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Religious Freedom Violations

in the OSCE Region 

November 15, 2017

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington, DC

The briefing was held at 2 p.m. in Room 385, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, Nathaniel Hurd, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, presiding. 

Panelists present: Nathaniel Hurd, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe; Ambassador Michael Kozak, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, 

and Labor, U.S. Department of State; Dr. Kathleen Collins, Associate Professor of Political 

Science, University of Minnesota; Dr. Daniel Mark, Chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; Philip Brumley, General Counsel, Jehovah’s Witnesses; and 

Stacy L. Hope, Director of Communications and CSCE Liaison to the Chairman’s Communications Staff, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Mr. HURD. Good afternoon, and welcome. On behalf of the chairman of the Helsinki 

Commission, Senator Wicker, and the co-chairman, Congressman Smith, I want to extend 

a very warm welcome to those of you that have braved the cold to make it here in person, 

and also to those of you watching online. 

My name is Nathaniel Hurd. I’m a policy adviser at the Helsinki Commission. I want 

to say just a quick word about format. Our first panelist, Ambassador Michael Kozak, has 

a hard stop at 3:00, so after introducing our panelists, I’m going to turn it over to him 

for opening remarks. I will then ask him a series of questions. He’ll answer them. I’ll then 

open it up to questions for him from our fellow panelists, as well as to those of you in 

the audience and those of you watching online. 

It is a delight to begin with Ambassador Kozak. He is a longtime friend and colleague 

of the Helsinki Commission. He actually led the delegation to the Human Dimension 

Implementation Meetings (HDIM) this past fall, and by all accounts did a fantastic job. 

So it’s good to have you here. 

Ambassador Kozak is a charter member of the Career Senior Executive Service in 

the U.S. Government. He has served in a number of senior positions in the U.S. executive 

branch, including as senior director on the National Security Staff from 2005 to 2009, in 

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State level positions in three different bureaus, 

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Acting Assistant Secretary of State for extended periods of time, Ambassador in Belarus, 

and Chief of Mission in Havana, Cuba. Ambassador Kozak was a U.S. negotiator with 

Cuba to secure the return of criminals sent to the United States during the Mariel boat 

crisis. He also helped implement the Camp David Accords and negotiate the withdrawal 

of the PLO from Lebanon. Ambassador Kozak has been awarded the State Department 

Superior Honor Award, Younger Federal Lawyer Award, Presidential Ranks of Distinguished and Meritorious Executive, and the Order of Balboa presented by the president 

of Panama. He received his A.B. in political science and law degree from the University 

of California at Berkeley. Welcome. 

Dr. Daniel Mark is the Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious 

Freedom. He is an Assistant Professor of political science at Villanova University. There 

he teaches political theory and philosophy of law, politics and religion. At Villanova, he 

is a faculty associate of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions 

and the Public Good, and he holds the rank of battalion professor in Villanova’s Navy 

Reserve Officers Training Corps unit. For the 2017 through 2018 academic year, Dr. Mark 

is on leave from Villanova as a visiting fellow in the Tocqueville Program for Inquiry Into 

Religion and Public Life at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Mark is a fellow of the 

Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, and works with the Tikvah Fund in New 

York. He is also a member of the advisory council of CanaVox. He has served as an assistant editor of the journal Interpretation, and is a contributor to the Arc of the Universe 

blog. In addition to his academic writing, Dr. Mark has published on topics related to 

international religious freedom in U.S. News and World Report and other outlets and 

publications. He holds a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at 

Princeton University. Before graduate school, he was a high school history teacher for four 

years in New York City. Welcome. 

Next, we’ll hear from Dr. Kathleen Collins. Dr. Collins is an Associate Professor in 

the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. She is the researcher 

for Central Asia for the Under Caesar’s Sword Project, pioneered by the University of 

Notre Dame and the Religious Freedom Research Project at the Berkeley Center at 

Georgetown University, which focuses on the repression and persecution of Christians 

globally. The project’s book, edited by Daniel Philpott and Tim Shah, is forthcoming with 

Cambridge University Press. Dr. Collins is the author of ‘‘Clan Politics and Regime 

Transition in Central Asia,’’ which won the Central Asia Studies Society Book Award for 

Social Sciences. She has published articles in various journals and edited volumes, 

including Comparative Politics, World Politics, the Journal of Democracy, Europe-Eurasia 

Studies, Political Research Quarterly, the Brown Journal of International Affairs, and 

Asia Policy. She is currently writing two new books tentatively titled ‘‘The Rise of Islamist 

Movements: Islam and State in Central Asia and the Caucasus’’ and ‘‘Muslim Politics: 

Islam, Politics, and Public Opinion in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan.’’ Dr. Collins 

has received grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the MacArthur Foundation, the Kellogg Institute, the United States Institute of Peace, IREX, and the National 

Council for Eurasian and East European Research, among others. 

Finally, we’ll hear from Philip Brumley. Mr. Brumley is the General Counsel for 

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. He received his law degree in 1988 

from Brooklyn Law School, in New York. He has represented Jehovah’s Witnesses in the 

U.S. Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Additionally, he supervised the filing of complaints to the U.N. Human Rights Committee that resulted in 15 

3

favorable decisions. In addition to his work on behalf of religious freedom, he is an 

instructor at the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead and the School for Branch Committee 

Members, in Patterson, New York. 

Ambassador Kozak. 

Amb. KOZAK. Thank you, Nathaniel, and thanks to the commission for holding this 

briefing on religious freedom in the OSCE region. 

Religious freedom is a cherished American value, universal human right, and a 

Trump administration foreign policy priority. I’d like to open by saying that the Department is hopeful that the Senate will soon confirm Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas 

to be Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Governor Brownback, 

former Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe chairman and commissioner, 

is the highest-ranking government official ever nominated for this important post. He 

brings great commitment and experience, including having been a key sponsor of the 

International Religious Freedom Act. We could not ask for a more distinguished nominee. 

Now turning to the conditions for religious freedom among the OSCE participating 

States, as head of the U.S. delegation to HDIM in Warsaw in September, it was my privilege to present the statement on freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief. I made 

the point that freedom of religion is an animating foundational principle of the United 

States and that the right to believe or not to believe is embedded in our Constitution and 

integrated throughout our national and state laws. At HDIM we were also very clear 

about our concerns in the region. In the OSCE region, the State Department has designated Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as Countries of Particular Concern 

(CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act for engaging in or tolerating 

systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom. The other countries so 

designated are Eritrea, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, and Vietnam at one 

time. We have active dialogues with these countries to encourage them to take concrete 

steps to ensure that freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief is fully enjoyed 

by all. We anticipate that the latest rounds of Country of Particular Concern designations 

will be finalized in the near future. 

In Turkmenistan, members of religious minorities reportedly have been beaten and 

imprisoned for beliefs the government considers unacceptable, particularly unregistered 

Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslims the government views as extremists or 

Wahhabists. We are aware of one Jehovah’s Witness prisoner of conscience, Bahram 

Hemdemov, and there is an unknown number of Muslims imprisoned for their religious 

beliefs. Religious groups there encounter significant obstacles to legal registration. 

In Uzbekistan, we’ve welcomed the government’s public expression of interest to work 

with us to be removed from the CPC list. We view it as positive that the U.N. Special 

Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief recently visited Tashkent and enjoyed highlevel meetings. Concerns about religious freedom conditions in Uzbekistan include how 

people may be detained, questioned and fined for gathering to discuss their religious belief 

outside of government-authorized locations. 

In Tajikistan, over a hundred people have been detained for membership in banned 

religious groups, and a number of individuals were subjected to long-term imprisonment 

for so-called extremist views. The government restricts children under 18 from attending 

public religious service. Tajikistan is the only country to enforce such a restriction nationwide. 

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In Kazakhstan, a country that previously had a well-deserved reputation for religious 

tolerance, we’ve seen continued negative steps, with proposed legislation that would 

severely restrict religious education, discussions, and literature. We urge the government 

of Kazakhstan to bring existing and proposed laws into conformity with Kazakhstan’s 

international commitments on human rights. 

We’re closely monitoring proposed amendments on the religion law in the Kyrgyz 

Republic. As currently drafted, the amendments would give the government more control 

over religious groups and place further restrictions on proselyting and registration. 

We have pointed out in HDIM and elsewhere that Russia is misusing anti-terrorism 

and anti-extremism laws to suppress religious freedom in unprecedented ways, raiding 

houses of worship and homes, and harassing, fining, jailing and deporting members of 

religious minorities. NGOs have identified at least 111 persons as of 2016 imprisoned for 

their exercise of religious freedom, many of them on, again, so-called extremism charges. 

The Russian Supreme Court banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses as an ‘‘extremist organization’’ on April 20, 2017, and upheld this decision again in July. A Danish member of Jehovah’s Witnesses arrested in Russia and charged with so-called extremism remains in 

detention for holding a religious meeting. 

The government of Azerbaijan continues to detain religious activists who local human 

rights groups deem political prisoners and the government considers as nontraditional 

groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslim minority groups, and they face difficulties in legally registering. Adherents cannot freely practice their religions without risking 

police raids, fines, detention, arrest, or prosecution. 

In Turkey, authorities continue to limit the human rights of some religious groups 

and some communities continue to experience protracted property disputes. Non-Sunni 

Muslims, such as Alevi Muslims, do not receive the same government protections as those 

enjoyed by recognized non-Muslim minorities and have faced discrimination and violence. 

Some foreign citizens, including several individuals with ties to Christian groups, faced 

detention, problems with residency permissions and visas, and so on under the state of 

emergency following the 2016 coup. The United States continues to advocate for the 

immediate release of Pastor Andrew Brunson, a U.S. citizen who’s been wrongfully imprisoned in Turkey since October 2016. 

Today religiously motivated manifestations of hate are persisting, evolving, and 

erupting in unprecedented ways around the OSCE region. Anti-Semitic violence continues 

to rise, giving new urgency to the need for participating States to respond with immediate, definitive action. Both age-old and contemporary forms of anti-Semitism are 

afforded unprecedented reach by the use of mass media, including online technologies. At 

HDIM, we urged all governments to denounce and combat anti-Semitism and work with 

Jewish communities to better protect them. The OSCE continues to benefit from the 

expertise of Rabbi Andrew Baker, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chair-inOffice on Combating Anti-Semitism and also Director for Jewish Affairs at the American 

Jewish Committee. 

We’re also deeply concerned about intolerance and violence towards Muslims. There’s 

a growing trend of the governments across the OSCE region and elsewhere imposing 

restrictions on the ability of Muslims to freely practice their faiths. 

Good data is essential to developing good policies. The United States supports the 

work of ODIHR’s Hate Crime Unit and its efforts to collect comprehensive data. We also 

5

encourage participating States to work with civil society to develop strategies for 

addressing the problem of under-reporting. In addition to HDIM, we work closely with the 

U.S. Permanent Mission to the OSCE to combat religion intolerance and coordinate policies and statements. At OSCE, for example, we’ve raised the targeting of members of religious minorities such as Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and called upon Central Asian 

governments to bring their laws into conformity with their obligations. 

In closing, I’d like to emphasize that we appreciate the commission’s focus on international religious freedom issues. It greatly strengthens our hand in diplomatic efforts on 

behalf of religious freedom with foreign governments that this fundamental human right 

enjoys such deep, broad, and steadfast and bipartisan congressional support. We want to 

continue to work closely with the commission to help protect and promote international 

religious freedom in the OSCE Mission. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HURD. Thank you, Ambassador Kozak. 

I will ask a basket of questions. After you’ve answered them, I’ll open it up to the 

panelists and then to the broader audience. 

Amb. KOZAK. Great. 

Mr. HURD. As the U.S. Government representative, I’m sure you can expect that 

you’ll start off in the hot seat, but things will hopefully get a bit cooler as we proceed. 

I’ll ask you three baskets of questions, several of which focus on Countries of Particular Concern. 

Amb. KOZAK. OK. 

Mr. HURD. The Frank Wolf International Religious (IRF) Freedom Act requires the 

State Department to issue the Annual International Religious Freedom Report on May 

1st. The Act also requires the State Department to issue its designation of Countries of 

Particular Concern no later than 90 days after issuing the IRF report. This year, the 

Department released the IRF report on August 15th, more than three and half months 

late. The deadline just passed for CPC designations, and no designations have yet been 

issued, although you alluded that that will be happening soon. One question would be, 

why have there been delays regarding the report and the CPC designations? Do you 

expect to issue these by the end of the year? 

Amb. KOZAK. On the delays on the reports, this is a bit of ‘‘damned if you do and 

damned if you don’t.’’ We were criticized this year for issuing the Human Rights Report 

exactly on time but not having the secretary participate in it. With the IRF report, we 

waited until the secretary could participate because he really wanted to participate in the 

rollout. But trying to get schedules aligned and so on with senior-level officials results in 

a delay. 

So it’s always a tradeoff between which we way go. We can send the report up, but 

then you lose the impact of having the secretary roll it out, and I think as any of you 

who saw the secretary’s rollout of the IRF report this year, it was pretty powerful, and 

I guess I would say worth waiting for. So that is what happened with respect to the report 

itself. 

With respect to the CPC designations, I have to take responsibility on that myself, 

because it’s the actions of my bureau. We have not gotten the paperwork to the secretary 

at this point for decision. People like to think this is due to some titanic bureaucratic 

battle going on, but it tends to be more mundane stuff. As we were talking a little before 

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the hearing, when the new Frank Wolf Act was rolled out, it included some additional 

categories—for example, a special watch list, entities of particular concern. As we were 

moving towards getting all of our packages together, it suddenly dawned that there were, 

for example, a definitional question of what does severe violation of religious freedom 

mean. In the IRF Act, particularly severe violations are defined. It’s not that. 

So we had to work with lawyers to come up with what would be a reasonable and 

supportable interpretation that would be consistent with congressional intent. It also 

turns out that the entities of particular concern, the way the statute was drafted, didn’t 

modify the IRF Act. So the existing delegations of authority don’t apply to it. So now we 

have to work with the White House either to get that authority delegated or for the president to exercise it personally. Those are the kinds of things—it’s not that the secretary 

is incapable of doing this. We were incapable of getting the paper to him on time. I think 

we’re pretty confident we’re going to have it up in the near future and give him the opportunity to consider and make the decisions. But the apologies for being late are on us. 

Mr. HURD. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which you alluded to, 

requires the president to take actions from the list provided in the legislation, including 

even sanctions, for any country where there are severe restrictions on religious freedom. 

However, it only requires sanctions be taken or certain commensurate action if the 

country is designated as a CPC. The Frank Wolf Religious Freedom Act requires the U.S. 

Government to provide fuller and more frequent responses when waivers have been exercised. The U.S. Government also has a range of authorities, including the Global 

Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, for imposing sanctions on individuals for 

religious freedom violations. 

Generally speaking, has the State Department found any particular sanction or 

action more or less effective in addressing global religious freedom restrictions? That’s one 

question. A second question would be, is there a good model for judging the success of 

religious freedom diplomacy? Finally, does the administration intend to use the full range 

or authorities available to it to sanction foreign persons—individuals—suspected of 

particularly severe religious freedom violations regardless of whether they are in the list 

required by the Frank Wolf Act and regardless of the time of year, recognizing this can 

be done at any point during the year? 

Amb. KOZAK. Let me try—and I may have forgotten part of the question, so please 

remind me. 

Mr. HURD. Sure. 

Amb. KOZAK. I’ll try to start with the last first. The Global Magnitsky authority is 

something that’s really important. That’s relatively new. We’re in the process now of gathering up names and identities of persons who would qualify under the terms of that act, 

including some who have engaged in religious freedom violations. Some are for other 

forms of human rights violations. I think, in my own experience anyway, sanctions that 

target individuals—senior-level individuals, their families, their cronies who provide support—tend to give us the most leverage effect that you can get. Broader, national-level 

trade sanctions and so on become part of the scenery. But when you bring it down to 

somebody has their assets blocked in the United States or their family can’t go to college 

in the United States or can’t come shopping here, or whatever it might be, it becomes 

a source of concern for them. 

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To me, the metric is, are we able to use these to actually leverage improvements in 

human rights conditions, or in this case, specifically in religious freedom conditions in 

other countries, and trying to make that linkage and get people off the list is sometimes 

difficult. This is something that our Office of Religious Freedom really has worked hard 

to do. It’s not just to put people on the list for a punitive sake, but instead going to them 

and saying if you want to get off the list, which most of them do—just as a reputational 

thing, it’s not good to be on a list of CPCs; that probably has as much leverage as any 

specific pain we inflict on them—but it’s saying to them, OK, here is a menu of the kinds 

of things you would need to do in order for us to consider taking you off the list. So it’s 

trying to keep that linkage between the punishment and the crime and what kind of 

improvements would get you from where you are to not being on the list. 

The waiver issue is another matter. I think as you were mentioning, in the Act there 

are two types of waivers. One is when we feel that waiving the sanction would actually 

be in the interest of the purposes of the Act. So I say the time you would use that is a 

country has done a bunch of really bad things but they have a change of regime and 

they’re negotiating a bunch of reforms. You don’t want to hit them with a sanction right 

now. You want to encourage them to do the reforms that we’re looking for. That we have 

not used—at least not very much. I don’t think ever, actually. 

The other one is the national interest waiver, and it’s the much more mundane thing 

that you have a country that’s engaged in egregious religious freedom violations, but we’re 

also depending on them to allow us to transit military supplies through their territory to 

a theater of war, or something. In that case, the waiver is simply a tradeoff, and usually 

explained as such. I think that’s perhaps what has happened with some of the acts. It 

just says the secretary determined it was in the national interest not to apply the waiver. 

Obviously, we’d be happy to come up and give a more in-depth briefing. That determination he makes is like a one-sentence type thing. But the reason behind it is something 

that people in our regional bureaus as well as us would be happy to go into. 

I think it’s fairly obvious where you see the ones that we’ve made waivers, all three 

of the Central Asians, it was Northern Defense Network of where we were supplying our 

troops in Afghanistan through their territory, and that was the tradeoff. It’s not a way 

of saying or lessening the condemnation of their religious freedom violations. It’s saying 

they did it, they deserve to be sanctioned, but we’re going to forgo that because of these 

other considerations. Those do not rule out going after somebody individually or using 

Magnitsky or one of our visa authorities. 

Mr. HURD. Of course one of the advantages of the Global Magnitsky Act is that it 

is a law that other countries can model in their own right. To the extent that they see 

the United States implementing it faithfully, hopefully it will inspire them to do likewise, 

which means that these individuals not only are denied access to the United States and 

to our financial systems and markets, but also in other countries as well. 

Amb. KOZAK. Yes. Canada has been adopting a similar law. And there’s actually 

another one. You asked about effectiveness of sanctions. The more allies you can get, the 

better on these, because denial of access to the U.S. financial system is a big deal. But 

if you’re also nailed from travel to the EU countries and into Canada, you just start 

restricting the scope of activity for one of these evildoers. It amplifies what we’re trying 

to do tremendously and so is something we always encourage. 

Mr. HURD. One more set of questions before opening it up to our panelists to ask you 

questions, and then to the audience. 

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Governments, some of which you mentioned already—Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, 

Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Turkey—regularly invoke 

security to justify violating the religious freedom of groups and individuals. In your view—

and in the broader view of the U.S. Government—does protecting and promoting religious 

freedom generally enhance security, including to combat terrorism and violent extremism? 

If religious freedom violations perpetrated by these governments have undermined security in their countries, how so? Are religious freedom violations in these countries isolated, 

or are they part of a broader pattern of infringement, restriction, violation of fundamental 

freedoms like freedom of assembly and freedom of expression—part of sort of a pattern 

of attempting to control the citizenry? 

Amb. KOZAK. Last first. I can’t think of a single case where the violation has just 

been against religious freedom and they allow freedom of assembly and speech and political openness and all of that. It all goes together. It’s all governments that are trying to 

suppress legitimate political opposition to them, and they’re afraid of anything that’s not 

under their control, basically. 

Our view is very much that respect for human rights, including religious freedom, 

is fundamental to securing peace and prosperity in a country and not creating a breeding 

ground for terrorists and so on. My own experience: I got into human rights work not 

because I was a human rights activist but because in the 1980s I was trying to figure 

out how to counter Soviet-backed insurgencies in Central America. A lot of us were saying 

just backing these military governments that are out slaughtering their citizens right and 

left isn’t getting the job done. The people hate the insurgents, but they hate the government as much or more than they hate the insurgents, and that’s not a way to win a war. 

So it’s not only good human rights doctrine. It’s good counterterrorist doctrine to be 

respectful of people’s human rights. 

This is something that’s not just the IRF office or the Bureau of Democracy, Human 

Rights and Labor (DRL) out there promoting it. Our colleagues in the Counterterrorism 

Bureau and in the Political-Military Bureau and so on are making the same message, our 

colleagues in the U.S. military, because that’s the way you win wars. 

What you’ve got in this case is a bunch of governments that are charitably, you would 

say, misguided into thinking that by suppressing what they view as extremist thought—

which is anything that deviates from the government-approved line—that that somehow 

is countering terrorism. I think in most cases the less charitable view is that they’re just 

very afraid of any grouping of people or any independent thought that could possibly turn 

against them, so they justify it in terms of fighting terrorism. 

It’s not that they don’t have terrorist threats. Most of these governments do. But 

they’re treating entire swaths of their population as if they were terrorists when there 

are people who want to do nothing more than just practice their faith and associate with 

their colleagues. So that’s our doctrine that we’re pushing very, very hard, sometimes with 

some success, sometimes with less than we’d like. 

Mr. HURD. It seems particularly counterproductive in this instance where you have 

individuals who are imprisoned, tortured or otherwise abused. We hear, whether it’s in 

the OSCE region or in other places, they become especially susceptible to recruiting from 

terrorist groups, violent extremists. 

Amb. KOZAK. Absolutely. 

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Mr. HURD. Especially when they entered prison they had no thought of these kind 

of activities. 

Amb. KOZAK. The prisons are a great recruiting ground. It’s also a broader recruiting 

thing that when people see their co-religionists imprisoned, supposedly for terrorist acts 

just because they didn’t go along with the government-approved version of religion, or 

where, likewise, if they won’t let peaceful political opponents express themselves freely 

and all of that, people start to say the only way I have of trying to defend my community 

or advance my views is to join the terrorists, because they’re at least doing something 

about the problem I perceive. If the government shuts off all other ways for people to try 

to modify their situation, it ends up making terrorists a lot more popular than they would 

otherwise be. 

This is something that is not philosophical. Empirically you can show that over and 

over and over again. And yet, we still have a lot of governments that adhere to the opposite view. It’s something that not just the human rights folks are saying. It’s our military 

and counterterrorism people because it’s absolutely in our interest that governments learn 

to open up a little bit. 

Mr. HURD. Before opening up the questions to the audience, do any of the panelists 

have questions for Ambassador Kozak? 

Dr. COLLINS. Ambassador Kozak, thank you very much for your remarks. 

I wonder if you could maybe speak a little bit more specifically about the situation 

in Uzbekistan and what constitutes the dialogue you’re having with the new Uzbek 

Government about what they would need to do to get off of the CPC list. 

Thank you. 

Amb. KOZAK. No, thank you, Doctor. 

I had the interesting experience not this last year at HDIM but the year before. 

President Karimov died like the day before HDIM started or something—I don’t know, 

it was a very short time. The senior representative that they had sent there wanted to 

talk and was bringing messages from the new government about how they wanted to 

change their ways and get out of from not just CPC designation but the whole aspect that 

they have of being bad on human rights. We gave them some initial thoughts—be more 

open with NGOs—and they, to their credit invited some of the American NGOs there, 

giving them high-level access so that they could hear from them on release of prisoners. 

They’ve released a number of long-term political prisoners. Our IRF colleagues have been 

trying to give them things that they could do on that front. 

Our concerns are pretty well known. We try not to say, do these five things and we’ll 

let you off the hook, because we can’t judge how difficult some of those things are. It’s 

like, here are 15 things, and if you did enough of them it would really start to change 

the perception of what you’re doing. 

I think we’re kind of at an early stage of this. They had this Special Rapporteur on 

Freedom of Religion or Belief come and visit them. We’re basically promoting those things, 

because other people can give them good ideas, too. It’s not just exclusively the U.S. 

Government. 

We’re hoping as soon as we get Governor Brownback on board, Senate willing, that 

we’ll make a real effort at that one, because there seems to be at least some receptivity 

to not just maintaining the status quo. Our thought is, the more engagement, the better. 

We don’t have a bright line test for what it would be. There are so many problems there 

10

that if they did five or six significant steps, that would be helpful to people in the society, 

I think. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BRUMLEY. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. 

I just had a question regarding the situation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Kazakhstan. 

We seem to be caught between two forces within the government. There’s one force that 

seems to be leaning towards applying the rule of law, protecting our rights, and opposing 

forces that are seeking to imitate what’s going on in Russia. I appreciate so much that 

you mentioned the situation of Teimur Akhmedov, who’s in prison right now, basically on 

trumped-up charges. Do you have a comment on whether the rule of law is strengthening, 

or whether the legal status that we have right now is even more in danger? 

Amb. KOZAK. In Kazakhstan? 

Mr. BRUMLEY. Kazakhstan. 

Amb. KOZAK. It’s hard trying to predict these different forces. Particularly when a 

lot of these states in that region have had the same leader since they became independent. President Karimov dying shows that nobody is immortal and so I think people 

are thinking about somewhere down the line. Unfortunately, Jehovah’s Witnesses and 

other groups get caught up in all of that. 

Mr. BRUMLEY. Yes. 

Amb. KOZAK. So it’s kind of hard to predict what they will do. What I can say more 

is what we’re urging them to do is follow the rule of law. 

Mr. BRUMLEY. Right. 

Amb. KOZAK. Don’t persecute groups as they’ve tried to do it a la Russia, where they 

say any religious thought that isn’t approved by the government is ‘‘extremism.’’

Mr. BRUMLEY. Right. 

Amb. KOZAK. When was the last time that a band of Jehovah’s Witnesses took up 

arms and attacked somebody? It’s——

Dr. MARK. Never. 

Amb. KOZAK. Exactly. [Laughter.] So it’s just manifestly absurd what they’re worrying about. That’s what we’re trying to get across to them: don’t do it. But as you say, 

it’s a struggle to try to figure it out. You become sort of a surrogate or something for other 

struggles that are going on. 

Mr. BRUMLEY. It’s true. 

Amb. KOZAK. I think the best we can do is to push back and say, look, neither one 

of you have an interest in picking a big fight over this, and what does it get you? So we 

need to increase the cost and then also increase the reward of doing the right thing. 

Mr. BRUMLEY. Thank you. Good. 

Amb. KOZAK. We’ll keep trying, as I know you will. 

Mr. BRUMLEY. Yes. 

Dr. MARK. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. 

I was actually just very recently back from Uzbekistan, which was an interesting 

trip. But last night we hosted with Senator Lankford a briefing on the Hill on Turkey. 

We had different other members of the commission there very recently. They were actuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:45 Apr 11, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 X:\_HS\WORK\27638.TXT NINA
11

ally the first Americans who are not from the embassy and not his family to see Pastor 

Brunson since his detention, and that was obviously a very affecting experience for them. 

Amb. KOZAK. Yes. 

Dr. MARK. In the little picture—not that it’s insignificant, but just that there’s a focus 

on one person—it seems like they’re holding this man hostage. They want Gu ̈len, other 

things. Then the big picture, of course, is everyone’s aware of the extreme exacerbation 

of the situation there for human rights in general in the last year and a half and the 

rising authoritarianism of Erdog ̆an. My question is—it’s sensitive, I guess—what’s next 

for U.S. policy? What should we expect or what could we expect in terms of a response 

on these issues? Or are political and economic and military considerations with the situation in the Middle East too great that we’re just going to have to look the other way on 

these things? 

Amb. KOZAK. I don’t think anybody is arguing for just looking the other way. But 

you’re right that there is a tension in there. This all started with the attempted coup in 

2016, which we condemned and believe that the Turkish Government was absolutely entitled to go after, and through a transparent legal process, bring to justice the people who 

had perpetrated that. 

Instead, they’ve extended over and over beyond all reason the state of emergency, 

used it then to go after this whole cacophony of groups. It’s hard to even figure out why 

they’re going after somebody, on grounds that they’re Gu ̈lenists or something. That 

remains a matter of big concern. 

We talk about it privately. We talk about it publicly. We’re urging the Turks, as Secretary Tillerson did publicly, to not just to release Pastor Brunson. As he said there’s 

absolutely no justification for holding this man. But for all of the similar actions that 

they’ve taken against other people, tens and hundreds of thousands of people now that 

have been removed from their jobs, and so on, on sort of vague allegations of association 

with Gu ̈lenists. 

On the other side of it though, Turkey remains a valued NATO ally, a very important 

partner in a number of activities there, and we have to pursue those as well. I think it’s 

not an either/or deal, but it’s a how do we walk and chew gum and try to deal with both 

sets of issues at the same time—and not always easy. 

We saw, unfortunately, the Turkish representative at HDIM walked out on the first 

day on grounds that the OSCE had registered an American NGO that the Turks accused 

of being Gu ̈lenist. Obviously we said no, we ought to apply the rules—if an organization 

is on the U.N. terror list or something, yes, but you can’t just declare somebody a terrorist 

in order to keep them from attending a meeting. So there have been a lot of difficult conversations with the Turkish authorities. But at the same time we are also trying to find 

those areas where we have common interests and work with them on that. Stay tuned 

is, I guess, all I can say. 

Dr. MARK. Thank you. 

Amb. KOZAK. Thanks. 

Mr. HURD. We’ll now open up the discussion to those of you that are here in the 

audience. If you could please state your name, and if you have an affiliation, state that 

as well. We do have probably quite a few questions as well as our subsequent panelists. 

So if you could keep your comments and your questions brief, that would be much appreciated. 

12

And if you could step to the microphone, please. Thank you. 

QUESTIONER. Thank you very much. 

Ambassador, great to see you outside of HDIM, where we met last time, in Warsaw. 

My name is Alex. I’m a journalist from Azerbaijan. 

I want to ask about the country where almost half of political prisoners are actually 

religious prisoners, and the odd thing is that they get less attention from the U.S. than 

others. If that’s the case, I wonder why. 

My second question—I do see your point about the Magnitsky Act and waiving the 

act towards the countries which tend to be our best supporters when it comes to Afghanistan and others, let’s say, on national security-related issues. But what contradicts that 

opinion is about repression. Let’s say radicalization is through repression in countries like 

Azerbaijan, and that that is a challenge too. So which one is harder? Should we talk about 

Afghanistan or the new Afghanistan if this continues to be the case? 

Thank you very much. 

Amb. KOZAK. No, thank you. On political prisoners versus religious prisoners, we 

tend to deal with them together. Often it’s difficult to get into the heads of the persecutor 

to figure out, were they persecuting this person because of their faith or were they persecuting them because their faith group is suspected of being politically opposed to the 

government, or something like that? We don’t tend to prioritize one over the other. Obviously if it’s our Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom who’s out talking to another 

government, they tend to focus on people where it’s very apparent that they’re in for religious reasons. The rest of us tend to run the two together and pick. 

Oftentimes, too, what you try to do is start to get a chink in the armor of the other 

side. So if they’ve got thousands of political prisoners, you go in and say we ought to 

release all thousands of them, and they say we heard you, we’re not going to do that. 

They’re terrorists. And that’s the end of the conversation. 

But when you’re able to say, OK, here are four people or something that you’ve got 

in, and we’ve really studied their cases, and there’s no justification, you have a better shot 

at it. When you do that, you can then multiply on that and say, OK, you let those four 

go and you actually got some good press out of it, and here are 10 more people that are 

very similar to the ones you just released. So it’s a tactical deal how you approach that. 

On the national security stuff and whether you care about Afghanistan or Iran, we 

care about all of them, the threats posed by all. These are judgment calls. Is it better to 

keep some sanction on somebody to make our point, and can we forgo their cooperation 

on something we care about? Sometimes the answer is yes, that the cooperation isn’t that 

valuable and making the point is. Other times we’ve got an immediate problem here we 

have to deal with. We need their cooperation on that, so we’ll waive the sanction. 

It’s not like we’re not doing anything. We’re also calling them to task and making 

comments about them in the U.N. system and the OSCE and so on. So it’s how do you 

get the sweet spot between all of those. That’s always the dilemma. 

Mr. HURD. There are additional questions from the audience. If you could please come 

to the microphone if you’re able to. Also, just a reminder that those of you that are 

watching online, you can actually pose questions on Facebook as well. 

QUESTIONER. I have a pretty good voice, but I’ll use this. 

Ambassador Kozak, I am retired State Department and worked in DRL for a number 

of years. So recently, when our president began to emphasize sovereignty, it gave me some 

13

pause, because, as most of us know very well, in many countries individual freedoms, 

including religious freedom, simply do not play a part in the rights that are recognized 

for people. 

Amb. KOZAK. Yes. 

QUESTIONER. That’s a determination of the government in the exercise of their sovereignty. If we are emphasizing recognition of sovereignty, have we diminished our 

grounds for speaking to these countries about their violations of what we consider the 

rights of their citizens or residents of their territory? And if so, how are you working 

around that? 

Amb. KOZAK. Good question, and good DRL colleague. 

I think when the president has emphasized sovereignty and so on, it was more in 

the sense that we’re not going to be constrained by constructs of groupings of countries. 

This has been largely in the trade area and so on, that we should be able to go out and 

state our own point of view and be able to deal with other countries as we see fits our 

own interests, which includes promotion of human rights. I think he and the secretary 

have both been clear on that. 

It’s not saying that sovereignty means that you can ignore God-given human rights. 

I think that they’ve come across pretty strongly on that as well. I think when the secretary rolled out the religious freedom report, he said, I don’t want to just call out our 

enemies. I want to call out our friends too. And he did. He expressed concern about a 

number of countries that we have very close relationships with. 

I think what you see, as you go kind of issue by issue, what are we doing about it, 

the administration has been very clear that, for example, people should not have violence 

committed against them or be discriminated against because of their religion, because of 

their political view, because of their status as LGBT, because of disabilities. It’s all the 

things we’ve always been concerned about. But they’re coming at it from the standpoint 

of the individual. No individual should be subjected to that, regardless of what the supposed motivation is. 

I think the thing I would mention that maybe will make you a little more hopeful 

is internationally, at the HDIM, I was really taken by how thoroughly we won the battle 

of ideas on individual rights versus state sovereignty during the Cold War. As each of 

those countries got up and talked, you either had countries like Uzbekistan, who were earnestly trying to explain the reforms they were undertaking to comply with OSCE commitments and so on, or you had the Russias of the world standing up and saying, well, the 

Americans and the Western Europeans violate all these things too, so nobody should 

blame us. 

But they weren’t questioning that these were the standards that you should live up 

to, that it was either, ‘‘You’re just as bad as I am,’’ or ‘‘I’m really trying to be better,’’ 

was sort of the thing. I think that was good. It’s a strength that we have and that we 

can work with, the fact that that is widely accepted now, is that universal human rights 

really are universal. 

Even the Russians tried their old trick of saying, we have to spend a day on economic, social and cultural rights, because those are just as important as civil and political 

rights. Our people, to get the agenda agreed, agreed to that. So when it came time to do 

it, I led off and read our statement about what we do to protect economic, social and cultural rights in the U.S. The Russians gave a speech about how disgraceful it was that 

14

the U.S. wouldn’t speak to this issue. It was like, were you listening? It was a tactic from 

their standpoint, from the old Soviet playbook. But then they didn’t bother themselves to 

talk about economic, social and cultural rights in Russia. 

So it’s really a strength that we’ve got, that the values that we hold dear have been 

so well internalized internationally. You really don’t get that pushback—we don’t have to 

follow these values because we have sovereignty. That’s why the Russians and the others, 

the Turks and everybody, go to these great lengths to create these antiterrorism laws and 

all, because they’re trying to find some way to justify what they’re doing rather than just 

saying it’s OK for us to be doing this. So this is something we can work with, and we 

can keep holding people to account. I think it’s a strength we forget we have, and we 

ought to use it more often. 

QUESTIONER. Hello. Thank you for being here today. My name is Nathan Wineinger. 

I’m the director of policy relations with the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative. 

My question: As an advocacy organization, we interact with all sorts of different 

organizations around the world on international religious freedom. As you work with foreign governments or talk to foreign officials or travel abroad—and this question can be 

for anyone on the panel—what are the particular policy mechanisms that you see, such 

as the Global Magnitsky Act, that people within foreign governments are starting to look 

at and pay attention to as potential areas where we can begin to advocate more effectively 

on? 

Amb. KOZAK. I think some of the mechanisms we have that are most effective are 

sometimes the ones that are least dramatic. You mentioned working with civil society 

groups. One of the things that our embassies do all over the world and that we do when 

we travel abroad, also our colleagues from the regional bureaus, the secretary himself, the 

president, is meet with civil society. 

When somebody is being repressed in a country, the fact that a senior foreign official 

will meet with the repressed people, it’s a real dig at the government. The government 

usually is trying to say we can repress you and we can make the Americans stand by 

and ignore it, and so don’t think you’ll ever be able to get out from this. Just by having 

a meeting with them, we destroy that narrative and say, look, we value our engagement 

with the people in civil society or in the religious community that we’re meeting with as 

much as we do that with the government. That tends to equalize them up. 

That’s a huge thing. It doesn’t cost very much. You don’t have to have legal sanctions 

and have the treasury and everything else doing it. I think that is effective. The calling 

people out—we use the U.N. mechanisms a lot. We use OSCE a lot to say what about 

this, what about that. 

During HDIM, we had, and still have going on, the oppression of gay men in 

Chechnya. And we were every day asking the Russians, what are you doing about this? 

They didn’t have their story down straight, and they would tell a different story every 

day and then contradict themselves in the press. We had a good time. That put pressure 

on them. We weren’t doing it to embarrass the Russian Government. We were doing it 

to get them to do serious investigation and put a stop to this. I think that can be effective 

too. 

Then we have a variety of tools. One that often gets done and nobody knows about 

is, in the Immigration and Nationality Act, there are exclusions for people who’ve committed torture or extrajudicial killings and so on. Our consular officers just apply that and 

15

deny your visa. It doesn’t necessarily involve a big policy action, but it means something 

to the person who had it denied. 

Then we have the more policy-oriented exclusions as well, either under Section 

212(a)(c)(3) or 214(b)—or not—214(b) is exclusion for—212(f) is what I’m thinking of; 

214(b) is what happens to you when you don’t have visible means of support. You get 

denied. 

But anyway, the upshot is those kinds of things can have a real effect on people. I’ve 

been dealing with Venezuela of late, and, you know, there we denied and revoked the 

visas of a number of people who were involved in repression, including top generals and 

judges, prosecutors who were persecuting people. The impact is pretty sizable. You get 

other ones coming saying, please, please, what do I have to do to stay off your bad list? 

The answer is, don’t repress people. But they make me do that. Well, no, you could actually resign, or refuse to do it, or something. 

There are a lot of tools like that that are very effective. The big sanctions can be 

effective. But they’re kind of a blunderbuss weapon. You sometimes hit more than you 

intend. It’s finding the right combination of rhetorical—we do programmatic things to try 

to strengthen oppressed groups in other countries and give them support. Financial stuff, 

visa stuff, solidarity. All of those things in the right mix can have a real impact. But it’s 

a constantly moving game, too. You can’t just do something and then sit back and watch 

it. You have to keep working it. 

Mr. HURD. We have a question from one of our viewers on Facebook. 

Ms. HOPE. We do, from James on Facebook. He says: ‘‘Your genuine interest in the 

treatment of religious minorities, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, is commendable. Have 

you seen any movement on the part of decisionmaking bodies in Russia that provides any 

basis for change?’’

Amb. KOZAK. I guess my answer, as of today, would be no, unfortunately. But we 

don’t give up easy, so we’ll keep trying to bring this to their attention and see if we can 

get them to change their ways. 

Mr. HURD. Are there any more questions from the audience? 

Well, thank you very much——

Amb. KOZAK. Thank you. 

Mr. HURD. As you can see, you have the rare diplomat who’s transparent and candid, 

which is always much appreciated. 

Thank you for your remarks and your insights. 

Amb. KOZAK. No, thank you very much. And thanks to the commission for keeping 

the focus on these issues. It really makes a difference. 

Mr. HURD. Thank you. 

Amb. KOZAK. That’s another thing you can do when I’m adding to the list of measures 

is exactly this kind of thing. It does help. 

Mr. HURD. Now we’ll return to the rest of our panel, starting with Chairman Mark. 

Amb. KOZAK. Excuse me for bailing like this. 

Dr. MARK. Thank you very much to my friend Mr. Hurd, and thank you to the Helsinki Commission, particularly the chairman and co-chairman, Senator Wicker and Representative Smith, for holding a briefing on this very important topic. 

16

As you heard, my name is Daniel Mark, and I am chairman of the U.S. Commission 

on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, as we are affectionately known. 

A quick word about USCIRF. USCIRF was created in 1998 by the International Religious Freedom Act. You heard a bunch about that just before, commonly known as IRFA. 

IRFA also created the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, as 

well as the position of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. We are 

very pleased that President Trump has nominated Governor Brownback to that position. 

It’s a position that ought to be filled. We do hope that the Senate will end its delays and 

swiftly confirm him to this critical position, as Ambassador Kozak said. 

We at USCIRF are tasked by Congress to monitor and review religious freedom 

abroad and to make policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state and Congress. To that end, Nathan’s question was very germane in thinking about what are the 

things that actually work. If I could just digress for one moment on that and say that 

another thing, especially just coming from this Uzbekistan trip that’s been very much on 

my mind, not just thinking about which are the big policies that are most effective, but 

what are the very specific things you can ask them to do that are doable, that you can 

really get. 

Just to finish that thought with a specific example on Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, the 

government recently approved 3,000 more copies of the Christian Bible to be printed in 

that country and distributed. But that’s not enough. Can they do more? You can ask them, 

can we have 3,000 more? Can they register—not just open up registration? That’ll take 

time. But can they register one church in an area that has no churches? It’s a very large 

country. 

Typically Christian preachers are not allowed to preach in the Uzbek language, and 

not even allowed to have somebody doing simultaneous translation next to them. Can they 

allow perhaps preaching? And they do that, of course, to prevent the religion from 

spreading. These are things that are very specific, very concrete, and relatively small compared to the big things that we also need them to accomplish. 

So that helps. I say that in the context of talking about our mandate to make recommendations, which include the kinds of things that Nathan was asking about, but also 

thinking about recommendations for the U.S. Government to ask for very specific and concrete things that are doable. In any case, that’s part of our mandate. 

The other thing we do that you heard about is, we make the recommendations to the 

State Department for CPC designations, Countries of Particular Concern. In April, along 

with our release of our annual report, which is out every year on time by the legislatively 

mandated deadline, we recommend 16 countries for designation as CPC because we 

believe they meet the legal standard of perpetrating or tolerating, quote, ‘‘systematic, 

ongoing and egregious violations of international religious freedom.’’

Religious freedom in the OSCE region is always a concern for USCIRF. Of course, 

as I just said, it’s at the forefront of my mind, because I just returned a little more than 

a week ago from Uzbekistan. My fellow commissioner, John Ruskay, was there, as well 

as USCIRF policy analyst Andrew Kornbluth, who was with us as well. We had a very 

productive week. I’ll say more about that soon. 

USCIRF monitors a number of OSCE countries that were formerly part of the Soviet 

Union, as well as some others that weren’t. My remarks today will be limited to just some 

17

of those, and especially the ones that we recommend for CPC designation, including 

Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and, for the first time in this year’s report, Russia. 

The State Department agrees with us on those other three. On the last, on Russia, 

it remains to be seen, because there hasn’t been, as you just heard, a new round of CPC 

designations since our report came out this past April. We certainly encourage the State 

Department to make CPC designations in line with our recommendations, which are 

based on a careful and thorough review of all the available information on religious 

freedom in those countries. I must add, to emphasize, that the State Department did miss 

on Monday its legislatively mandated deadline for designating CPCs. I’m glad to hear that 

Ambassador Kozak is on top of it, has an explanation for it, and hopes to see it done soon. 

I want to echo what he said about the excellent statement that Secretary Tillerson 

made when they released the International Religious Freedom Report three months ago. 

It was a bold and thorough statement. We hope that that rhetoric will be followed up with 

timely designations and action. 

It sounds like, from what we heard from Ambassador Kozak, that these should be 

one-time delays. They didn’t know about the EPC delegation of authority. So if next year 

we’re hearing the same story, we know there’s a problem. But it sounds like all the things 

that he accounted for are things that could be settled this year and not recur next year. 

USCIRF also has a Tier Two that includes countries that have severe violations and 

that meet with at least one element of the systematic, ongoing and egregious standard. 

Within the OSCE region of the former Soviet Union, our tier two includes Azerbaijan and 

Kazakhstan. I asked about Turkey, but I’m not going to talk about that today. 

Unfortunately, we at USCIRF are not optimistic with regard to the outlook for religious freedom in the OSCE countries we monitor. Generally speaking, the trend has been 

toward authoritarian governments imposing more and unwritten restrictions on expressions of religion. These restrictions are arbitrarily and capriciously enforced by courts that 

are not independent from the executive branch in their respective countries. Punishments 

range from police harassment and fines in the mildest cases to effective life imprisonment 

and death in prison by torture, starvation, in the most severe. 

Uzbekistan, which has long been designated as a CPC by the State Department, and 

long recommended by us, is the one OSCE country reported on by USCIRF that currently 

seems to offer hope for improvement, although, as I will explain, USCIRF is still waiting 

for more evidence on much-needed reforms. 

The religious freedom conditions in the OSCE countries monitored by USCIRF are 

similar in part because of their shared legacy of Soviet communist government. In the 

Soviet Union, all social and political movements not affiliated with or endorsed by the 

state were subject to constant scrutiny and repression by the omnipresent security services. Moreover, the state was officially atheist. I have to say, being in a country like 

Uzbekistan, you are reminded of how awful the legacy of communism. Everywhere communism went, it’s just left devastation. 

After the fall of the Soviet Union, elements from the security services became the 

ruling elites in many of the newly independent countries, and they remain deeply hostile 

to independent social mobilization. At the same time, the immediate aftermath of the 

Soviet Union’s collapse from the early to mid-1990s was a time when the restraints on 

civil society imposed during the Soviet Union were temporarily relaxed as new regimes 

worked to consolidate their power. 

18

In this early period, about a quarter of a century ago, many citizens of the new 

republics began to renew or re-examine their traditional faiths. Proselytizing movements, 

both Islamic and Christian, were able to operate relatively freely, connecting adherents 

to global religious trends and movements. By the late 1990s, the former Soviet countries 

viewed the wave of renewed religiosity with growing alarm. The authoritarian regimes, 

guided by the security services, were also more confident of their strength and ready to 

re-establish full control over civil society. 

It was at this time that the legal architecture underpinning the repression of religious belief first began to be formulated. The linchpin was religion laws, which consisted 

of three restrictions—the requirement that religious communities register with the 

government, effectively requiring all religious groups to obtain government sanction for 

their legal existence; restrictions on the possession and distribution of religious literature; 

and restrictions on where and how proselytizing could occur—mostly it can’t—with the 

aim of stopping and controlling the spread of religious ideas that were not officially 

approved. 

Within a few years, laws on extremism, as we just heard, became another widely 

used tool for suppressing religious expression. While OSCE member countries monitored 

by USCIRF do have legitimate security concerns, their laws define extremism extremely 

vaguely to permit the suppression of virtually any kind of expression, religious or secular. 

With the rise of international terrorism, the need to combat radicalism became an even 

more convenient pretext for shutting down all forms of expression not approved by the 

government. 

One of the surest proofs that extremism laws are often less about fighting terrorism 

than about repressing peaceful expression is the fact that Christian minorities in all of 

these countries, who pose no security threat whatsoever, are persecuted under these same 

statutes. Indeed, legitimate security concerns notwithstanding, these laws are often little 

more than legal excuses for the governments to take whatever actions they want against 

any individual or group they want. 

It is these religion laws and the misuse of extremism laws that most concern USCIRF 

in the OSCE member countries that we report on, along with the corresponding arrests, 

torture and imprisonments. Our view of these countries shows that, for the most part, 

religious freedom conditions are only getting worse. The Russian Federation, which in 

many ways inspired or pioneered the use of religion and extremism laws to suppress religious freedom, has doubled down on religious repression. As everyone here is likely aware, 

this year saw the banning by the Russian supreme court of the Witnesses as a supposedly 

extremist organization. 

While many observers wondered why Russia would target the 175,000-strong community of Witnesses, it fits a pattern of suspicion of the community dating back to the Soviet 

period—unwarranted suspicion. In addition, it is consistent with the effort on the part of 

the Russian security services to prove their success against extremism by going after a 

minority incapable of resisting. 

The year before, in the name of combating proselytism, Russia also passed a law that 

effectively criminalized all forms of religious speech. Currently, one member of the Witnesses and five Scientologists are being held in pretrial detention, while dozens of Muslims are serving prison terms for peaceful expression of religion, or in some cases fabricated terrorism charges. 

19

In the occupied Crimean Peninsula, Russia continues to persecute the native Crimean Tatar population, which it distrusts because of its Muslim identity and loyalty to 

the Ukrainian state. 

Turkmenistan is perhaps the most egregious offender among the OSCE countries on 

our roster. Religious prisoners disappear in the notorious desert prison of Ovadan Depe, 

where they are held incommunicado under horrific conditions. One religious prisoner who 

died in the prison in 2016 is said to have weighed 55 pounds at the time of his death. 

No wonder, then, that another observant Muslim is believed to have committed suicide 

in December of last year rather than face arrest and imprisonment there. 

In Tajikistan, the government’s persecution of Muslims and Christians alike has 

become more zealous and shows no sign of relaxing. This year a Christian pastor was sentenced to three years for extremism. A teenage Witness conscientious objector received six 

months in jail. And Buzurgmehr Yorov, the lawyer for the banned Islamic Renaissance 

Party of Tajikistan, was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, where reportedly he 

is tortured regularly. In addition, the government has launched new campaigns interfering in everything from the wearing of hijabs to the food served at wedding banquets. 

With regard to Kazakhstan, USCIRF was deeply disappointed by the decision of that 

government to raid Witness Kingdom Halls only days after a meeting between government representatives and our commission, USCIRF. Kazakhstan’s parliament is currently 

considering a number of changes to the laws, which may lead to further tightening of controls over religious life. This year the government also gave Witnesses a three-month ban 

on religious activity, and a member of their community who was ill with cancer was sentenced to five years in prison, allegedly for proselytism. In Kazakhstan, USCIRF is also 

concerned that campaigns against Salafism mask attempts to repress political unrest 

more generally. 

I emphasize that USCIRF understands that many of the countries we follow have 

legitimate security concerns. Security and religious freedom are not mutually exclusive. 

USCIRF is guardedly optimistic about the situation for religious freedom in Uzbekistan, particularly since our trip there. Although Uzbekistan has long been regarded as 

a severe violator of religious freedom, the new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has relaxed 

longstanding restrictions on the majority Sunni Muslim population. In many circles there 

is real optimism, and we heard that as a consistent theme in our week. 

That being said, the continuing atmosphere of fear and intimidation among Uzbek 

Christians and others is palpable. Registration of religious groups and the possession of 

religious literature are tightly controlled, and policies such as registration are used as 

tools to surveil and harass believers. Intimidation, arrests and torture remain a constant 

fear for both proselytizing Christian groups and those who, for whatever reason, fall afoul 

of the police. 

Moreover, thousands of Uzbek Muslims continue to serve long prison sentences on 

trumped-up charges or fabricated charges. While we are hopeful about the future, 

USCIRF also wishes for the Uzbek Government to be more forthcoming and transparent 

about the substantive reforms to the architecture of religious control in their country. 

In conclusion—and thank you for bearing with me a little bit long—USCIRF calls on 

all OSCE countries to adhere to international standards of religious freedom. Although 

the bright spots are few and far between, we remain hopeful that even the most egregious 

20

violators will change their practices for the better, and we are ready to engage in dialogue 

with any OSCE member ready to do so. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HURD. Thank you, Chairman Mark. 

Dr. Collins. 

Dr. COLLINS. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming today, and 

thank you especially to Mr. Hurd and the Helsinki Commission for organizing this panel 

to bring attention to the timely issue of religious repression in the OSCE region. 

In the interest of time, I will focus on the evolving situation in Kazakhstan and 

Kyrgyzstan and highlight in particular my findings with the Under Caesar’s Sword 

project, which focuses in particular on Christian and other religious minorities across that 

region. 

I agree with Dr. Mark. I’m quite skeptical about the prospects for the improvement 

of the religious situation across the region. The regional trend has been to adopt steadily 

more restrictive laws on religion together with changes in the administrative and criminal 

codes, and broad laws and programs that blend and merge religious practice with extremism and terrorism. The governments in the region look to each other and Russia as justification for these changes. Russia is the trendsetter, as you mentioned. 

Across the region, with the partial exception of Kyrgyzstan, the legal framework for 

religion and the de facto implementation of these laws have in fact created a situation 

little better than during the later Soviet era. Thank you for mentioning that because the 

parallels are really quite striking. This is true in particular for the minority Christians 

and for any Muslims acting independently of the state-controlled Muslim hierarchies. 

Kazakhstan, before its 2011 religion law, was in fact one of the most liberal religious 

environments in the region. Following the law, and especially since the adoption of new 

amendments in 2016—December 2016—Kazakhstan has increasingly curtailed religious 

freedom and engaged in continual violations of religious and human rights. The legal 

framework now includes broad provisions banning extremism, including the incitement of 

ethnic, religious or social discord, which is used very broadly. 

Censorship of religious literature is also quite broad, banning already over 700 works. 

Crippling fines are imposed without recourse to court hearings. This year police raided 

several Protestant churches during Easter Sunday services, and scores of Christians were 

harassed and intimidated. There are multiple reports of churches being closed for several 

months at a time for alleged legal violations. 

The new Kazakh Ministry for Religion in Civil Society, the state media, the Muslim 

Board, and the Russian Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan all collaborate in using intolerant rhetoric about groups they deem nontraditional. They foment societal animosity 

towards those groups, and the state has created anti-sect centers which are eerily reminiscent of Soviet policy. Under its new program to counter religious extremism and terrorism, 

even children are encouraged to report on those praying at home. 

The recent turn to much harsher treatment of converts in Kazakhstan is particularly 

notable. For example, in late 2015, Seventh Day Adventist Yklas Kabduakasov, a recent 

convert to Christianity, was sentenced to two years imprisonment in a penal camp. The 

secret police had used extensive surveillance to trap and video record Mr. Kabduakasov 

discussing his faith in the Bible with other Kazakhs. He was charged as an extremist with 

inciting religious hatred against Islam. 

21

This past year, multiple others, both Muslim and Christian minorities, have faced 

similar charges and prison terms. Jehovah’s Witness Teimur Akhmedov, who I am sure 

you will discuss, was arrested, tortured in detention, and given a sentence of five years 

in a penal camp under very similar circumstances and charges. 

In another case targeting converts, a pastor has been charged with allowing a child 

to attend a religious service with his father but without his mother’s express permission. 

Followers of Tablighi Jamaat, another minority Muslim organization banned in 

Kazakhstan, are also regularly harassed, fined, and given prison sentences. 

The Kazakh Government has recently proposed multiple new amendments in addition to those passed just last December. If adopted, these changes would further move 

Kazakhstan in the direction of its most repressive neighbors. Among other things, new 

provisions would ban teaching religion outside approved religious organizations of which 

there are very few. They would further restrict sharing religious beliefs and task local 

government with monitoring places of worship and religious practice. Penalties for violators would be significantly higher. 

Kyrgyzstan likewise remains a country to watch. By comparison with its neighbors 

it generally looks relatively good—de facto religious practice has been considerably more 

free—but legal and societal trends raise alarm. Although previously known for religious 

tolerance and greater civic space, the 2009 law on religion and 2012 amendments are 

much more repressive. The law criminalizes unregistered religious activity while it has 

made registration far more difficult. The law still stands, despite religious groups’ appeals 

to reverse it, despite international recommendations, and despite a supposed democratization process that has been going on since 2010. 

This past spring, the State Committee on Religious Affairs in Kyrgyzstan proposed 

draft amendments that would make registration even more difficult, requiring now 500, 

not 200, signatures. All religious literature would be subject to mandatory censorship. The 

changes would effectively ban any dissemination of religious views by those not registered 

as missionaries, and they would restrict the private teaching of religion. 

The proposed amendments have the support of many in government, the Muslim 

Board, and the Russian Orthodox Church. Minority religious organizations have been 

afraid to voice opposition. This is a moment when pressure from the international community and from the U.S. Government, I think, is absolutely critical to preserving some religious freedom for minorities in Kyrgyzstan. 

Finally, societal discrimination against converts across the region continues to be 

high and is worth noting. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, local government and police foment 

societal mistreatment of converts, especially in conflicts over burial places. 

The Under Caesar’s Sword research project has been studying the response of Christians where they face repression and persecution. Christians’ responses clearly vary with 

the level of repression and the realm that they have to operate in civic and public space. 

Their predominant strategies in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan reflect decades 

of Soviet-era experience. They hide, they avoid confrontation with the state, they pray in 

private or in-house churches, and they focus on mere survival. Others just simply emigrate. They occasionally disseminate Bibles or religious literature to friends and family, 

but most avoid any public sign of their faith. Yet even in these contexts, some Christians 

are more proactive and engage in proselytism, but they do so at enormous risk, as we’ve 

seen with the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

22

By contrast, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where the situation has been somewhat 

better since independence, Christians have found paths yielding some limited success 

since 1991. For example, some churches have built ties with local government to pursue 

their religious calling through charity and social work. Church members provide care for 

orphans and the disabled, and care for the sick and hungry. They minister to prison 

inmates. This is all the basic charitable work of faith-based groups anywhere. 

Multiple churches have established rehab centers for drug and alcohol addiction, a 

huge problem in the region, and they provide assistance to victims of domestic abuse. This 

is the work that the Central Asian regimes generally do not prioritize and often have limited funding and skills to do. Hence, local governments occasionally have allowed Christians to fill this important role. 

In Kazakhstan, Christians have also engaged in interfaith dialogues with each other 

and the state in attempts to facilitate mutual respect. In Kyrgyzstan, an interfaith 

council, organized after the 2010 revolution, has organized civic projects and charitable 

work together with Muslims to bridge differences. Much more such work is needed to 

reduce interfaith hostility, especially against converts. 

Churches have also—albeit rarely—banded together to protest unlawful arrests and 

torture. In the case of the arrest and psychiatric detention of Pastor Kashkumbayev in 

Kazakhstan, Christian churches protested. The Association of Religious Organizations of 

Kazakhstan, which includes about 600 churches, has often used its position and numbers 

to pressure the parliament to respect religious freedom. 

The changes in the Kazakh legislation over the past year and the pending draft 

amendments in Kyrgyzstan pose such a threat to such civic work. Not long ago, for 

example, Christian women ministering to hospice patients in Kazakhstan were given crippling fines for reading the Bible and sharing the New Testament with the dying in their 

hospice centers. The Kazakh police have raided Baptist and other church youth camps, 

accusing them of violating religious laws and intimidating the children who were in 

attendance. Churches that engage in similar activities live in fear of closure and prosecution. One church in Kazakhstan has already closed five rehabilitation centers. 

To conclude, the religious situation across the region is extremely poor and, I would 

argue, declining. Negative trends in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are particularly worrying, especially for religious minorities. Both society and state will suffer if the faithbased civic and humanitarian organizations that have worked there for the past 25 years 

are further restricted and ultimately shut down. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HURD. Thank you. 

Before turning it over to General Counsel Brumley, just a note. The fact that he is 

last is not an indication that his is the least important presentation. It’s actually an 

indication that it is the most important. Whether it’s at a congressional briefing, a 

congressional hearing, other events on these issues, the voice of the individuals and 

groups that are being persecuted, whether it’s for religious freedom or other human rights 

violations is actually most important for us to hear. I wanted to make sure that before 

we had our final question and answer period that his was the last voice that you heard. 

General Counsel Brumley. 

23

Mr. BRUMLEY. Thank you for those kind words, Mr. Hurd. And we want to thank 

the U.S. Helsinki Commission—Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith, and you particularly, Mr. Hurd—for hosting this briefing. 

It has been also very illuminating and encouraging to hear the words of Ambassador 

Kozak, Dr. Mark, and Dr. Collins. Their insightful comments confirm our own concerns 

about the situation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the OSCE region. 

There are over 81⁄2 million Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide. Over 3 million live in the 

OSCE region. We enjoy religious freedom in 51 of the 57 participating States. The exceptions include Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and, since last April as we know, the 

Russian Federation. 

When domestic courts have failed to protect our fundamental rights, we have resorted 

to seeking relief from international tribunals. Since 1993, we have obtained 64 favorable 

rulings from the European Court of Human Rights and 11 favorable decisions from the 

U.N. Human Rights Committee. But, Mr. Hurd, by far the worst problems we are facing 

in the OSCE region—by far—have to do with Russia, so I’ll be concentrating on Russia 

in my presentation. 

In 2006, the government amended its law on counteracting extremist activity. It 

removed incitement to violence as a component of what constitutes extremism. The U.N. 

Human Rights Committee, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the 

Venice Commission have all strongly criticized the amended law because it gives the Russian Government carte blanche to prosecute anyone it deems to be out of step with its 

version of what is acceptable. So, based on this law as it’s been amended, the authorities 

concocted a three-step process to mis-categorize Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremists and to 

use this as the foundation to strip us of our fundamental rights of speech, press and religion. 

The first thing the government did was to criminalize our religious literature. And 

it did this through bogus expert studies, and then backed up by baseless court decisions. 

They even banned our website, JW.org. It’s worthy to point out, gentlemen and 

gentleladies, that JW.org is available worldwide with the singular exception of Russia. 

Second, Russia criminalized local congregations who had been using our literature 

even before it was declared extremist. Once literature that we had formally been using 

was on the extremist list, we removed it and stopped using it, but the authorities went 

so far as to plant banned literature in our places of worship so that they could later discover it and bring charges. And we have this on video. 

Then, third, it criminalized our religious activity at our national offices and in our 

local places of worship. So since this amended law on extremism was enacted, Jehovah’s 

Witnesses in Russia have been subjected to the following: searches of their homes, places 

of worship, loss of employment, having their bank accounts frozen, mistreatment of their 

children by school authorities, detentions, secret video surveillance of their homes, monitoring of their mail, and intimidation to abandon their faith. This decade-long campaign 

culminated, as you’ve mentioned astutely, on April the 20th with the Supreme Court decision. The court ruled that the administrative center and all of the 395 local legal entities 

are guilty of carrying on extremist activity and that their property should be confiscated 

and their activity terminated. Due to a risk of criminal prosecution, we have ceased using 

our places of worship and our national offices. Our branches in Europe, Canada and here 

in the United States inform us that there is an escalation in the number of Witnesses 

24

from Russia seeking asylum. We’re tracking three developments with particular interest, 

and you’ve mentioned them. 

The first is the criminal prosecution of Dennis Christensen; he’s a citizen of Denmark. If convicted, he faces 10 years’ imprisonment. He’s been denied bail and held in 

pre-trial detention since last May, and his offense, singularly: he was worshiping along 

with a local congregation. 

Secondly, we’re giving close attention to the proceeding by the government to take 

possession of our national offices. And this is in complete disregard for the fact that our 

administrative center, or our national offices, are owned by the Watch Tower Bible and 

Tract Society of Pennsylvania, a U.S.-based corporation, and that the national offices are 

worth millions. The government is nevertheless seeking to confiscate it. 

Third, whether an appellate court will confirm a decision by a lower court to declare 

our Bible—the New World Translation—to be extremist. The New World Translation is 

available in over 150 languages and has been printed over 20 million copies. The very 

same translation in Russia is deemed to be an extremist publication. For just having this 

in one’s possession, one risks criminal prosecution. 

These relentless and coordinated efforts confirm that Russia is bent on a minimum 

of driving Jehovah’s Witnesses underground. Now, that said, to date, we are not witnessing mass arrests of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but as you brought up, Dr. Mark, there are 

175,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. The government seems to be taking the position 

that someone can be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but you have to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and keep it to yourself. Anyone who, in any way, engages in any activity related 

to our worship risks criminal prosecution. So the government is saying, in essence, you 

can be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but don’t associate with other Witnesses. Don’t read 

your Bible or any of your literature, don’t gather for worship, and whatever you do, don’t 

talk to anybody about your faith. 

So we thank the many governments and their agencies, such as the U.S. Helsinki 

Commission, for your diplomatic efforts and statements. When we were at the hearing 

earlier this year—the Supreme Court hearing—the strong presence of the diplomatic 

community sent a clear message to the Russian authorities that the international community is well aware of what Russia is doing, and they’re not deceived, either. They realized 

that these proceedings are nothing more than a thinly-disguised effort to legitimize the 

government’s goal of stripping us of our fundamental right to worship. 

And just, very, very briefly, I’m going to hit on the situation with Jehovah’s Witnesses in Central Asia and in Azerbaijan. We mentioned that in Kazakhstan, we’re caught 

between two camps within the government: one that seems to be leaning towards application of the rule of law and maintaining our legal status, and another component of government that is mimicking what’s going on in Russia. We were banned in Tajikistan in 2007, 

and we continue to worship in secret. Uzbekistan is the second-worst offender of our fundamental rights in the OSCE region. Just to give you a capsule, since last September—

September 2016—there have been 185 police raids on religious meetings, 153 convictions 

for religious activities, 148 fines. And by the way, these fines amount to 100 times the 

monthly minimum wage. They’re not small. Seven Witnesses were jailed for religious 

activity, and there have been 15 documented accounts of severe beatings by the police of 

men and women who are Jehovah’s Witnesses. Witnesses are fined for even having a copy 

of the Bible in their home. 

25

With regard to Turkmenistan, we have the same situation. Bahram Hemdemov, a 52-

year-old Witness, has begun serving a four-year sentence that he began in March of 2015. 

And his only offense, again, was worshiping with fellow believers. There have been some 

small improvements in Azerbaijan, but although we number less than 2,000 Witnesses in 

that country, we have 18 applications pending with the European Court of Human Rights, 

and we have filed 11 complaints with the U.N. Human Rights Committee. 

So, in conclusion, we are gravely concerned about the welfare of our community in 

Russia. We are going to submit, for the record, a copy of my briefing and also a copy of 

a short video from Professor Heiner Bielefeldt—that’s the former U.N. Special Rapporteur 

of Freedom of Religion or Belief, who commented on the state of religious freedom in 

Russia and gave particular emphasis to the situation Jehovah’s Witnesses are facing in 

that land. His point was, or is, that as the space for one religion diminishes, civil society 

and religious freedom, in general, diminishes. 

Thank you, once again, for allowing us to comment on the situation with Jehovah’s 

Witnesses in the OSCE region. 

Mr. HURD. Thank you. Just a quick reminder about the Q&A. I’ll ask each one of 

our panelists two questions. If you could hold your answers until I finish asking all of 

my questions, and then we’ll eventually turn it over to the audience. We’ll start with 

Chairman Mark. 

Taking advantage of your recent trip to Uzbekistan, in the full range of steps that 

they can and should take to improve their record when it comes to religious freedom, and, 

in particular—let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that they’re re-designated as a 

CPC—what are the most important actions the government needs to take in order to 

change that designation and improve the situation for religious freedom in Uzbekistan? 

Secondly, was there an acknowledgment, when you were there, from the authorities 

that their crackdown on religious freedom over the years might actually be undermining 

their efforts to counter terrorist groups and counter violent extremists? 

For Dr. Collins, going back to Kazakhstan for a moment, you’ve noted that prior to 

their 2011 religion law, at least in the region, they had one of the most permissive 

environments for religion and for religious freedom. Why the shift? Why the change? 

Secondly, I was particularly intrigued at your comments that in your research of 

Christian groups in the region, they rarely band together in response to persecution. I’m 

wondering what your best hypothesis is, or evidence is, about the ‘‘why.’’

General Counsel Brumley, you noted that this persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 

Russia has been unfolding over many years. Why do you think it is that they’ve taken 

so long rather than just doing it immediately—rather than immediately banning you and 

taking the kind of measures and actions that you’ve outlined? 

Secondly, this is not the first time that Witnesses have been persecuted in Russia. 

It’s not the first time they’ve been persecuted in some of these other countries that you’ve 

mentioned, as well as in other parts of the world. Historically, how have they responded 

to a situation like the one in which they find themselves now in Russia? How have they 

compensated? Has there been, sort of, a change of practice, et cetera? 

We’ll start with you, Chairman Mark. 

Dr. MARK. Thank you for the excellent questions and for the opportunity to talk more 

about the trip to Uzbekistan. I can’t capture in a few minutes what we experienced in 

a week, but there are the big items. They told us in a meeting with government officials 

26

and some others that they’re working on a new religion law. Now, that’s worrying, 

because in experience from other places, even Vietnam, this new religion law has been 

dragging on for years. The drafting actually did take some American comments and then 

the implementation is yet another year, and so on. But you’ve got to worry what’s going 

to be in that law. 

Now, of course, in principle, it’s a good thing. Oh, there’s a new religion law; they’re 

going to revise, they’re going to reform. The new president does seem to be better than 

the last one, and so maybe will be helpful. So I would say that there’s a giant question 

mark hanging over the thing that depends on what happens, and again, based on what 

we know so far and the general trend, not overly optimistic, but it’s an opportunity. It’s 

an opening, and I think, with the right kind of pressure, we could see some improvements. 

What would some of those look like? Well, the biggest thing that hangs over everything about religious freedom in the country is registration. Nothing can happen without 

registration. The group can’t have property, it can’t have services, it can’t have literature. 

Everything depends, everything starts with registration. Of course, as we’ve said, registration is a problem because that’s how the government starts its control and surveillance. 

Nobody wants to register. 

So we sat in front of a government official who said nobody has applied for registration in 10 years, to register a church. Well, why is that? Is it because Christians don’t 

want to open churches? It’s not just Christians, by the way, because Christians don’t want 

to open churches. No, it’s because, when they say registration involves providing us a list 

of 100 names and addresses of people affiliated with your church, everybody says no 

thank you. That’s just giving them a list of people to pick on. That’s what they’re going 

to do, and everybody knows this. 

As I’ve been saying a lot post-trip, even insofar as the government does begin to 

implement reforms, they’re going to have to work overtime to actually convince people 

that it’s true and that they’re sincere. So reforming registration—We at USCIRF and the 

human rights community in general probably would rather see this registration be done 

away with. You shouldn’t have to register, but if you do have to register, there should 

be rule of law, there should be transparency, there should be protections and so on. 

A second thing is education. To go to another part of the world, you travel a long 

way, and so maybe it feels like it should be as different as it is—where children are not 

allowed to attend religious services. Ninety-five-plus percent of the country is Sunni. If 

you’re under the age of 16, or 18, depending on the circumstances, you just can’t go to 

weekly services at the mosque, because you’re just not allowed. Police will stand outside 

and keep children out. Government obviously controls all the education in the country, 

and the number of religious educational institutions are extremely limited, and the 

opportunities for religious education for children outside the home are almost nonexistent. The most basic things that we take for granted here. 

The third thing that I’ll say, and just to give you a big three—I could go on of 

course—is prisoners. Until we are convinced that there are not many thousands of people 

being held in prison for their innocent religious beliefs, then Uzbekistan will not have an 

easy time getting off the CPC list. Our policy analyst, Andrew Kornbluth, who was with 

us on the trip—God bless him, he’s sitting here too—was so diligent about asking at every 

opportunity, how many religious prisoners are there? How many have been released? Can 

you give us the name of one person who was in prison for his religious beliefs and now 

has been released? They basically ignored us. Until they want to get serious, at least, 

27

about it. Even one laughed and said, oh, well, all the information’s publicly available. 

Well, we can’t find it. So until they get serious about that, they’re just not going to be 

a normal place. 

On the second question, is the crackdown undermining CVE efforts to counter violent 

extremism? Sure. I’ll just say that the first or second day we were there was the day that 

the Uzbek terrorist perpetrated his attack in New York City, and that certainly gave a 

certain color to our trip. Where does that come from? How does that happen? Even if that 

person was radicalized outside of Uzbekistan, why was that person susceptible to the 

radicalization? We know that the crackdown drives movements underground, which is 

counterproductive. We know that the lack of education, proper religious education, leaves 

people susceptible to more radical and violent views. 

We heard an amazing story from a person—he had just been out—three weeks out 

of prison after what was maybe an 11-year sentence, and he was just out sitting with us 

in a coffee shop. He said, people come to prison—this is the story from ‘‘Shawshank 

Redemption,’’ where he had to go to prison to become a criminal. He said that people who 

are too Muslim for the government’s liking get sent to prison. Having been sent to prison, 

they see not only their own abuse, but then, the torture and other abuse of people and 

say, this is all being done in the name of the newfound Uzbek independence, in the name 

of the newfound Uzbek democracy. If this is what’s being done in the name of Uzbek 

democracy, we want no part of it. So they come out of prison more radicalized than when 

they went in. 

Now, that’s not everyone, but it was such a striking example of the way the persecution exacerbates the problems they have and is counterproductive for their totally legitimate efforts to fight radical Islam. It’s a pretext in the first case, and then an exacerbation of their own problem in the second case. Certainly, it is our line that all around 

the world, countries that truly want to commit themselves to countering violent extremism have to also commit themselves to religious freedom. 

Mr. HURD. Before turning over to Dr. Collins, I just want to commend the project 

Under Caesar’s Sword, of which she is a scholar. Not just as something interesting and 

important in and of itself, but also as a model. There are many groups and institutions 

that document the persecution of religious groups. What makes Under Caesar’s Sword different is that it primarily focuses on how particular communities are responding to the 

persecution itself. It’s certainly a model that I think can and should be replicated in 

looking at how other religious groups are responding to persecution. Dr. Collins. 

Dr. COLLINS. Thank you very much. I would actually point you to Notre Dame’s 

website, where there is extensive information about how different Christian communities 

are responding to persecution around the world. The focus is not just on Central Asia or 

Russia, but in many areas of the world where the situation is, sadly, even more egregious 

than what we’re talking about right now. 

On your first question, Mr. Hurd, why the shift in 2011? Well, I think that there has 

been a sort of gradual move towards this across the region, but in particular, I think, a 

couple of events triggered the Kazakh Government’s crackdown on religious groups. There 

was the Kyrgyz Revolution—regime change in 2010, which created this sense of vulnerability and instability in the region. The Arab Spring in 2011, perhaps even more so, created this sense that we’re not quite invincible. In Azerbaijan, for example, there was a 

statue of Mubarak and Aliyev which, at the time of the revolution, was something that 

gave the Aliyev regime some pause. 

28

Not just Kazakhstan, but again, Kazakhstan in collaboration with Russia and other 

members of the SCO—the Shanghai Cooperation Organization—discuss these issues on a 

regular basis. They blend together issues of religious independence with issues of extremism and terrorism within the framework of their general security discussions and focus 

on security. I think these various events help, sort of, shift their thinking towards a mentality that we need to crack down on religion to a greater extent than we have in the 

past. 

There’s also this understanding that, even though Christians aren’t the main target, 

we have to engage in this kind of equal-opportunity repression. We’re primarily worried 

about independent Muslim opposition growing in the country. But they decided, in order 

to justify and legitimize their crackdown on independent Islam, they need to more broadly 

crack down on various forms of independent religions. I think that’s driving much of this. 

Then we see, of course, that there has been an escalation of the actual implementation of these regulations, post, about, 2014, when the growth of ISIS has made them more 

conscious of the security threat to the region. But again, it’s this crackdown on both Christians and Muslims—as Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses are rolled into the crackdown 

on supposed supporters of ISIS. So that’s on the issue of why this shift over the past few 

years. 

The second question about why Christians rarely band together is an interesting one 

and a frustrating one, I think, as somebody studying this region. Why don’t they engage 

in greater collaboration? The few instances where they have collaborated, as I mentioned 

with the example of the AROC in Kazakhstan, with the protests about Pastor 

Kashkumbaev, have sometimes garnered some success. This has been relatively rare; my 

sense is that there are a couple of reasons for this. Probably most importantly is a deep 

culture of distrust of sharing information, opening up to others, even opening up to other 

Christian organizations. I think that dates well back to the Soviet period, as Dr. Mark 

talked about so eloquently. Many of these groups have been around—despite being labeled 

by the governments as new groups or new Christians—many of them have been around 

since before the Soviet period. They endured repression under the Russian Czarist regime; 

they endured serious repression under the Soviet era when there was liberalization, 

finally, for the Russian Orthodox. They have still continued to endure repression. 

So there is this sense of distrust of each other, not knowing who might be an 

informer, and that has undercut opportunities to work across different church lines. 

Together with that, there is a distrust of foreign groups or churches that have foreign and 

missionary ties internationally. So local groups have a sense of skepticism about the 

commitment of many internationally based or foreign religious groups and missionaries 

that have come into the countries in recent years. I think this culture of distrust hasn’t 

broken down yet. 

They also differ in their ideas about strategies, how to deal with the current situation. Many of those that have been in the region the longest and endured the Soviet 

repression would prefer to sort of stay underground, continue to hide, continue to worship 

in their house churches, whereas some of the newer groups—or some of the groups that 

have more international connections—have moved more towards these open, charitable 

opportunities and working with local-level governments. I do think that greater opportunity for collaboration and discussion of these strategies—which is something that the 

Under Caesar’s Sword project hopes to facilitate—would help them to realize that, by 

adopting some of the more successful strategies, such as engaging with local government 

29

and collaborating on social work, is something that might advance their cause and their 

religious freedom over the longer term. 

I think those are probably some of the major reasons. The last thing I would note 

is that the governments in the region, as well as civil society actors in general, have 

undercut some of these efforts. Civil society, surprisingly, perhaps, because it is so deeply 

secular across much of the Central Asian, former Soviet regions, they tend to distrust religious actors. There is not a tradition of secular civil society working with religious actors 

and considering them also part of the religious and part of the civic sphere. Then the 

government, I think, to some extent, plays the same role with religious organizations that 

it does with political opposition, attempting to plant distrust and fear within that community to undercut any sort of collaborative efforts. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HURD. Thank you. General Counsel Brumley? 

Mr. BRUMLEY. Thank you. Your first question had to do with, why is Russia proceeding the way it has and taking so long in its relentless pursuit or attack on Jehovah’s 

Witnesses? Essentially, to give a veneer of giving Jehovah’s Witnesses due process of law. 

That would be my answer. The concept is, we were registered—again, we gained legal 

status in 1992. Almost immediately, the General Prosecutor Office in Moscow began proceedings against the Moscow congregation. They instituted five different cases; they lost 

all five. The sixth one they won; that went all the way up to the Supreme Court in Russia. 

We appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. In 2010, the European Court 

handed down its decision, Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow and Others v. Russia. It’s a 

wonderfully written decision. It meticulously goes through the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses and whether any of these beliefs or practices pose any threat to the Russian 

people. The decision categorically rebuts every single argument raised. 

Now, an objective reader of that recent decision would have said, OK, case closed. 

Jehovah’s Witnesses are no threat, we can leave them alone. But even before the decision 

was handed down, Russia had already amended its laws, such as the law on counteracting 

religious extremism, essentially, to look for a new way of attacking Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

If plan A didn’t work, then we’ll go to plan B. So it was illuminating earlier this year, 

in April, at the hearing before the Supreme Court, as the lawyers for Jehovah’s Witnesses 

would raise procedural objections that were very cogently raised, the prosecutor would 

stand up and literally say two or three sentences, and the judge would look at the prosecutor, look at the lawyers for the Witnesses, saying, having heard from the defendants 

and having heard from the general prosecutor, I concur with the general prosecutor. 

To give you two quick examples: In one motion, the attorneys representing Jehovah’s 

Witnesses said, you are threatening to criminalize 395 local religious organizations. They 

have a right to be here in court if you’re going to criminalize them. And the prosecutor 

stood up and said, they all make the same arguments, so when we hear from one or two, 

we’ve heard from all of them. And the judge says, yes, you’re right, and so they don’t need 

to be here. With the second motion—or a different motion that was raised was, as local 

religious organizations were being criminalized, the administrative center affirmatively 

sought to intervene in the case. The judges in each case said no, you’re not a defendant; 

you’re not concerned or a party to this. The administrative center then said, why should 

evidence adduced at those hearings now be introduced against us, when we did not even 

have the opportunity to defend ourselves? And again, the judge listened to the prosecutor 

say, essentially, two or three sentences, and overruled the motion. 

30

So, Mr. Hurd, there is an effort to create a veneer of due process of law that Jehovah’s Witnesses have had their day in court, where really, the determination is a foregone 

conclusion. Essentially, we’re thinking, as well, that Russia is hoping that no one will 

notice. So the fact that the international community was present at trial and at the 

Supreme Court, and the fact that human rights organizations are talking about this, is 

helpful. It shows that what Russia is doing is not going to happen unnoticed. 

Your second question is quite interesting as well, Mr. Hurd, about how this isn’t the 

first time. It’s interesting, in this decision of 2010—from the European Court—it brought 

out that Jehovah’s Witnesses have been present in Russia since 1891. We were banned 

under communism, under the Soviet regime, gained our legal status again in 1992. So 

we’re not an unknown community within Russia. In fact, many Russians are fourth-,

fifth-, even sixth-generation Jehovah’s Witnesses. What did we do when we were under 

ban during the Soviet era? It’s the same principles we apply now and that we’ve applied 

where this situation, unfortunately, presents itself anywhere in the world. 

In Apostle Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he said something that we follow, that we 

pray—concerning kings and all those in high positions—that we may go on leading a calm 

and quiet life with complete Godly devotion and seriousness. The point there is that Jehovah’s Witnesses just seek to worship in peace. As Mr. Bielefeldt said, we are the most 

peaceful people in the world in that we are doctrinally opposed to violence. So, the farthest thing from extremism. Our effort is to peacefully worship, but then, when a government says, no, you can’t peacefully worship, then we go back to what the apostles said: 

We must obey God as ruler rather than men. 

So regardless of whatever steps Russia takes, Jehovah’s Witnesses are not going to 

disappear. We will continue worshiping and continue doing what we have done. History 

bears out that we actually grow when persecuted, sometimes faster than where we have 

legal status. So the efforts by the government to dissuade us from worshiping aren’t going 

to stop us from doing so, as that’s what history bears out. 

Mr. HURD. Thank you. 

I’m wondering if we have any questions from the audience. Yes, Cathy, and if you 

wouldn’t mind using the microphone, please. 

QUESTIONER. Thank you, Nate, for organizing this really great and informative 

hearing. I wanted to call quick attention to two aspects which haven’t been discussed—

well, they have been discussed, but I’d like to raise some new aspects. One is, the new 

minister in Kazakhstan of religion and civil society, I was recently told, is a 25-year veteran of the Kazakh state security services. Some of you obviously know this, but I just 

think it’s worth highlighting publicly. 

Also, in Uzbekistan, I was told that the government is taking steps to assess the 

degree to which various religious prisoners—I suppose mainly Muslim—have been, in fact, 

radicalized in prison. However, this is a highly corrupt process. In addition, of course, to 

the very dubious criteria I assume they will be using. So perhaps it would be useful to 

call on the Uzbek Government to follow international good principles that have been followed in other countries. 

Finally, also, on corruption, I have been told by a Kyrgyz lawyer that there’s widespread corruption in southern Kyrgyzstan, especially vis-a`-vis the large Uzbek minority—

that if Uzbeks want to avoid being arrested on arbitrary charges of being religious extremVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:45 Apr 11, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 X:\_HS\WORK\27638.TXT NINA
31

ists, you have to pay bribes. There are some 200 people—this is as of several years ago—

who were too poor to pay bribes, and hence, they’re in prison. 

Thanks. 

Mr. HURD. Cathy Cosman was a long-time staffer as USCIRF, and one of the world’s 

leading experts on religious freedom, in particular in Central Asia and Russia, as you can 

tell from the granularity of her question, but thank you. Any of the panelists should feel 

free to answer. 

Dr. COLLINS. Yes, thank you for pointing that out. That’s also the information that 

I have about the director of the new ministry. Again, hearkening back to Soviet-era policies, creating a ministry, which, allegedly, is about religion and civil society, in fact 

appears, by all accounts, starting with his leadership, to be actually about monitoring religion and undercutting its independence. So yes, I would agree with that. 

On the other point about the role of corruption, it’s interesting, because I think it 

cuts both ways. On the one hand, in Kyrgyzstan, the prevalence of corruption in the police 

force is something that in part, I think, accounts for the fact that there are fewer religious 

prisoners in Kyrgyzstan over the past few years, because people tend to bribe their way 

out. Rather than being readily imprisoned, they can bribe the police to pay lower fines 

or to avoid being imprisoned. But as you point out, that of course means that those who 

can’t afford to pay the bribes are the ones who do, in fact, end up in prison on various 

charges. 

Dr. MARK. I apologize. I have a plane to catch; I’m already cutting it pretty close. 

I didn’t even get to plug our annual report yet, but I’ve got to excuse myself. But thank 

you, everyone, for being here, and I know you’ll continue to learn a lot from the others. 

Mr. HURD. Are there any other questions from the audience? Do we have any questions from our viewers on Facebook? No. Well, again, I’m grateful to all of you who are 

here in person, to those of you that are watching online, for being here on a wintry day, 

and in particular, to our panelists for, I think, what was a very rich, important and 

engaging discussion. I hope you’ll join me in thanking our panelists. 

Actually, before we do that, I do want to thank both the chairmen of the Helsinki 

Commission, Senator Wicker, and Co-Chairman Smith, for their support for this briefing 

and religious freedom more broadly, as well as to my colleagues Stacy, Jordan, and Olivia, 

who were instrumental in organizing this. 

Please join me in thanking the panelists. [Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 3:59 p.m., the briefing ended.] 

(33)

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PHILIP BRUMLEY

I thank the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith and 

Nathaniel Hurd for hosting this hearing and for allowing me to brief you on the situation 

of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the OSCE region. 

There are over 81⁄2 million Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, with over 3 million in the 

OSCE region, including the United States. 

We enjoy national registration and are free to practice our faith in 51 of the 57 

participating States of the OSCE. The exceptions include Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, 

Uzbekistan, and, since April, the Russian Federation. 

When domestic courts fail to protect our fundamental rights, we seek relief from 

international tribunals. 

Since 1993 we have obtained 64 favorable rulings from the European Court of Human 

Rights and 11 favorable decisions from the UN Human Rights Committee. But, the main 

challenge we are facing is, by far, Russia’s state-sponsored persecution.

Russia:

I. In 2006 the Russian government amended its Law on Counteracting Extremist Activity. 

It removed incitement to violence as a component of what constitutes ‘‘extremism.’’

A. The UN Human Rights Committee, PACE, and the Venice Commission have all 

strongly criticized the amended law because it gives the Russian government carte 

blanch to prosecute anyone it deems to be out of step with its version of what is acceptable.

II. Based on this law, as amended, the authorities concocted a three-step process to categorize Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremists and to strip us of our fundamental freedoms 

of speech, press, and religion.

A. First, the government criminalized our religious literature through bogus ‘‘expert 

studies’’ and baseless court decisions. They even banned our web site, jw.org.

B. Second, it criminalized local congregations who had been using this literature before 

it was declared extremist.

• The authorities went so far as to plant the banned literature in our places of worship so that they could later ‘‘discover’’ it and bring charges.

C. Third, it criminalized the religious activity carried on at our national offices and in 

our local places of worship.

D. Since the amended law on extremism was enacted, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been 

subjected to:

34

• searches of their homes and places of worship, 

• loss of employment, 

• having their bank accounts frozen, 

• mistreatment of their children by school authorities, 

• detentions, secret video surveillance of their homes, 

• monitoring of their mail, and 

• intimidation to abandon their faith.

III. This decade long campaign culminated with the April 20, 2017, Supreme Court decision.

A. The Court ruled that the Administrative Center and all of the 395 local legal entities 

are guilty of carrying on extremist activity, that their properties should be confiscated 

and that their activity terminated.

B. Due to the risk of criminal prosecution, we have ceased using our places of worship, 

and our national offices—worth millions of dollars.

C. Our branch offices in Europe, Canada and here in the United States inform us that 

there is an escalation in the number of Witnesses from Russia seeking asylum.

IV. We are tracking 3 developments with particular interest:

1. The criminal prosecution of Dennis Christensen, a citizen of Denmark, who if convicted faces up to 10 years imprisonment.

• Mr. Christensen has been denied bail and held in pre-trial detention since May. 

• His offense? Worshipping along with a local congregation.

2. The legal proceedings by the government to take possession of our National Offices, 

in complete disregard for the fact that these offices are owned by the Watch Tower 

Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.

3. Whether an appellate court will confirm the decision of a lower court to declare our 

Bible the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures to be extremist.

V. These relentless and coordinated efforts confirm that Russia is bent on, at a minimum, 

driving Jehovah’s Witnesses underground. That said, as we speak, Jehovah’s Witnesses 

are not being arrested en masse.

VI. The government seems to be taking the position that someone can be one of Jehovah’s 

Witnesses—in private. But anyone who in the least way engages in any activity related 

to our worship risks criminal prosecution.

• In other words, ‘‘You can be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but 

• Don’t associate with other Jehovah’s Witnesses, 

• Don’t read your Bible or any of your literature, 

• Don’t gather for worship with others of like faith, and 

• Don’t talk to anyone about your faith.’’

VII. We thank the many governments and their agencies, such as the US Helsinki 

Commission, for your diplomatic efforts and statements.

35

A. The strong presence of the diplomatic community during the Supreme Court hearings sent a clear message that the international community is also well aware of Russia’s persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

B. They realize that these proceedings are nothing more than a thinly disguised effort 

to legitimize the government’s goal of stripping us of our fundamental right to worship.

Central Asia:

I. Beyond Russia, we are contending with systemic violations of our rights in Central 

Asiaand Azerbaijan.

II. The governments of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are considering amending their religion laws. If adopted, we could lose our right to worship in these lands.

Kazakhstan:

I. In Kazakhstan, we seem to be caught between opposing elements of the government; 

one that leans toward applying the rule of law, and the other that leans toward imitating 

Russia’s methods of suppressing religious minorities.

II. In May, Teymur Akhmedov, a 61-year-old Witness in poor health, was sentenced to 

five years in prison under the charge of ‘‘inciting religious discord.’’

• In reality, he was merely sharing his religious beliefs with others. 

• The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention condemned Kazakhstan for imprisoning Mr. Akhmedov and called for his immediate release. 

• Sadly, the government has yet to comply.

Tajikistan:

I. The Ministry of Culture in Tajikistan banned our worship in 2007.

Uzbekistan:

I. Uzbekistan is the second worst offender of our fundamental rights in the OSCE region.

II. Just since September of 2016, there were:

• 185 police raids on religious meetings and searches of private homes, 

• 153 convictions for religious activity, 

• 148 fines-up to 100 times the monthly minimum wage, 

• 7 Witnesses were jailed for religious activity, and there were 15 severe beatings 

of men and assaults on women by police.

III. Witnesses are fined even for having a copy of the Bible in their home.

IV. The authorities continue to deny legal registration to all congregations of Jehovah’s 

Witnesses, except for one in Chirchik.

36

Turkmenistan:

I. We face similar issues in Turkmenistan. Bahram Hemdemov, a 52-year-old Witness, 

began serving a four-year sentence in March 2015 just for worshiping with fellow Witnesses in his home.

Azerbaijan:

I. Although there are some small improvements in Azerbaijan, we have 18 applications 

pending with the ECHR and 11 complaints filed with the CCPR.

Conclusion:

We are gravely concerned about the welfare of our community in Russia. 

I would like to submit for the record my statement and also a video featuring Mr. 

Hiener Bielefeldt, the former UN Special Rapportuer on Freedom of Religion or Belief, 

who recently gave an insightful commentary on religious freedom in Russia. If anyone else 

here is interested in the video, we would be pleased to provide a link after the briefing. 

Thank you once again for the privilege of addressing you on the issues Jehovah’s Witnesses are contending with in the OSCE region.

***

The following links are to the videos.

https://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/by-region/russia/heiner-bielefeldt-interview/

https://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/by-region/russia/russian-authorities-fabricate-evidencevideo/

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