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36–062PDF 2007

IS THERE A HUMAN RIGHTS DOUBLE STANDARD?

U.S. POLICY TOWARD SAUDI ARABIA, IRAN,

AND UZBEKISTAN

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL 

ORGANIZATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND OVERSIGHT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 14, 2007

Serial No. 110–62

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

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

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

TOM LANTOS, California, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

DAVID WU, Oregon 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

ROBERT R. KING, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

OVERSIGHT

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts, Chairman 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

CLIFF STAMMERMAN, Subcommittee Staff Director 

NATALIE COBURN, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member 

PHAEDRA DUGAN, Republican Professional Staff Member 

ELISA PERRY, Staff Associate 
(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Thomas W. Lippman, Adjunct Scholar, Middle East Institute ..................... 5

Mr. Thomas Malinowski, Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch .................. 14

Martha Brill Olcott, Ph.D., Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ...................................................................................................... 20

Amr Hamzawy, Ph.D., Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ...................................................................................................... 29

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Thomas W. Lippman: Prepared statement ..................................................... 7

Mr. Thomas Malinowski: Prepared statement ...................................................... 17

Martha Brill Olcott, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................... 23

Amr Hamzawy, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .......................................................... 31

The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California: H. Con. Res. 244 from the first session of the 108th 

Congress ................................................................................................................ 41

APPENDIX 

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom: Statement for the record .............................................................................................. 63

Mr. Joseph K. Grieboski, Founder and President, Institute on Religion and 

Public Policy: Statement for the record .............................................................. 79

(1)

IS THERE A HUMAN RIGHTS DOUBLE STANDARD? U.S. POLICY TOWARD SAUDI ARABIA, 

IRAN, AND UZBEKISTAN 

THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

HUMAN RIGHTS, AND OVERSIGHT,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:01 p.m. in Room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Delahunt (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. This hearing of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight will come to 

order. Today we are continuing in our series of hearings on the disparate treatment by the United States Government with respect to 

countries with troubling human rights records. Our first in the series addressed United States policy toward Equatorial Guinea and 

Ethiopia. In our hearing today we will hear testimony relative to 

Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Uzbekistan. And I noted that one of our 

witnesses also added a section relative to Pakistan, and I welcome 

those observations. 

Before I read a rather brief statement pending arrival of my 

friend and colleague from California, the ranking member, Mr. 

Rohrabacher, why don’t I proceed to introduce our witnesses? 

Let me begin with Tom Malinowski, who is the Washington advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. Prior to joining Human 

Rights Watch, he was special assistant to President Clinton, and 

senior director for foreign policy speechwriting at the National Security Council. From 1994 to 1998, he was the speechwriter for 

Secretaries of State Christopher and Albright and a member of the 

State Department Policy Planning Staff. He has also worked for 

the Ford Foundation and as a legislative aide to Senator Daniel 

Patrick Moynihan. He studied at the University of California at 

Berkeley, at Oxford University, and is a member of the Council on 

Foreign Relations. 

And the gentleman who just arrived, who is now sitting to my 

right, let me introduce Mr. Rohrabacher, the ranking member of 

the subcommittee. 

Amr Hamzawy is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment 

for International Peace. He has previously taught at Cairo University and the Free University of Berlin. He received his Ph.D. from 

the Free University of Berlin, where he worked as an assistant pro-
2

fessor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He also holds master’s degrees from the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague and 

the University of Amsterdam. He obtained his bachelor of science 

from Cairo University. He has been published frequently, and includes titles such as The Saudi Labyrinth, Evaluating the Current 

Political Opening, and Human Rights in the Arab World. Martha Brill Olcott is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Her book, Central 

Asia’s Second Chance, examines the economic and political development of this ethnically diverse and strategically vital region in the 

context of the change in security that is post-9/11. She is professor 

emerita at Colgate University and has previously served as the director of the Central Asian American Enterprise Fund. Prior to her 

work at the Carnegie Endowment, Ms. Olcott served as special consultant to former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who actually was a witness earlier today before the full committee. And 

she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. 

Tom Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. 

He spent over 30 years as a reporter and editor for the Washington 

Post, covering the war in Iraq, and served as diplomatic national 

security and Middle East correspondent while based in Cairo. He 

is the author of Inside the Mirage: America’s Fragile Partnership 

with Saudi Arabia, as well as Madeleine Albright and the New 

American Diplomacy, Egypt After Nasser, and Understanding 

Islam. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and received his degree from Columbia University. 

I have had the opportunity to read the written statements submitted by all of our witnesses, and I must acknowledge that I was 

very impressed with the scholarship involved and the experience 

that it reflected. We look forward to hearing from you and engaging 

in a conversation. 

With that, why don’t I turn to my colleague Mr. Rohrabacher? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, again I thank you for holding 

this particular hearing and making the decision to look into this 

issue and bring up this matter of importance for discussion. 

Today we are asking whether the United States treats Saudi 

Arabia differently than we do other countries, and specifically 

Uzbekistan and Iran. Is there a double standard in our policies toward Saudi Arabia as compared to those other countries? 

Since Franklin Roosevelt first met with King Saud back in 1945, 

every American President seems to have had close ties to Saudi 

Arabia. From Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, 

Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and both of the Bushes, every President in the last six decades seems to have been determined that 

an alliance with the Saudi Royal Family is in the best interest of 

our country. Yet as we all know, Saudi extremists were mostly responsible for the atrocities of 9/11. We have also seen a radical 

forum of Wahhabism being financed and spread throughout the 

world in an effort to beat back moderate Muslims; all of this, of 

course, financed from Saudi Arabia. 

Saudis operate under Shari’a law, where there is no democracy, 

no freedom of press, no freedom of religion. The cultural and religious police monitor the average citizen in Saudi Arabia. Apostasy 

is a capital crime and women are treated like property. 
3

So I look forward to hearing from our panelists in terms of how 

we should approach Saudi Arabia and is there a double standard. 

Mr. Chairman, as we discuss this issue, which is based on human 

rights and a standard of human rights, that we believe that there 

shouldn’t be a double standard of human rights, we should not 

overlook the fact that this week a senior member of our committee 

hosted a reception to honor a delegation of Communist Chinese National People’s Congress. Now, I was astonished when I received an 

invitation to this event, which, as I say, was being hosted in the 

United States Capitol by one of our own members, and it is giving 

status and establishing a personal recognition of these members of 

the Communist Party’s apparatus that controls China. 

And when we talk about double standards, I mean, this is a double standard that is right here in our midst, right here, right 

among us as Members of Congress. Should we be treating people 

who are representing a regime, not the people of a country, but a 

regime that is the worst human rights abuser in the world? I mean 

if Saudi Arabia is a human rights abuser, which it is, China is the 

worst in the world. And even though the Saudis repress people of 

other faiths, the Communist Party in China represses people of all 

faiths. And Saudi Arabia at least doesn’t arrest Falun Gong or people who want to worship God in the way the Falun Gong does and 

then murder them and sell their organs from prison. 

Yes, we need to talk about double standards, and I am very 

happy we are going to be discussing that double standard that we 

have with Saudi Arabia today. And I appreciate your leadership on 

that. But we need to make sure if we do talk about double standards, that we don’t turn a blind eye to this type of double standard 

with China. And as we should know, of course, the business community of the United States drives our policy toward China, and 

they could give a damn about human rights abuses in China. 

And I would say that probably today we may learn that may be 

the same driving force that has to do with our relations with the 

Saudi Royal Family. So let us note that this isn’t the only double 

standard that surrounds us. 

With that said, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing the witnesses today. I appreciate your leadership and bringing up this 

issue. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I thank the gentleman for his statement. And 

does the vice chair of the subcommittee, Mr. Carnahan, wish to 

make any opening remarks? 

Mr. CARNAHAN. No. I am confident that the chairman and ranking member have covered very well and I look forward——

Mr. DELAHUNT. I haven’t actually made a statement yet. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Then you have definitely covered it well. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Okay. Let me just briefly address the subject of 

today’s hearing. When President Bush, in his second inaugural address, set forth his vision for his foreign policy, he pledged America 

to the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world; and in his 

speech last weekend in Prague, he recommitted himself to what he 

called the freedom agenda. And I do not doubt his sincerity; let me 

be clear on that. 

Let me read a quote uttered by President Bush:
4

‘‘All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United 

States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. We stand for liberty. We will stand for you. By our reference, we have lit a fire, a fire in the minds of men. It warms 

those who feel its power; it burns those who fight its progress. 

And one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.’’

As I said, I commend the President for this vision, and I would 

note the eloquence of the statement. It is a vision, I daresay, that 

is shared by all Americans, Members of Congress, and all those 

who are concerned with America’s global role, including myself obviously. 

Where there are deficiencies, however, in this vision’s implementation, we can’t bring fire to those dark corners of the world on a 

selective basis, when in some of those dark corners we are not offering the fire of liberty, we are not even providing a flashlight. Because when we closely associate ourselves with some of those leaders who preside over those dark corners and do not give voice persistently and constantly to the values of freedom and the necessity 

for respect for human rights, we open ourselves to the accusation 

of not practicing what we preach, but being hypocritical. 

And let me suggest that this undermines the very goals that 

were articulated in that eloquent remark by President Bush. It results in a glaring dichotomy between our rhetoric and our deeds 

and makes us vulnerable, as I said, to the accusation of double 

standards. Even our friends inevitably question the sincerity of our 

commitment to human rights and the rule of law, the very values 

which are the cornerstone of our democracy and the very values 

which, I would suggest, have made the United States an inspiration through our history. And it provides fodder for those who resent our core observations of their conduct vis-a`-vis human rights. 

I noted last week a statement by President Putin, and this is 

what he had to say in response to a reporter at the G–8 summit:

‘‘Let us not be hypocritical about democratic freedoms and 

human rights. I already said that I have a copy of Amnesty 

International’s report, including on the United States. There is 

probably no need to repeat this so as not to offend anyone.’’

I don’t want to continue on, but——

And I also want to be clear that I am not questioning the integrity of the reports that are issued by our Department of State in 

terms of the various countries. But when we see disparate treatment based on policy decisions without a common persistent voice 

to those with whom we ally ourselves about their behavior, then we 

hurt ourselves, I would suggest, in the long term, because it erodes 

the respect that the rest of the world has in terms of the implementation of that vision that was articulated by President Bush. 

Well, let’s begin. Mr. Lippman, we do have a 5-minute rule, if 

you are able to—I can see Dr. Olcott just had a look of disbelief—

that the order in the breach in this particular subcommittee—but 

if you can be somewhat concise, we would appreciate it so that then 

we could have a conversation. 

Mr. Lippman. Mr. Lippman, can you hit the button? 
5

STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS W. LIPPMAN, ADJUNCT 

SCHOLAR, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE 

Mr. LIPPMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to appear today and offer my views on this very interesting 

and important subject. This is a summary of my written testimony, 

which you have. 

The question before the subcommittee is whether there is a double standard on human rights in American policy toward Saudi 

Arabia, Iran, and Uzbekistan. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the answer is yes. And there always has been under every American 

President since the 1930s. The United States relationship with 

Saudi Arabia has never been measured by our own standards of 

human rights, individual liberty, or religious freedom. If we use 

those tests, the Saudis would fail them all. But we don’t use those 

tests and we hardly ever have. In fact, our official policy has long 

been to do the opposite, to make allowances for Saudi Arabia’s internal system rather than confront it. 

In 1951, the State Department issued a comprehensive statement policy toward Saudi Arabia that stipulated that the United 

States should, and I quote, ‘‘observe the utmost respect for Saudi 

Arabia’s sovereignty, sanctity of the holy places, and local customs. 

In all our efforts to carry out our policies in Saudi Arabia, we 

should take care to serve as guide or partner and avoid the impression of wishing to dominate the country.’’ That has been our policy 

pretty much ever since. 

And therefore, while all the negative findings about Saudi Arabia 

issued every year in the State Department’s reports on human 

rights and religious freedom are true, they are essentially irrelevant to the bilateral strategic and economic relationship. 

And we should not assume that the citizens of Saudi Arabia desire to order their society according to our standards of individual 

liberty and personal freedom. They are driven by other imperatives. When I was there last month, I was reminded again that 

Saudi Arabia is an evolving society, not a static one. The Saudis 

wrestle every day with fundamental issues of justice, individual opportunity, political evolution, and women’s rights. They will decide 

those matters according to their own standards based on Islam and 

Islamic law, the family, Arabian tradition, and economic imperatives. They are only marginally susceptible to input from us on 

those subjects. 

When Americans first established a presence in Saudi Arabia, exploring for oil in the 1930s and building a military relationship in 

the 1940s, the country’s founding King, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, laid 

down the terms of our doing so in a famous dictum. ‘‘We will use 

your iron,’’ he said, ‘‘but leave our faith alone.’’

What he meant was that Saudi Arabia wanted and needed American technology and American capital to develop what was then one 

of the world’s poorest countries but had no interest in becoming a 

liberal, democratic, pluralistic society. It is a religious hierarchical 

traditional society where Islam is the purpose of the state. And as 

far as I can tell, it does not much wish to be anything else. 

In the 1920s King Abdul Aziz had to take to the field to battle 

against his own fanatical militias to establish the principle that 

non-Muslims could be admitted into the sacred land of Arabia for 
6

any reason. Having done that, he sought to placate his xenophobic 

people by limiting the work of those foreign infidels to economic development and minimizing their cultural and social impacts on his 

subjects. 

All his successors have sought to follow the same path. Saudi 

Arabia gave American companies the right to develop the Saudi oil 

fields. Saudi Arabia invested billions in American goods and services. And Saudi Arabia stood by the United States during the Cold 

War, always on condition that we keep our hands off Saudi domestic and social affairs. 

By and large, the United States has adhered to that agreement 

for more than six decades. This has not been a partisan issue in 

this country. Every President since Franklin Roosevelt, of whatever 

party, has basically decided that Saudi Arabia is too important to 

alienate. At times, our deference to Saudi Arabia has bordered on 

the obsequious, especially in the policy of the State and Defense 

Departments, until the 1970s, to refrain from assigning Jews to 

work there. President Kennedy came the closest to any serious effort to promote reform in Saudi Arabia. He put pressure on the 

Saudis to abolish slavery, with considerable success, and to end 

their ban on Jewish visitors or workers, with almost no success. 

Yet even Kennedy did not approach a serious breach in relations 

over human rights. On the contrary, he supported Saudi Arabia in 

its proxy war against Nasser’s Egypt during the civil conflict in 

Yemen. 

Even President Carter, who made human rights the cornerstone 

of his foreign policy, praised the rulers of Saudi Arabia effusively 

and refrained from pressing them about internal affairs. When he 

arrived in Riyadh in 1978—and I was there at the time to watch 

this—President Carter greeted his hosts with these words:

‘‘Seeing the generosity of this welcome, I feel that I am among 

my own people, and I know that my steps will not be hindered 

because I walk in the same steps as Your Majesty, toward a 

common goal of even greater friendship among our people, between our two countries, and peace for all the people of the 

world.’’

The reason President Carter swallowed hard and uttered those 

words of praise was that he wanted something important from the 

Saudis; namely, support for the Camp David Peace Initiative. If the 

Saudis mistreated women or stifled the press or tortured prisoners, 

that was troubling, but not sufficiently important to prevail over 

more urgent concerns. 

Sometimes we Americans have wanted access to Saudi oil. Sometimes we have wanted Saudi political and moral support to keep 

communism out of the Arab world. Sometimes we have wanted 

Saudi money to finance the Afghan Mujahideen in their struggle 

against the Soviet Union or the Nicaraguan Contras. Today we 

want the Saudis’ help in the so-called ‘‘war on terror.’’

Always there seems to be some imperative in Washington that 

trumps our concern for human rights. Saudi Arabia is not Burma. 

Saudi Arabia is important and we need the Saudis, and that is why 

this has happened. 
7

The attacks of September 11 prompted many Americans to look 

beyond the longstanding ‘‘don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy about Saudi 

Arabia and examine that country more closely. Many did not like 

what they saw. Editorial writers, strategy analysts, and some 

Members of Congress called for the United States to get tough on 

a country that appeared to be fostering extremism. 

But after the onset of domestic terrorism in Saudi Arabia in 

2003, the Saudis to some extent saw the error of their ways and 

tried to get right with Washington. They modified their educational 

and financial policies and their banking rules more or less in cooperation with the United States. 

And now, after the 9/11 Commission Report has exonerated the 

Royal Family, and after repeated testimony from Bush administration officials that the Saudis are more help than hindrance in combating terrorism, the public clamor in this country has receded and 

Saudi Arabia is once again in good standing, even though internally it remains much the same. 

When Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, then Crown Prince and now 

King, visited President Bush in his Texas ranch in 2005, the two 

issued a joint statement that basically gave Saudi Arabia a free 

ride on the issue of human rights and democratic reform, the 

United States has said, and considers that nations will create institutions that reflect the history, culture, and traditions of their own 

societies. And it does not seek to impose its own style of government on the Government and people of Saudi Arabia. 

In my opinion, President Bush and all his predecessors from the 

past 70 years have made the right choice. The people of Saudi Arabia are incomparably better off today in every economic and material way than they were in their grandfathers’ day. How they run 

their country is and will remain up to them. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lippman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS W. LIPPMAN, ADJUNCT SCHOLAR, MIDDLE

EAST INSTITUTE

The question before the subcommittee is whether there is a double standard on 

human rights in American policy toward Saudi Arabia, Iran and Uzbekistan. In the 

case of Saudi Arabia, the answer is yes, and there always has been, under every 

American president since the 1930s. To understand why, it is necessary to examine 

the history of this unique bilateral relationship, which has benefited both countries 

for more than seven decades. 

The origins of the unlikely partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia predate the establishment of the unified Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, but 

only after Americans discovered commercial quantities of oil there in 1938 did the 

two countries begin to forge the economic and strategic alliance that endures to this 

day. 

Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, who created the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia by force 

of arms in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century, was a devout Muslim who 

saw all of life as a manifestation of his faith and labored to restrain the influence 

of non-Muslims on his realm, but he did not share the ferocious xenophobia of the 

desert warriors who were the instruments of his conquests. 

On the contrary, he sent clear early signals that he would welcome external assistance for his impoverished realm, even from infidels if need be, provided that the 

outsiders refrain from interference with his rule or with Arabian traditions. Beginning in about 1913, Abdul Aziz invited American doctors from the Protestant medical mission in Bahrain to enter Arabia’s eastern regions to minister to needy people 

there. An English officer, Captain William Shakespear, fought at his side at Jarrab 

in 1915, and later that same year Abdul Aziz entered into a friendship treaty with 

Britain. He was subsidized by the British during and after the Arab Revolt against 

the Ottoman Turks, and sent his beloved second son, Prince Faisal, on a tour of Eu-
8

rope in 1919. And in 1923, when the fanatical Islamic warriors known as the 

Ikhwan were still his allies, Abdul Aziz granted an early, albeit fruitless, oil exploration concession to a New Zealander, Frank Holmes. 

The Ikhwan, who opposed any infidel presence in Arabia and disdained all forms 

of innovation as un-Islamic, denounced Abdul Aziz’s early embrace of outsiders and 

of the automoble and the telegraph; but Abdul Aziz found technology interesting as 

well as useful in consolidating his power. The Ikhwan’s backward views could not 

be allowed to obstruct his vision. He turned on them, and crushed them at the battle of Sibila in 1929, freeing himself to run his new country as he saw fit. By bringing the Ikhwan to heel—with the assistance of the British, who had been offended 

by Ikhwan raids into Iraq—Abdul Aziz established that he and only he would rule 

in the new Kingdom of Nejd and the Hijaz; and while he would rule in the name 

and under the banner of Islam, he would do so in harmony with his neighbors and 

would use external sources to develop the country he had unified. The Prophet Muhammad had sought the help of infidels when it was needed, Abdul Aziz declared, 

and so would he. 

Indeed Abdul Aziz established a pattern that has prevailed, with minor variations, during the reigns of all his successors, in which the king and senior princes 

of the House of Saud have propelled their country along the path of physical modernization with outside help while striving to preserve the rigorous religious orthodoxy and conservative social values prevalent among the population. 

‘‘The battle of Sibila marked the end of an epoch,’’ wrote Abdul Aziz’s British adviser and confident, H. St. John Philby. ‘‘Saudi Arabia had virtually assumed its 

final shape as the result of constant war upon the infidel; and henceforth the infidel 

would be a valued ally in the common cause of progress . . . The sting had been 

taken out of the Ikhwan movement which had played so prominent a part in the 

creation of the new regime, and could now serve no further useful purpose.’’

More than seven decades later, it can be seen that Philby’s assessment was essentially correct, even if his account oversimplified a complicated tale and was less than 

candid about his own role in bringing about the 1933 concession agreement between 

Saudi Arabia and the Standard Oil Company of California. 

The fact was that Abdul Aziz, having overpowered all challengers to his authority 

over Arabia, ruled a prize of dubious value; other than the levies imposed on pilgrims to the Islamic holy sites at Mecca and Medina and the limited taxes the king 

was able to extract from Hijazi merchants, Saudi Arabia in the early 1930s when 

Abdul Aziz was consolidating his power had no income. As the worldwide Great Depression choked off pilgrimage traffic, even the meager revenue stream from pilgrims’ taxes dried up. The king needed money to purchase loyalty among the tribes 

he had defeated or neutralized, and he needed money to import the food required 

by his subjects. If that need mandated that he turn to outsiders and even non-Muslims for the cash and technology that would sustain his rule and lift up his people, 

so be it, provided only that the outsiders honor the terms he would set down to regulate their work on the Kingdom’s holy soil. 

Those terms were recorded by William A. Eddy, who as chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Jeddah during World War II became a trusted confidant of the 

king. ‘‘’We will use your iron, but leave our faith alone,’’’ the king told Eddy. 

‘‘The King’s position,’’ Eddy recalled, ‘‘was that the Koran regulated all matters 

of faith, family, and property, which were not for unbelievers to get involved with. 

‘Our patriarchal authority and the veiling of women are none of your business. On 

the other hand, you have much that we need and will accept: radio, airplanes, 

pumps, oil-drilling rigs and technical know-how.’ This acceptance of technology was 

far in advance of his people, and the King had to fight many battles with bigots 

to win support for his suspected friendship with Christian governments and his cordial relationship with the Arabian-American Oil Company.’’

That was the basis upon which one of the modern world’s most improbable bilateral alliances has long operated. No two countries and no two societies could have 

been more dissimilar; the social environment and governmental system of each was 

alien and distasteful to the other. And yet Saudi Arabia and the United States 

worked together, to the general satisfaction and benefit of both, through the endless 

vicissitudes of Middle East politics because of one fundamental, unchanging policy 

followed by all U.S. administrations since Franklin Roosevelt: The United States 

does not interfere in Saudi Arabia’s internal affairs. How the kingdom treats its citizens is not the business of the United States. 

If the Saudi world view sees all humanity as belonging either to the Dar al-Islam, 

or House of Islam, or the Dar al-Harb, the house or land of war, the Saudis were 

also sufficiently pragmatic to persuade themselves that Americans, as monotheists, 

need not be consigned to the latter. As the diplomat-scholar David Long put it, the 

Saudi world view ‘‘is a perception, not a blueprint for policy action. Saudi Arabia 
9

is no different from any other country in viewing issues in international relations 

in terms of their national interests, not as part of a rigid formula dictating a set 

response.’’ After Sibila, that attitude prevailed, with only sporadic challenge from 

the absolutists such as the violent takeover of the Great Mosque in Mecca in 1979. 

As for the Americans, they harvested the bounty of Saudi Arabia’s oil fields and 

earned many billions of dollars through contracts to develop the country’s airports, 

hospitals, electric power stations and military bases. The United States government 

under every president from Harry Truman to George H. W. Bush valued Saudi Arabia as a redoubt against Soviet penetration of the Gulf region. What made this partnership durable was a commitment by the United States government and by major 

American businesses in the kingdom to accept the terms laid down by Abdul Aziz 

and to refrain from interference with, challenges to, or even criticism of Saudi Arabia’s domestic policies and its social and religious practices. 

However abhorrent the Saudi Arabian system may have been, the Americans who 

lived and worked in the kingdom and negotiated with Saudi officials generally accepted it as a fact of life, and worked around it. Those Americans who might have 

been inclined to challenge the system loosely labeled Wahhabism were generally excluded from employment in Saudi Arabia, both by the U.S. government and by the 

major American corporations doing business there. U.S. government agencies and 

American corporations complied with Saudi Arabia’s insistence on excluding from 

employment there anyone whom the House of Saud deemed unacceptable—which 

for thirty years meant no American Jews were hired for jobs in the kingdom. 

In return, the Saudi monarchs allowed their American guests to create communities where they could replicate the more comfortable life back home, communities 

to which ordinary Saudis had little access. In Dhahran, the American oil town in 

al-Hasa, and later in other compounds all around the country, Americans and other 

foreigners conducted Christian religious services, showed movies, drank alcohol, and 

educated boys and girls in mixed classrooms; men and women socialized together 

and swam in the same pools. American women drove automobiles and rode bicycles. 

Such activities were prohibited to Saudi Arabs and indeed to all residents of the 

Kingdom, but they were tolerated in the closed communities because Abdul Aziz and 

his successors wished the foreigners there to remain in the country. . 

As the foreign presence grew over time, there were naturally exceptions and variations to this fundamental arrangement. Some Americans preferred to live among 

the Arabs, embracing the local culture rather than isolating themselves from it. A 

few defied the rules, violating pork and alcohol restrictions or committing petty 

crimes; some of these went to jail, others were quickly deported. Occasionally the 

non-Muslim religious services became too elaborate or too visible, prompting a 

crackdown. Quite a few Americans, upon seeing a public display of Wahhabi justice 

such as a severed hand hanging from a pole, expressed private revulsion, but neither they nor their employers engaged in public criticism because at all times in 

this relationship the Saudis held the decisive lever of power, the ability to revoke 

the oil concession. 

The American policy of deference to Saudi customs and tradition was manifest 

from the earliest days when the first geologists arrived to look for oil in the autumn 

of 1933. The Americans wore Arab garb, out of respect for local custom. The amir 

of the region, as the king’s representative, dispatched a squad of soldiers to ensure 

the safety of the oil team. The easternmost regions of Saudi Arabia were less hostile 

to outsiders than the Americans might have expected because a substantial part of 

the population was not Wahhabi at all but Shiite; nevertheless, the further they 

ventured inland away from the coast, the more hostility the Americans encountered, 

and only the strong commitment of the king and the amir ensured their safety. 

From those early days at least through the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the archives 

of the State Department, the U.S. military and the Arabian American Oil Company 

are replete with policy statements and exhortations to the effect that Saudi beliefs 

and practices were to be respected, rather than challenged or ridiculed. However 

alien the Saudi system might be to Americans steeped in the values of individual 

liberty and impartial justice, outsiders were instructed not to concern themselves 

with it. If the education that the Saudi Arabs acquired under American patronage 

moderated their views, well and good; but the Americans were constantly reminded 

that they were in the country for economic and strategic reasons, not to alter Saudi 

Arabian society. 

President Kennedy was an exception in that he put direct pressure on the House 

of Saud to abolish slavery, which it did in the 1960s. Otherwise, aside from modest 

efforts by Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and especially Kennedy to persuade the 

Saudis to abandon their policy of refusing to admit Jews into the country, the U.S. 

policy of accommodation remained largely in place until the age of terrorism begin-
10

ning in the mid-1990s. Not until Henry Kissinger broke the taboo on Jews in the 

1970s were American Jews regularly admitted to Saudi Arabia. 

This is not to say that the United States and Saudi Arabia always agreed on matters of policy. The Saudis were and to some extain remain bitter over American acceptance of the partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel. Deep differences 

emerged over Saudi participation in the Arab oil embargo of 1973–1974 and over 

Saudi Arabia’s refusal to accept the decision of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to 

make peace with Israel. The United States reacted with open fury upon discovering 

in 1988 that Saudi Arabia had secretly acquired nuclear-capable ballistic missiles 

from China. But these arguments were never about internal conditions in Saudi 

Arabia, and it can be argued that one reason the bilateral strategic and economic 

relationship survived these confrontations was that the Saudis appreciated the 

American policy of non-interference—a policy that gave them incalculable benefits 

at little political cost. Washington not only accepted Saudi Arabia’s domestic system 

but sometimes even endorsed it, to the point of obsequiousness. 

For example, the terms under which the Saudis agreed to let the United States 

build and operate a military airfield at Dhahran specified that the American team 

dispatched there to train Saudi personnel ‘‘may not include anyone whose presence 

is considered undesirable by the Saudi Arabia government and the United States 

Government will submit a list of the names and identity of the staff and employees.’’ 

In practice, that meant no Jews and no women were to be deployed, and that anyone who offended the Saudis in any way was promptly sent home. 

When members of Congress protested this policy, the State Department took the 

position that ‘‘It is fundamental that sovereign states have the right to control the 

internal order of their affairs in such a manner as they deem to be in their best 

interests.’’

The behavioral guidance given to new American employees by U.S. government 

agencies, the U.S. military and private American corporations was unequivocal and 

consistent. This is the Saudis’ country and they can run it as they wish, Americans 

were told. If you respect their ways and behave appropriately in public, you can 

prosper here; if you insult the Arabs or violate their rules, you will be in trouble. 

‘‘Never ridicule the appearance, customs or religious practices of the people. 

Theirs is an old culture and U.S. military personnel are guests of their government,’’ 

airmen assigned to Dhahran were advised. ‘‘The Arab is not about to discard ageold habit and custom without reason, and is in no hurry.’’

In its extreme form, the willingness of American corporations to comply with 

Saudi customs obliged workers hired for jobs in the Kingdom to convert to Islam. 

This practice was even upheld by the U.S. federal court system in the case of a helicopter pilot named Wade Kern. 

Kern was hired in 1978 by Dynalectron Corportion, a defense contractor that was 

engaged to provide security services in Saudi Arabia, including helicopter flights 

over Mecca and Medina during pilgrimage season to watch for possible trouble 

among the hajjis and to spot fires that might break out. Because non-Muslims are 

not permitted in the holy cities, Dynalectron required pilots assigned to this duty 

to convert to Islam. Kern, a Baptist, did so, but then changed his mind, whereupon 

the company cancelled his assignment. Dynalectron offered him another job, but he 

sued in federal court in Texas, alleging religious discrimination. The court found 

that because of the unique circumstances of the holy cities, the conversion rule was 

a ‘‘bona fide occupational requirement,’’ not discriminatory in intent, and thus permissible under U.S. law. 

For the first decade after Standard Oil geologists began to look for oil, the United 

States government and the State Department paid scant attention to Saudi Arabia. 

What bilateral business needed to be done was in effect conducted through the oil 

company, which of course was in Saudi Arabia to make money, not to promote individual liberty among the Arabs. Washington recognized Abdul Aziz’s government 

and maintained nominal diplomatic relations with the kingdom, but no U.S. officials 

lived in the Kingdom and there was no U.S. diplomatic presence in Jeddah until 

the later years of World War II, when President Roosevelt and his advisers began 

to recognize the strategic potential of Saudi Arabia and its oil. 

All that had changed by 1951, when the United States was fully engaged in the 

Cold War. Radical pro-Moscow Arab nationalism was not yet the threat Washington 

later perceived it to be, but Saudi Arabia was already regarded as a redoubt of proAmerican stability in a volatile and sometimes hostile region. 

In February of that year, the State Department distributed to its posts throughout 

the Middle East an extensive, secret document titled ‘‘Comprenhensive Statement 

of US Policy Toward the Kingdom,’’ which recognized the importance of Saudi Arabia and set out a detailed plan for maintaining stability and ensuring that the country remained friendly to the United States. With that document, deference to the 
11

social and religious customs of Saudi Arabia was enshrined as official U.S. policy—

a policy that was essentially unchallenged for the next forty years. 

Noting that the United States had been the target of extensive criticism from the 

Arabs because of its support for the partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel, 

the document said that ‘‘Saudi Arabia has remained firm in its friendship to the 

United States. It has served as our spokesman and interpreter to less friendly Arab 

states and has, through the prestige and conservative nature of its King, exerted 

a stabilizing influence on the Near East generally.’’ In fact, Abdul Aziz had bitterly 

opposed US policy in Palestine, but he refrained from an open rupture with Washington because he had economic and security interests that overrode his sentiments 

about Zionism. 

In addition to supporting the king and providing military and technological assistance, the policy statement said, the United States should ‘‘observe the utmost respect for Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty, sanctity of the holy places, and local customs. . . . In all our efforts to carry out our policies in Saudi Arabia, we should 

take care to serve as guide or partner and avoid giving the impression of wishing 

to dominate the country.’’

Rather than criticizing Saudi Arabia’s harsh laws and retributive justice, the 

State Department advised, Americans should recognize that the kingdom ‘‘is trying 

very hard to improve itself and it has done well, considering that its sustained efforts have been only a post-war development. It has also had a serious internal obstacle in the fanatical opposition to change and the growth of western influences. 

It behooves us, therefore, to applaud what Saudi Arabia has done and is doing, and 

not criticize it for what it has not yet been able to do.’’

At least that document acknowledged that there was a ‘‘fanatical’’ element in 

Saudi Arabia. Most of the time, in negotiations and policy discussions, American officials and business executives avoided the topic; how the rulers of Saudi Arabia 

dealt with this problem was up to them, not up to anybody from the United States. 

After King Faisal visited the United States in December 1964, for example, President Johnson wrote him a letter expressing satisfaction with their discussions. ‘‘It 

is with great interest that we in this country have been following the progress in 

your program of economic development and social reform for Saudi Arabia. The efforts to broaden educational opportunities for your people and better enable women 

to contribute to the general productiveness of the country are ones of which I am 

especially aware. These problems also occupy much of my time in America. Your 

success in preserving the fundamental guiding religious principles, while at the 

same time modernizing social relationships, draws our respect and admiration.’’ To 

judge from official records, Johnson—like his predecessors and successors—refrained 

from raising such subjects as religious intolerance, plural marriage, amputation of 

body parts, sequestration of women, the absence of democratic institutions or any 

of the other Saudi Arabian practices so unpalatable to Americans. 

In 1976, Congress overrode a veto by President Ford to add a human rights policy 

to the International Security and Arms Export Control Act. In the annual country 

reports on human rights that the State Department has issued in compliance with 

that legislation, State has routinely criticized Saudi Arabia for its religious intolerance, disenfranchisement of women, and arbitrary justice. Yet those reports from a 

stepchild unit of the State Department, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights 

and Labor, had hardly any policy impact on the bilateral relationship with Riyadh. 

Even Ford’s successor, Jimmy Carter, who made human rights a cornerstone of 

his foreign policy, praised the Saudi rulers effusively and refrained from pressing 

them about internal affairs. Arriving in Riyadh in January 1978, Carter said at an 

airport ceremony, ‘‘Seeing the generosity of this welcome, I feel that I am among 

my own people and know that my steps will not be hindered, because I walk the 

same path as Your Majesty, King Khalid, toward a common goal of even greater 

friendship among our people, between our two countries, and of peace for all the 

people of the world.’’

Later that year, when King Khaled visited Washington, he was Carter’s guest at 

a White House luncheon. A White House statement afterward listed the topics that 

were discussed—mostly relating to the Camp David peace agreement between Israel 

and Egypt—and noted that ‘‘these discussions were carried out in an atmosphere 

of longstanding friendship, deep mutuality of interest, and well-tested sprit of cooperation.’’ Never mind that the Saudis opposed that agreement and eventually cut 

off aid to Egypt because of it. Nothing in the public record about Khalid’s visit indicates that Carter even raised the subject of Saudi domestic policies. 

This bilateral ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ arrangement began to unravel with Iraq’s 

invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Convinced by the Americans that Saudi Arabia was 

next on the target list of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, King Fahd ibn Abdul 

Aziz took the fateful decision to allow half a million American and other foreign 
12

troops into his country, first to protect the Kingdom from possible invasion, then to 

wage the 1991 campaign to liberate Kuwait known as Operation Desert Storm. 

In his memoir the U.S. Commander of that campaign, General Norman 

Schwarzkopf, recalled that he and U.S. diplomats spent many hours trying to minimize the impact of this mammoth inflow of foreigners upon the social, cultural and 

religious life of the host country. ‘‘To my consternation,’’ Schwarzkopf wrote of the 

Saudi leadership, ‘‘their most pressing concern was neither the threat from Saddam 

nor the enormous joint military enterprise on which we were embarked. What 

loomed largest for them was the cultural crisis triggered by this sudden flood of 

Americans into their kingdom.’’

The Saudis’ apprehension was well founded. Schwarzkopf and other American 

commanders went to considerable lengths to ensure that the troops’ behavior did not 

clash with Saudi sensibilities—no alcohol, no female entertainers, no bare heads on 

female soldiers—but the sheer magnitude and ubiquity of the foreign presence nonetheless created a backlash. In retrospect, it can be seen that the Desert Storm deployment was the catalyst for the difficulties that have beset the bilateral relationship ever since. 

It overpowered the consensus among Saudis that foreigners could be tolerated in 

the kingdom if they were there to improve conditions for the populace; these foreigners in uniform were in the country for reasons that had little to do with developing the infrastructure or educating the people. The deployment incited anti-government sentiment among critics who questioned why the country could not defend 

itself despite its massive expenditures on military equipment and training. It angered the devout, who asked why Saudi Arabia would ally itself with infidels in a 

war against fellow Muslims. And it inflamed Osama bin Laden, who—having participated in the successful jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan—offered 

himself as the sword of Islam who would defend the holy soil of Arabia, only to be 

rebuffed by a king who joined forces with the Americans. 

These passions, coupled with the Wahhabi extremism that had been permitted, 

even encouraged, in the country’s schools and mosques for the previous decade as 

a counterweight to the Shiite revolution spreading from Iran, led to the age of terror 

in which the Washington-Riyadh alliance has been so sorely tested. And given these 

pressures on the Saudi monarchy, it was clearly not a propitious time for the United 

States to press the Saudis on human rights issues. 

Almost simultaneously with Desert Storm, the breakup of the Soviet Union and 

the end of the Cold War ended the threat of global communism, resistance to which 

had been a strong common interest of Saudi Arabia and the United States for decades. 

After Saudi Arabia followed other Middle Eastern countries in nationalizing its 

oil indstry in the late 1970s, the threat the King might revoke the Aramco oil concession no long hung over U.S. policy; there was no more oil concession. But by that 

time the imperatives of the Cold War, and of Saudi support for U.S. initiatives in 

diplomacy and covert action, reinforced Washington’s reluctance to alienat the kingdom’s rulers. Saudi financing was crucial, for example, to the successful campaign 

of the Afghan muhaheddin against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, and to the Reagan 

administration’s covert support for the ‘‘contras’’ of Nicaragua. 

Once communism imploded, the Saudis, no longer threatened by this atheistic ideology, were liberated to expand their economic and political interests into previously 

closed corners of the world, notably China. Thus within a year or so of the Desert 

Storm campaign, relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia were entering a whole new era, in which the basic oil-for-security bargain forged in the 1940s 

would have to be renegotiated, a process that is still going on. 

Before the onset of domestic terrorism in Saudi Arabia with the 1995 bomb attack 

against the National Guard Training Center in Riyadh, in which five Americans 

died, Americans and other Westerners in the Kingdom generally lived privileged 

lifes of safety and prosperty. Ordinary street crime was unknown, and terrorism 

was a phenomenon of other places, not Saudi Arabia. The tranquillity of the kingdom was part of its attraction for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who lived 

and worked there in the fifty years after World War II. 

Other than the relative few who actually went there, however, Americans knew 

little about Saudi Arabia beyond the broadest generalities absorbed from the news 

media. Most Americans, after all, were of European stock. Their religion, literature, 

cuisine, music and ideas about the organization of society were traceable to Europe, 

not the Arabian Peninsula, and Americans had no emotional ties to the Saudi kingdom. In general, so long as the oil flowed, Saudi Arabia was not a country of great 

interest. The curriculum of Saudi schools was of no concern to people in Cleveland 

or Albuquerque. 
13

The age of terror has changed that over the past decade. As the attacks on the 

USS Cole and the embassies in East Africa made clear that Americans were targets, 

Americans naturally began to examine the source of this threat, and to a great extent they did not like what they saw. And after the attacks of September 11, 2001, 

in New York and Washington, it was suddenly open season on Saudi Arabia in 

America’s newspapers amd books, on television and in Congress. In many forums, 

‘‘Wahhabism’’ became a synonym for violent, xenophobic extremism. 

This atmospheric shift left the State Department little choice but to declare Saudi 

Arabia in 2004 a ‘‘Country of Particular Concern’’ under the International Religious 

Freedom Act, which requires the U.S. government to take action against countries 

deemed responsible for especially severe violations of religious freedom. 

In designating Saudi Arabia as a ‘‘Country of Particular Concern’’ on this issue, 

the State Department was only stating the obvious. Saudi Arabia does not have and 

does not advocate freedom of religion. All Saudi citizens must be Muslims, and no 

other faith may be practiced in public. Apostasy is punishable by death. In fact, 

under Saudi law, the entire purpose of the state is the protection and propagation 

of Islam, not the protection or liberty of the individual. Chapter 5 of Saudi Arabia’s 

‘‘Basic Law of Government,’’ the de facto constitution promulgated in 1992, specifies 

that ‘‘the State protects Islam [and] implements the Shari’ah,’’ or Islamic law. It 

specifies that ‘‘the state prtects human rights in accordance with the Islamic 

Shari’ah’’—not in accordance with the Bill of Rights. 

That text dates from 1992, but the dominance of Islam as the raison d’eˆtre of the 

Saudi state has been a fact of life since Americans first started going there many 

decades ago, and Americans have in the past chosen to accept Saudi Arabia as it 

is, not as they would like it to be. 

It might seem that in the changed environment since 9/11, Saudi Arabia would 

be a logical target of the Bush Administration’s campaign to promote democracy and 

freedom of expression in the Middle East, but such is not the case. The administration appears to have recognized that Saudi Arabia is a unique society and a valuable economic parter that it would be counterproductive to alienate. The ‘‘Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks in the United States,’’ known 

as the ‘‘9/11 Commission Report,’’ which ‘‘found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded’’ the al-Qaeda 

network, gave the Bush administration political cover to continue to treat Saudi 

Arabia as a valuable if troubled ally rather than as an enemy—which is the course 

the administration has chosen to follow. 

The administration has mostly accepted the declarations by King Abdullah and 

other senior princes that the Saudi regime, itself the target of a domestic terror 

campaign inspired by followers of Bin Laden, is an ally in the ‘‘war on terrorism’’ 

and is committed to expunging extremism from its mosques and classrooms. This 

policy has been reflected in the repeated congressional testimony by administration 

officials that Saudi Arabia has been helpful on this front, even if it still has a long 

way to go, and in the decision by Secretary of State Rice to refrain from imposing 

the economic sanctions nominally required by the religious freedom finding. 

When Rice went to Saudi Arabia in November 2005, it was not to scold or criticize 

the Saudis but to advance the bilateral ‘‘strategic dialogue’’ initiated by President 

Bush and by Abdullah, then still crown prince, when they met at the president’s 

ranch in April of that year. Rice and her Saudi counterpart, Prince Saud al-Faisal, 

announced in Jeddah the creation of six ‘‘working groups’’ on subjects of mutual interest: 

Counterterrorism; Military Affairs; Energy; Economic and Financial Affairs; Consular Affairs and Partnership; and Education Exchange and Human Development 

in the US and Saudi Arabia. Clearly these groups’ discussions of terrorism and 

‘‘human development’’ could include tough conversations about Saudi Arabia’s domestic human rights policies, but the Bush administration has chosen not to have 

a public argument with the Saudis on these subjects. 

That choice was stated explicitly in the joint declaration issued by Bush and 

Abdullah after their April 2005 meeting in Texas. ‘‘Today we renewed our personal 

friendship and that between our nations,’’ the two leaders said. 

The word ‘‘Wahhabism’’ does not appear in their text. It says that ‘‘the United 

States respects Saudi Arabia as the birthplace of Islam, one of the world’s great religions, and as the symbolic center of the Islamic faith as custodian of Islam’s two 

holy places in Mecca and Medina. Saudi Arabia reiterates its call on all those who 

teach and propagate the Islamic faith to adhere strictly to the Islamic message of 

peace, moderation, and tolerance and reject that which deviates from these principles.’’

As for democratization, ‘‘While the United States considers that nations will create institutions that reflect the history, culture, and traditions of their societies, it 
14

does not seek to impose its own style of government on the government and people 

of Saudi arabia. The United States applauds the recently held elections in the Kingdom for representatives for municipal councils’’—in which women were banned from 

voting, let alone running—‘‘and looks for even wider participation in the accordance 

with the Kingdom’s reform program.’’

In the language of diplomacy, that amounted to a promise by the United States 

to let the Saudis manage their internal affairs without interference, even if it is no 

longer possible for Americans to turn a blind eye to what the Saudis do. After all, 

Saudi Arabia is the United States’ largest trading partner in the Middle East, a 

multi-billion dollar market for U.S. business and a crucial supplier of oil. Those economic considerations trump human rights and religious freedom, as they have for 

more than half a century. And because Saudi Arabia under Abdullah has been willing to stick its neck out on the question of making peace with Israel, even while 

Iranian leaders are calling for Israel’s extinction, the kingdom’s political value clearly outweighs the odious nature of its domestic political system. As in the past, Saudi 

Arabia is perceived as too valuable to alienate.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Lippman. 

Tom Malinowski. 

STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS MALINOWSKI, ADVOCACY 

DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thanks for having me. 

I will start my statement by saying that I agree with your remarks, Mr. Chairman. We have a President now who believes that 

promoting democratic freedoms, particularly in the Muslim world, 

is central to fighting terrorism. And, like you, I don’t question the 

sincerity of that belief. I think he is a true believer in that principle. I also think he happens to be right. But given this conviction 

on his part, you would think that the more central a country was 

to the fight against terrorism, the more vigorously the administration would promote democracy there. 

More often than not, the opposite has been true. The more the 

administration has needed another country in the short run to capture or kill individual terrorists, the less eager it has been to press 

that country to reform in ways that will dry up support for terrorism itself. 

I don’t think there can ever be perfect consistency in life unless 

you want to be consistently unprincipled. Doing the wrong thing all 

the time is easy; doing the right thing all the time is very hard. 

And I would rather have a foreign policy that is inconsistently 

right than one that is consistently wrong. 

I also don’t think the United States should treat every human 

rights violator exactly the same way. We need to do what is effective in each particular case, and that is going to vary from country 

to country. But while our tactics may vary from country to country, 

from place to place, I don’t think our voice should be varying. 

There is no reason why the United States can’t speak honestly, 

clearly, and publicly about human rights to every country in the 

world, including its closest allies. The United States is most effective in promoting liberty in the world when people out there believe 

that we are rising above our own narrow self-interest, when they 

believe that we are defending universal ideals. If, instead, our rhetoric about democracy is seen as a weapon that we only use against 

our enemies, people around the world become extremely cynical 

about everything we do in the name of freedom. 
15

Under such circumstances, dictators in places like Cuba and Iran 

can much more easily deflect United States criticism by saying that 

we are being selective, and dissidents in these countries also don’t 

really trust that we are really on their side, and they have a harder time working with us. We become less credible, less effective. 

So, with that in mind, let me focus on the countries, on the examples that you have put to us, briefly. 

With respect to Iran, I think the administration’s strong public 

focus on human rights is completely appropriate. By speaking loudly and clearly about human rights there, the United States can 

connect with the many Iranians, especially young people, who are 

themselves eager to live in a more open society. 

Now, America’s human rights message can drive a wedge between the Iranian people and their leaders. What undermines that 

message is the administration’s saber rattling, which does the opposite; it unites the Iranian people and their leaders. 

Threats of force give the Iranian regime a longer lease on life, 

in my view, than it might otherwise have if it couldn’t use tensions 

with the United States to distract its people from their grave domestic problems. 

Now here is something else that doesn’t help in the case of Iran: 

The administration’s constant public assertions that it is providing 

financial assistance to those who are struggling inside the country 

for democracy and human rights. In fact, no U.S. aid money is actually reaching dissidents inside the country. It couldn’t. And they 

wouldn’t accept it even if they could. 

But the Iranian Government has used these public announcements to accuse dissidents falsely of taking United States money, 

and it has persecuted them for it. These dissidents, including Nobel 

Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, have been begging the administration to stop making these claims, but somehow those appeals 

have fallen on deaf ears. It is long past time for that to stop. 

Now, with respect to Uzbekistan, the story is a bit more complicated. Immediately after 9/11, I think you could say, Uzbekistan 

would be a good example of a double standard. We needed 

Uzbekistan as a launching pad for military operations in Afghanistan. They gave us a base. We gave them increased assistance. The 

administration muted its criticism. But that policy began to evolve. 

The Congress tied aid to Uzbekistan to human rights progress. The 

administration became more critical. Eventually it suspended aid. 

And then in 2005, we had the terrible massacre of unarmed protesters by the Uzbek Security Forces in the city of Andijan. After 

that, the administration condemned those events very vigorously. 

It staged an airlift of some of the victims of those events out of the 

region, against very angry objections of the Government of 

Uzbekistan. 

As a result of that the Uzbeks kicked the United States military 

out of the base. And to its credit, the administration didn’t mute 

its criticism at that point in order to save its military relationship. 

Nevertheless, the administration didn’t follow up on that by imposing sanctions on the Uzbek Government, as the European Union 

did immediately after the events in Andijan. 

The Pentagon still had overflight and drive-through rights in 

Uzbekistan. They argued against any further measures that might 
16

alienate the Uzbek leadership. And I think the rest of the administration basically lost interest in the country. We are now paying almost no attention to Uzbekistan. I would say that current policy 

is basically to wait for the current dictator of the country, Islam 

Karimov, to pass from the scene. And I think it is not a wise policy; 

it is not a policy at all. I think there needs to be more support for 

civil society inside Uzbekistan and more pressure, including targeted sanctions on its government. There is legislation in the Senate being introduced by Senators McCain and Biden that would do 

that, and I hope that the House would follow suit as well. 

I would also say, as an aside, that there is a lesson of our experience with Uzbekistan that we might want to apply now to another 

military relationship we are developing with another country in the 

region, and that is Azerbaijan. You all have heard the proposal on 

the table, that the Russians have put on the table, to put a missile 

defense system in Azerbaijan. I have no idea what the administration is going to do there. I sure hope they have learned the lesson 

that betting on long-term security, on a long-term military partnership with an inherently unstable country in that part of the world, 

inherently unstable authoritarian country, is a very bad idea. 

Now, Saudi Arabia represents a much more obvious double 

standard, as my friend Tom Lippman explained in much more detail than I will. For years the Saudis were basically exempt from 

our global human rights policies. That did change very slightly 

after September 11; and I would say, to be fair, that quiet United 

States pressure has contributed to a very modest beginning of an 

internal reform process in the Saudi kingdom. 

One very modest example of that is that my organization, 

Human Rights Watch, has been able to visit Saudi Arabia in the 

last year, conduct interviews with Saudi citizens, even visit some 

penal facilities. And the administration has quietly raised human 

rights issues with the Saudis in the last few years. But the key 

word here is ‘‘quiet.’’ This is done behind the scenes. There isn’t 

public criticism. The administration has been much more reluctant 

to speak publicly about Saudis’ problems than it has been with any 

other close ally in the Middle East, including Egypt. 

There is a strategic dialogue between the United States and 

Saudi Arabia. It has many working groups on many issues, but not 

on human rights. We have cited them for violations of religious 

freedom; most recently, human trafficking. But they haven’t been 

sanctioned for those violations. 

Again, I agree with Tom Lippman’s analysis on why that is. I 

don’t agree that it is the right thing though. I mean, I do think 

that while we need to take care in how we speak to the Saudis 

about human rights, we do need to speak to them about it. The administration’s silence on human rights in Saudi Arabia doesn’t resonate well, actually, with the growing number of ordinary Saudis 

who want change in the kingdom; and it resonates particularly 

badly elsewhere in the Middle East. It makes it seem as if again 

we only care about human rights abuses when they happen in Iran, 

when they happen in countries we don’t like, but we don’t care 

when it happens in countries that we do like. And therefore, people 

conclude that we are not being sincere. 
17

As you said, I did want to throw one other country into the mix, 

and that is Pakistan, because I really think that today, this week, 

it is probably the most egregious example of a double standard. We 

are right now in the middle of a remarkable and growing movement in Pakistan that has been led by the country’s lawyers to try 

to bring about a return to democratic government in that country. 

Last week President Bush was asked about this. He responded 

by praising General Musharraf’s democracy and dismissing these 

protests as ‘‘posturing.’’ Those kinds of statements, in my view, 

align the United States behind one man in Pakistan, against virtually every decent segment of society there, against the very people who are most likely to be friendly to the United States. And 

given General Musharraf’s growing reliance on the Islamists in his 

country and his consequent refusal to crack down on the Taliban 

elements who are killing our troops in Afghanistan, I would say 

this policy is as contrary to our security interests as it is to our values. 

We need a very clear statement in the next few days from the 

President, the State Department, and from you all about the need 

for a return to democratic institutions and the rule of law in Pakistan. It is not about General Musharraf or any other individual. It 

is about those institutions and our need to defend them. 

With that, I will close. And thank you again for the opportunity 

to testify, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Malinowski follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS MALINOWSKI, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR, HUMAN

RIGHTS WATCH

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for holding this hearing 

and for inviting me to testify. 

You’ve asked a question today that unfortunately has a very simple answer. Is 

there a human rights double standard? Yes, there is. 

There has always been a tension in American foreign policy between the belief 

that promoting human rights is vital to advancing long term American interests 

around the world, and the tendency to forget that belief when short-term interests 

get in the way. 

The Bush administration has been no exception to this rule. Ever since 9/11, 

President Bush has been arguing that promoting democratic freedoms, especially in 

the Muslim world, is key to fighting terrorism. The president appears to be sincere 

in this belief. I also think he is right. The only sure way to defeat radical, violent 

groups like al Qaeda is to promote the emergence of moderate political forces that 

will drown out the radicals’ message and give citizens peaceful avenues for expressing themselves. But such forces can only thrive in politically open societies—unlike 

the terrorists, they need freedom of speech and assembly, free elections and the rule 

of law to survive. 

Given this conviction on the part of President Bush, you’d think that the more 

central a country was to the fight against terrorism, the more vigorously the administration would promote democracy there. But more often than not, the opposite has 

been true. This has been the case, to some extent, with Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia. It’s also been true with a number of countries not on your list, such as Russia, 

Ethiopia, and above all today with Pakistan. The more the administration has needed another country in the short term to capture or kill individual terrorist suspects, 

the less eager it’s been to press that country to reform in ways that will dry up support for terrorism itself. 

Now, let me be clear: I don’t expect pure and perfect consistency from our government on this or any other matter. In fact, I think that there is only way to be perfectly consistent in life, and that is to be consistently unprincipled. Doing the wrong 

thing all the time is easy. Doing the right thing all the time is a lot harder. And, 

I’d rather have a foreign policy that’s inconsistently right than one that’s consistently wrong. 
18

What’s more, I don’t believe that the United States should treat every human 

rights violator in the world in exactly the same way. The strategies the U.S. government chooses to promote human rights should vary from country to country. They 

must take into account what will be most effective in each particular case, and respond to the needs and desires of those who are struggling for human rights and 

democracy on the ground. 

That said, while American strategies may differ from country to country, America’s voice should not. There is no reason why the United States can’t speak honestly, clearly, and publicly about human rights to every government in the world, 

whether it is friend or foe. After all, engagement is not the same thing as endorsement—you can have a relationship with a country like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia 

without feeling you have to defend its government’s policies whenever they’re criticized. Yet far too often, this is something the U.S. government forgets. Too often, 

American diplomats assume that to defend America’s choice of friends in the world, 

they have to defend everything those friends do—or at least be silent. Again—this 

should be seen as utterly unnecessary. It is also profoundly harmful to America’s 

overall human rights message in the world. 

The United States is most effective in promoting liberty and human rights when 

people around the world believe it is rising above narrow self interest to defend universal ideals. If, instead, the U.S. government’s rhetoric about democracy is seen as 

a weapon it uses only against its enemies, people around the world become cynical 

about everything the United States does in the name of freedom. Under such circumstances, dictators in countries like Iran or Cuba can deflect U.S. criticism by 

arguing that it’s selective. Dissidents in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia doubt 

that the United States is really on their side; they suspect it is using its freedom 

agenda to mask other ends, and they’re less willing to be associated with U.S. democracy programs. 

With that in mind, let me focus on the countries that are the subject of this hearing, and add one additional case that I believe deserves urgent attention. 

With respect to Iran, I think the administration’s strong public focus on human 

rights is entirely appropriate. The Iranian government systematically suppresses 

freedom of expression. It harasses and imprisons its critics. It routinely tortures and 

mistreats detained dissidents. It persecutes religious minorities. By speaking loudly 

and clearly about human rights, the United States can connect with the many Iranians—particularly young people—who are themselves angry about the injustices 

committed by their government and eager to live in a more open society. Their activism offers the best hope for change inside Iran, which in turn would make possible 

the resolution of larger security issues between the United States and Iran. 

America’s human rights message resonates with ordinary Iranians; what undermines it is the administration’s saber rattling—the military exercises in the Persian 

Gulf, and implicit threats of military force over the nuclear issue. Such threats unite 

the Iranian people with their leaders; they provide a pretext for greater political repression; indeed, they give the current Iranian government a longer lease on life 

than it might otherwise have if it couldn’t use tensions with America to distract its 

people from domestic problems. 

Something else that doesn’t help: the administration’s constant public assertions 

that it is providing assistance to those who are struggling for democracy inside Iran. 

Just last week, the State Department spokesman put out a fact sheet claiming that 

current U.S. funding ‘‘supports those inside Iran who desire basic civil liberties.’’ In 

fact, no U.S. aid money is actually reaching dissidents inside the country—and they 

wouldn’t accept it even if they could. Most of the funding is going for broadcasting 

to Iran, which is obviously not being spent inside the country. But the Iranian government has used these announcements to accuse dissidents—falsely—of taking 

U.S. money and has persecuted them for it. These dissidents have begged the administration to stop making these claims; it is long past time for the administration 

to heed them. 

With respect to Uzbekistan, the story is a bit more complicated. Uzbekistan became a close U.S. ally after 9/11, when it agreed to host U.S. forces engaged in the 

fight in Afghanistan in exchange for greater U.S. assistance. At first, the administration muted its criticism of this new ally’s human rights record. And that record 

was (and remains) abysmal. Uzbekistan is an absolute dictatorship in the Soviet 

mold. It’s government brooks no dissent. It has imprisoned thousands of people for 

their political and religious beliefs. It locks up dissidents in pscychiatric institutions. 

It practices torture systematically. It’s ruthless policies have focused particularly on 

people who practice their Muslim faith independent of state-controlled institutions, 

driving believers underground, and potentially increasing support for violent radicalism. 
19

America’s association with this government was thus profoundly counterproductive. The administration was using Uzbekistan as a staging ground for battles fought elsewhere, when it should have been using it as a proving ground for 

principles on which an effective battle against terrorism depends. 

But that policy did evolve. In 2003, Congress tied aid to the Uzbek government 

to progress on human rights. The administration stepped up its criticism of 

Uzbekistan and, ultimately, aid was withheld. Then, in May of 2005, Uzbek security 

forces massacred hundreds of civilians who were protesting government policies in 

the city of Andijan, and launched a brutal crackdown on civil society throughout the 

country. The administration condemned the massacre, insisted on an independent 

international investigation, and, against furious Uzbek government objections, airlifted to safety hundreds of refugees who had fled Andijan for neighboring 

Kyrgyzstan. As a result of these U.S. actions, the Uzbek government expelled U.S. 

forces from their base in southern Uzbekistan. To its credit, the administration did 

not mute its concerns about human rights to keep this base. 

Nevertheless, the administration did not follow up by imposing sanctions on the 

Uzbek government, as the European Union did in the wake of the Andijan killings. 

There was an internal debate on this issue within the administration. The Pentagon, which did not want to lose the limited overflight and drive-through rights the 

U.S. military retained in Uzbekistan, objected to any measures that might further 

alienate the Uzbek leadership. The result has been a policy stalemate, and diminished focus on Uzbekistan—in effect, the United States withdrew its attention when 

it withdrew its troops. Having done the right thing immediately after the Andijan 

events, the administration has done nothing since. Its strategy appears to amount 

to little more than waiting for Uzbekistan’s ruler, Islam Karimov, to pass from the 

scene. A much more proactive policy is needed, one that combines support for what 

is left of Uzbek civil society, increasing the flow of information into the country, and 

targeted sanctions against the leadership. Legislation to impose sanctions has been 

introduced in the Senate by Senators McCain and Biden; I hope similar legislation 

will be considered and approved by the House. 

An more obvious double standard exists in U.S. policy towards Saudi Arabia. For 

years, of course, the U.S. government simply exempted Saudi Arabia from its global 

democracy promotion efforts. That had changed very slightly after 9/11, and, to be 

fair, quiet U.S. pressure has contributed to the very modest beginnings of an internal reform process in the Saudi Kingdom. But the key word here is quiet. The administration has been far more reluctant to speak publicly about Saudi Arabia’s 

problems than it has been even about any other close ally in the Arab world, including Egypt. 

In 2005, the United States initiated a Strategic Dialogue with Saudi Arabia, 

which includes working groups on a number of issues, but none formally designated 

to deal with human rights. State Department officials have traveled to Saudi Arabia 

to raise human rights issues, but these discussions are held very much behind the 

scenes and it is unclear how much progress, if any, has been made. The State Department’s office of religious freedom has worked hard on Saudi cases, and helped 

persuade Saudi Arabia to make a commitment to respect the right of private worship. But it has not demanded effective enforcement of this commitment and has 

been silent about recent breaches, including the January deportation of Ahmadi 

Muslims from South Asia solely because of their faith. 

For the past two years, the State Department has condemned Saudi Arabia for 

its policies on human trafficking, placing it in the category of most serious violators, 

or Tier 3 under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. But the administration has 

consistently waived sanctions against Saudi Arabia that are supposed to be triggered by that designation, arguing that a full waiver needs to be given to providing 

military sales to Saudi Arabia ‘‘to advance goals of the Global War on Terror and 

U.S. commercial interests.’’

There is a concern that speaking too loudly about issues like women’s rights and 

religious freedom in Saudi Arabia could backfire, causing these issues to be perceived as exclusively Western attacks against a pristine Islamic culture. Care indeed 

needs to be taken in choosing how to speak to Saudis about human rights. But silence is not a wise alternative. Silence creates the perception not just among Saudis 

but among a much wider audience in the Middle East that the United States doesn’t 

really care about human rights in the region. After all, people understandably reason, if the United States really cared it would be criticizing its allies as well as the 

Syrians and Iranians. The result is a loss of credibility, and effectiveness, for all 

U.S. efforts to promote reform in the region. 

It is certainly possible for the United States to speak out in ways that resonate 

with the growing number of Saudi citizens who themselves are concerned about 

such issues as the fair application of justice in Saudi courts, the highhanded policies 
20

of the religious police, the protected privileges of the elite, and the ability of women 

to manage their affairs. Indeed, by taking a principled and consistent stand on these 

issues in the right tone, the United States would be aligning itself with the overwhelming majority of Saudis who believe there are problems in their society that 

need to be publicly discussed and fixed. The administration should not keep buying 

the Saudi leadership’s line that they cannot move faster than their people on reform. The Saudi government has, in fact, been moving slower than its people. And 

the United States would lose nothing by saying so. 

Mr. Chairman, let me close by adding one additional country to the mix here, and 

that is Pakistan. I believe that Pakistan represents the most egregious, and harmful, example of a human rights double standard in American foreign policy today. 

Pakistan appears to have little place in President Bush’s ‘‘freedom agenda.’’ On the 

contrary, President Bush has repeatedly come to the defense of his friend President 

Musharraf against anyone who criticizes his continued dictatorial rule over Pakistan. 

In recent weeks, a growing movement of Pakistanis, led by the country’s lawyers, 

have been peacefully demanding a return to democratic government in the country. 

Last week, President Bush responded by praising Pakistani ‘‘democracy’’ and referring to the growing protests against General Musharraf as ‘‘posturing.’’

These statements appear to align the United States behind one man against virtually every decent segment of Pakistani society—against the very people in that 

country who are most likely to be America’s friends and to support a moderate, modern course for Pakistan. This kind of approach will reinforce all of General 

Musharraf’s bad tendencies—not just his authoritarian crackdown, but his growing 

estrangement from moderate, secular forces in the country, his growing political reliance on Islamists, and his consequent refusal to crack down on the Taliban elements who are killing American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. It is a classic 

case of muting human rights concerns to protect a security relationship. But it is 

in fact as contrary to U.S. security interests as it is to America’s commitment to 

democracy. And it is killing America’s image with the next generation of, hopefully, 

democratic Pakistani leaders. 

I raise this, Mr. Chairman, because it is truly an urgent example of the problem 

you are focusing on today, and one that requires immediate attention. We desperately need, in the coming days, clear, public statements from both the administration and the Congress urging full respect for the rule of law and judicial independence in Pakistan, the release of political detainees, media freedom, and a swift 

return to civilian, democratic rule. This shouldn’t be about whether the United 

States supports or opposes a particular leader—but it needs to be, clearly and unequivocally, about U.S. support for the institutions of democracy and law. 

Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to testify. I look forward to answering any questions the committee may have.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you so much, Mr. Malinowski. 

Dr. Olcott. 

STATEMENT OF MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT, PH.D., SENIOR ASSOCIATE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL 

PEACE 

Ms. OLCOTT. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify 

today, and I will make some general points and then do an 

abridged version of my testimony. 

Four quick points: First, obviously, I don’t like human rights 

abuses or human rights abusers. Secondly, I don’t like double 

standards. Thirdly, I recognize that the U.S. has to protect its national security interests. But fourthly, I don’t believe we can get 

states to alter behavior we find troubling simply by criticizing 

them. And I have really spent the last 20 years grappling with the 

question of how we get a state like Uzbekistan, in particular, to 

change the way it treats its citizens. 

I was really struck by the chairman’s remarks about the double 

standard. I think that in the Uzbek case, the Uzbeks firmly believe 

that their relationship to the United States has been—that they 

have been the victims of a double standard by the U.S. They really 
21

believe that the U.S. has ignored human rights abuses of other 

states in the region if those states have been more strategically important to the U.S.; for example, if they have oil and gas. 

And the example the Uzbeks always point to when they are criticized on the question—because they are a country of particular concern on religious rights—is what makes them angry is not that 

they have been labeled that way, but the Turkmen weren’t and 

they were. So these states do look at how we treat neighboring 

states and their treatment. 

That said, I think that the story of a Uzbek-United States relationship is a story of misunderstandings and miscues on both sides, 

and it is really a story in which the Uzbek people have paid the 

biggest price. 

The question I see before us is what the United States can do 

to increase the prospects for Uzbekistan’s development of democratic, political, and economic institutions, and do it in a way that 

doesn’t sacrifice U.S. long, medium, or short-term security. I think 

that the situation in Uzbekistan is quite different from either 

Saudi Arabia or Iran and it is more akin to the problems we find 

in other post-Soviet states and those post-Soviet states in which 

they are still ruled by a founding Communist-era political figure. 

So that gives us hope. In a sense, it gives us more ability to maneuver. It is not a system that is rooted in several generations of 

transfers of authority within a single elite. 

The miscue is—and I think this has really hampered the process 

of political developments in our relationship—is that Karimov really thought that he could become a friend to the United States, 

somewhat akin to what Pakistan was in the Cold War. And that 

was a goal throughout, a goal that he thought he achieved at 9/11, 

and then again discovered he didn’t. 

I am going to skip through the history to try to get to the 

present. I think it is important to remember that Karimov did give 

lip service to democratic goals during his first year after independence, and even participated in a contested, albeit neither free nor 

fair, election for his Presidency. So in theory it is possible for them 

to do different things than they have done. 

The security relationship with Uzbekistan really pre-dated 9/11, 

and I think it is really important to note that this cooperation was 

not simply because of the attack on Afghanistan. In fact, the 

United States under President Clinton sent armed, unmanned 

drones looking for al-Qaeda, from Uzbekistan looking for bin 

Laden. So there was something to build on in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. 

Then there was 9/11 and this new friendship. I think that this 

new friendship was really seen by the Uzbek elite, by pro-reformer 

elements within that elite, as something they viewed with real enthusiasm. And I think that they expected something of a double 

standard with regard to the enormous political commitment they 

made. They signed this document in March 2002, agreeing within 

a 5-year period to have free and fair elections, and a democratic 

Parliament, and a whole host of things that the elite themselves 

recognized was impossible. But they hoped that this would push 

the government toward making reforms and not become a litmus 
22

test for future funding. They really didn’t understand the process 

by which Congress makes decisions. 

But the central focus of this elite was really to get the Karimov 

government to jump-start economic reform. And here again, you 

have a tale of frustration where the World Bank and the IMF came 

in and they set new targets for the Uzbeks, and the Uzbeks did not 

meet these benchmarks for reform. They felt that the benchmarks 

didn’t give them enough resources. And I can talk about that if 

anybody is interested. And then the World Bank and IMF felt that 

the benchmarks themselves were fair and had to be met. 

In this environment, it did not take long for the United StatesUzbek relationship to go sour and both sides to walk away unhappy. The Uzbeks really expected massive assistance in the aftermath of September 11. They expected a double standard. They expected to get the kind of money that a state like Israel or Egypt 

got. That is what they thought they were getting. And I think in 

that environment they would have swallowed what they saw as a 

bigger pill on the human rights reforms, you know—that they 

would have done something, I believe. 

But other people don’t. And again, we are going down—as I said 

in my testimony, the Robert Frost poem—‘‘The Road Not Taken.’’ 

You know, you can’t talk about what didn’t occur. And this is very 

definitely something that didn’t occur. But I think that it is important to know that the military partnership was in deep trouble before Andijan and that there was a good chance we would have lost 

the base even at that point, even if Andijan had not occurred. In 

fact, in the draft of my book that was going to press at the time 

of Andijan, I already talked about the base possibly being lost. So 

I think we have to get the timing of the events right. 

This said, Andijan creates this enormous hole in the relationship 

that doesn’t go away. The fact that the Uzbek Government used excessive force to quell largely unarmed civilian demonstration remains. Whether things would have occurred differently if we had 

been in the middle of a multiyear retraining program for Uzbek Security Forces when these demonstrations occurred, or if the security relationship was healthy, or would the Uzbeks have allowed an 

international investigation? 

Personally I think that they would have, had there been a 

healthy security relationship at that point. But Karimov felt he had 

nothing to lose and he was willing to lose what he lost. That is the 

problem of lack of reform. 

Let me come to my concluding remarks. I think 2 years after 

Andijan, those of us who wish to promote change in Uzbekistan are 

stuck between a rock and a hard place. While Uzbekistan doesn’t 

enjoy its relative isolation under the EU sanctions that were talked 

about, and the risk of sanctions by the United States, nonetheless 

the Karimov regime is much more securely rooted now than it was 

2 years ago, in large part because they have consolidated their security forces. 

President Karimov’s term ends in December, and if recent constitutional changes in Kazakhstan are at all indicative, and I think 

they are, then I think Karimov will also amend his Constitution to 

give him the right to stay in power the rest of his life. And it will 

be very hard, given the relative acquiescence to the Kazakh Con-
23

stitution. It will be very hard to introduce any sanctions predicated 

on the changes in the Uzbek Constitution. 

So it is impossible to predict how long Karimov will remain in 

power, and I believe the transition after his death could take several years to bring real reform elements to any likelihood of taking 

power. 

Finally, I would say there is not a well-developed alternative political elite living either inside the country or outside the country. 

Those living outside the country are relatively few in number and 

almost entirely lacking in the kind of political or administrative experience necessary to transform Uzbekistan in the presence of an 

elite—a large elite that is largely unhappy with these people. 

The majority of the Uzbek population and especially those living 

in rural areas are less educated today than they were 16 years ago, 

and less committed to secular values than the wide population was 

at the time of independence. The continued isolation of the 

Karimov regime means that in 5 to 10 years, the rural population 

will be even less exposed to secular ideas and more removed from 

the technology-based forces of globalization than they are today. 

The Uzbek population, I would argue, is paying for the sanctions 

that we have levied against or will levy against their top leaders. 

If a half dozen top government officials can’t go to Europe or visit 

their children studying there, then in their minds it is logical that 

all Uzbeks should have more difficulty getting to Europe or the 

United States to study. Fortunately, some of the restrictions 

against study in the U.S., which were indirectly applied, have been 

lessened. But those seeking independent study opportunities in the 

U.S. are still at a disadvantage when they return home. So who, 

in the end, is paying a bigger price for our limited engagement 

with the Uzbek Government, the top elite or the ordinary population? 

One of the problems—this is my last point—with our current application of the stick and the promise of a carrot is that even in 

the best of times, the carrot has been far smaller and less tasty 

than the one that the government in Tashkent expected to receive. 

So its withdrawal is of less consequence than we would like, and 

the prospects of applying a larger stick are highly unlikely. 

I am just going to stop right there. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Olcott follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT, PH.D., SENIOR ASSOCIATE, 

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. 

SOME BACKGROUND TO A SAD STORY

The story of the U.S. relationship with Uzbekistan is really quite a sad one, characterized by misunderstandings and miscues on both sides. 

The real losers in this story are the Uzbek people, who still lack a government 

that offers strong protections of their human rights, and for the most part who have 

still not experienced the economic or political promise that they believed independence would bring them. 

The U.S. relationship with Uzbekistan is really quite different from that of either 

Iran or Saudi Arabia, the other two states under discussion in today’s hearings. 

The U.S.-Uzbek relationship is all of 16 years in duration, and involves one Uzbek 

president, Islam Karimov, that nation’s first and at least for now, only leader, who 

from the onset sought to get and then keep the attention of the U.S. 
24

However, Karimov, a figure whose entire political consciousness dates from the 

years of the Cold War between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., sought to do this in a very 

‘‘old-style’’ way, by offering the U.S. a strategic partnership that focused on shared 

foreign policy goals rather than on shared values in the domestic political agendas 

of the two countries. 

Karimov seems to have thought that Uzbekistan could become a friend to the U.S. 

somewhat analogous to what Pakistan had been throughout much of the Cold War, 

with Tashkent sharing a foreign policy agenda with Washington but not feeling that 

this obliged the Uzbek regime to turn itself into a democratic political system. 

Karimov, a communist boss-turned-president, seemingly believes that democracy 

is a dangerous ideology in an unstable state, and has introduced political reforms 

only when forced to do so. 

Karimov gave lip service to democratic goals during the first year after independence, when the Uzbek leader sought popular support to legitimate his authority in 

the near anarchic conditions of the collapse of Soviet rule. Karimov participated in 

a contested (albeit not free and fair) election for the presidency, against a serious 

political opponent, Muhammad Salih head of the opposition Erk party, and even 

was sworn into office on a Qur’an as part of a pre-election promise made to 

Islamists in the Farghana Valley during the election campaign. 

But the Civil War in Tajikistan quickly reinforced the communist-honed authoritarian tendencies of the Uzbek leader, both as a warning of what could occur in an 

unregulated political environment in Uzbekistan, as well as a source of ‘‘contagion’’ 

whereby elements (especially Islamic activists) from Tajikistan could aid opposition 

forces in Uzbekistan. And life began to bear out Karimov’s conclusions when small 

groups of radical Islamists (the forerunners of the Islamic Movement of 

Uzbekistan—IMU) went to Tajikistan to fight with their ‘‘brothers.’’

The IMU set up camps in remote parts of Tajikistan. Within a year or so after 

the various parties to the Tajik Civil War signed an Agreement of National Reconciliation the IMU (and remaining armed Tajik Islamists were forced into Afghanistan, where they remained in al-Qaeda supported camps until after the U.S. led 

bombing campaign in late 2001–2002. 

Their presence of these terrorist groups within striking range of Uzbekistan (for 

whether or not they were actually responsible for bombings in Tashkent in 1999 

they were capable of having organized these attacks) made Karimov even more leery 

of democratic reforms. Instead the Uzbek government cracked down on religious and 

political groups that they deemed seditious or potentially seditious, and on individuals which they saw as part of or prey to such groups. As already detailed they did 

so in a way that frequently abused the human rights of those accused of these antistate activities. 

At the same time, though, it was in this very period that some key U.S. officials 

became convinced that they shared some important security goals with the Uzbek 

regime. Uzbekistan, long eager for increased security cooperation with the U.S. 

agreed to facilitate U.S. efforts to route out Osama bin Ladin from Afghanistan as 

well as some additional new forms of security cooperation.. 

The U.S. Department of Defense had long believed that Uzbekistan could and 

should play a greater role in U.S. strategic thinking in the region, as they were most 

eager to distance themselves from Russia, and also Uzbekistan had inherited the 

most sophisticated military in Central Asia. 

Ironically (and with hindsight quite sadly) the Bush administration decided to 

stop sending unmanned drones into Afghanistan from Uzbek territory. But U.S. 

military engagement with Uzbekistan continued to increase, both at the end of the 

Clinton Administration and during the first year of George W. Bush’s administration as well (see US grants and loans to Uzbekistan, in the table attached, noting 

that the 2001 figures are ‘‘year corrected,’’ so include post-September 11 supplementary assistance). 

The Uzbeks were the fastest of any of the post-Soviet states to reorient themselves to the new opportunities for security cooperation with the U.S., offering 

Washington basing rights in the immediate aftermath of September 11. 

A NEW STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP

The U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan eliminated Uzbekistan’s major security threat, and created new opportunities for cooperation with the U.S., and new 

opportunities for the U.S. to press the Uzbeks for much needed economic and political reforms. 

The prospect of U.S. pressure for economic and political reform was something 

that was viewed with real enthusiasm by certain pro-reform elements within the political establishment of Uzbekistan. Moreover, it has been rumored that some of 
25

these people pressed for the Uzbek government to make firm promises that the electoral system and parliamentary rule would have specific reforms that were targeted 

to be achieved within a five year period. The pro-reform elements saw these targets 

as goals, rather than strict benchmarks upon which further U.S.-Uzbek relations 

would be based, and believed that by asking for more than they believed realistically possible to be achieved, there was some hope of getting the Karimov regime 

to pick up the pace of political reform. 

WAS THE US EVER SERIOUS ABOUT A STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH UZBEKISTAN?

But the central focus of the pro-reform elements in the Uzbek elite was to get the 

Karimov regime to jumpstart the process of economic reform, which was largely 

abandoned along with the World Bank and IMF structural reform package in 1996–

1997. Their commitment to political reform was as an adjunct to economic reform, 

which they believed would not be sustainable without political protection offered to 

small and medium sized entrepreneurs. And this could not be done without opening 

the political system for everyone, which necessitated political and especially legal 

system reform. 

I detail what occurred in my book ‘‘Central Asia’s Second Chance.’’ The World 

Bank and IMF did go to Uzbekistan and did offer a new economic reform package, 

whose benchmarks were not achieved, leaving these international financial institutions very frustrated with the Uzbek economic officials. 

For their part the Uzbeks were angry at the World Bank and IMF officials, whom 

they believed, had never made a sufficiently attractive offer to beat back the criticisms of the ‘‘rent-seekers’’ who dominated the remnants of the old planned economy 

(and especially those tied to the sale and production of cotton) who would lose from 

economic reforms. 

The reform package offered left the Uzbeks with a budget deficit of roughly a half 

billion dollars per year for a short transition period (likely no less than two or three 

years), which the anti-reformers were able to successfully argue posed an unacceptable social risk, with standards of living sure to drop in the short run creating a 

greater risk of social upheaval led largely by pro-Islamic elements, who were becoming more visible in society. 

Now, I am not going to justify this Uzbek viewpoint, and personally I do not believe that religious ‘‘extremists’’ like Hizb’ ut-Tahrir are capable of taking power in 

Uzbekistan. But the ‘‘carrots’’ on offer were not large enough to ‘‘beat’’ the verbal 

sticks offered by the anti-reform elements in the Uzbek establishment, many of 

whom were from or interwoven with Uzbekistan’s internal security forces. 

In this environment, it did not take long for the new U.S.-Uzbek ‘‘strategic’’ relationship to begin to sour, and for both sides to walk away unhappy. From the U.S. 

point of view the Uzbek government has mislead us. They had demonstrated little 

inclination to engage in either economic or political reforms. They did, however, deliver the promised security cooperation, including verbal support for the launching 

of an attack in Iraq, and this was a real rarity among post-Soviet states. 

For their part the Uzbeks were bitterly disappointed. They had thought that they 

were getting a strategic friendship with the U.S. akin to what had been on offer 

in earlier decades, and that the U.S. would support the full-blown reform of the 

country’s security establishment, as well as providing massive economic and political assistance. The Uzbeks were versed in U.S. foreign aid allocations, they knew 

that most foreign aid packages were relatively small, but that ‘‘close friends’’ like 

Egypt and Israel (and Pakistan in earlier decades) were disproportionately rewarded, and they believed that they had taken disproportionate risk (inviting the 

U.S. in with minimal or nonexistent consultation with Russia—depending upon 

which Uzbek rumors you believe). 

WOULD MASSIVE ASSISTANCE HAVE CREATED A SUITABLY ATTRACTIVE ATMOSPHERE IN

UZBEKISTAN FOR REFORM?

Speculation on this question is much like the Robert Frost poem on ‘‘the road not 

taken.’’ The U.S. didn’t provide massive assistance, and there wasn’t reform in 

Uzbekistan. 

Personally, I do believe that the government of Uzbekistan would have supported 

major economic reforms, and more moderate political reforms than the U.S.-Uzbek 

agreement provided for, had there been a more attractive economic assistance package provided to the Uzbeks. 

Moreover, an improved human rights environment was the ‘‘bitter-pill’’ that had 

to be swallowed, and I do believe that the Uzbeks would have swallowed that pill, 

had they received the kind of political assistance, and money towards the reform 

of the internal security and judicial systems that they had hoped to receive. 
26

After all you can’t transform those working in security services in Uzbekistan 

from being physical abusers (where beating people to confess is unfortunately a not 

infrequent occurrence, not to mention the one tragic time when a detainee was actually boiled) to an organization which respects the human rights of the accused simply by issuing a new set of instructions. 

Retraining programs, which are necessary throughout the former Soviet Union 

are very expensive to put together and run on a mass scale. And although there 

were some seemingly very good pilot projects introduced by the U.S. (and some held 

in Turkey with U.S. support), there was never any money to extend these, even 

when relations between the two countries were good. 

WHAT TO DO WITH ‘‘ANDIJIAN’’

This takes me to the problem of Andijian in May 2005 in which the Uzbek government use of excessive force to quell the civil disturbances, in which the crowds were 

overwhelmingly unarmed, but in which an armed opposition had seized a prison releasing its prisoners and seized policemen and firemen as hostages, in a building 

just off the square where the unarmed civilians were gathered. 

Would the security forces have been more competent in their response had there 

been a much greater level of U.S. training from 2002 through 2004? Although some 

specialists feel otherwise, I do not believe that it was the first choice of the Uzbek 

government to incur high civilian casualties (even if the low figures of 250+ civilian 

losses are accurate they are unacceptably high). If that had been the Uzbek preference would Karimov have flown to outside of Andijian to try and negotiate. 

And if the U.S. had been in the middle of a multi-year retraining program for the 

Uzbek armed forces, and the horror of Andijian would nonetheless have occurred, 

would Tashkent have then refused to have an international enquiry launched by the 

U.N. or the O.S.C.E. 

I cannot predict if more massive training would have prevented Andijian, but I 

do believe that had the U.S.-Uzbek relationship been healthier at the time of the 

disturbances in Andijian Karimov would have decided in favor of salvaging the relationship by having an international enquiry that met U.S. and O.S.C.E. standards. 

There was a constituency within the Uzbek elite that supported Uzbek participation in some form of international enquiry, but as the Uzbek president’s position 

hardened, they lost any room for maneuvering within the Uzbek political establishment. 

WHAT TO DO NOW?

Two years after Andijian U.S. authorities are still stuck between a rock and a 

hard place with regard to Uzbekistan. While the Uzbek regime does not enjoy its 

relative isolation in Europe and the U.S., under E. U. sanctions and at risk of sanctions from the U.S with regards to having been classified a ‘‘nation of particular concern,’’ the Karimov regime seems more securely rooted now than two years ago, in 

large part because of the consolidation of its security forces in favor of the State 

Committee on National Security (that previously competed with the Ministry of Internal Affairs). 

President Karimov’s term ends in December (according to some readings of the 

Uzbek constitution it ended in January, but there is no reading that will allow him 

to stay beyond December, only constitutional change will facilitate this). If the recent constitutional change in Kazakhstan is at all indicative, and I think that it will 

be, Karimov will also seek the amendment of his country’s constitution to facilitate 

his remaining in power for the rest of his life. The relative acquiescence of U.S. officials to the constitutional modification in Kazakhstan suggests that there will be little opportunity to mount any sort of potentially effective diplomatic protest in the 

Uzbek case, without appearing wholly hypocritical. The same will be true of European authorities. 

Should the expected constitutional change be introduced the U.S. and its O.S.C.E. 

allies in the E.U. will confront a stark choice. The continual isolation of Karimov 

and his regime will effectively mean the continued isolation of the Uzbek people, 

leaving us with a very stark choice. 

It is impossible to predict how long Karimov will remain in power, as it seems 

more likely to depend upon his health and the Uzbek medical care establishment 

then upon his popularity with the Uzbek people. Moreover, given the strong position 

of the Uzbek security establishment (and its more classic bureaucratic organization) 

the transitional period in Turkmenistan is likely to be even more orchestrated, and 

possibly even more opaque than that in Turkmenistan, and could well last several 

years before there is any real likelihood of pro-reform elements receiving any auton-
27

omy of decision-making (and it is not pre-ordained that they will achieve this even 

then). 

While the political arena in Uzbekistan is more complex than in Turkmenistan, 

and political power is more dispersed, there is not a well-developed alternative political elite living inside the country, and those outside the country with political ambitions are relatively few in number and almost all are entirely lacking in political 

or administrative experience. 

The majority of the Uzbek population and especially those living in rural areas 

are less well educated today than they were 16 years ago, and they are less committed to secular values than their age-cohorts were at the time of independence. 

The continued isolation of the Karimov regime means that in the next five to ten 

years the rural population will be even less exposed to secular ideas, and more removed from the technology-based forces of globalization. The Uzbek population is 

paying for the sanctions that have been levied against their top leaders. 

If a half dozen top government officials can’t go to Europe, or visit their children 

studying their, then in their minds at least, it is logical that all Uzbeks should have 

more difficulty getting to Europe (or the U.S.) to study. Fortunately some of the 

study restrictions against study in the U.S. (which were indirectly applied, such as 

banning the administration of the Toefl test) have been lessened, but those seeking 

independent study opportunities in the U.S. are still at a disadvantage when they 

return home. 

So, who in the end is paying a bigger price for our limited engagement with the 

Uzbek government, the top elite or the ordinary population? 

One of the big problems with our current application of the ‘‘stick’’ and promise 

of the carrot is that even in the best of times the ‘‘carrot’’ was far smaller and less 

tasty than the government in Tashkent expected to be on offer. So its withdrawal 

is of less consequence than we would like, and the prospects for applying a larger 

stick are highly unlikely. 

There are no realistic alternatives to the Karimov government, either within the 

country or beyond its borders, and no guarantees that the group that will come after 

him will be more to our liking. 

While U.S. leaders may want to pretend that Uzbekistan does not really exist, 

that is not really an option for Tashkent’s Central Asian neighbors, as 

Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan all border on Uzbekistan (as 

does Afghanistan), and in many cases transit across Uzbekistan is the most geographically friendly way to open ports. 

We may try to isolate Uzbekistan, but neither Russia nor China will make the 

same choice, further diminishing the range of our options. 

APPENDIX ONE

Uzbekistan 

in millions, historical $US 

Program Name 1996 1997 1998 1998 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

I. Total Economic Assistance 11.0 10.3 13.8 37.2 31.7 215.4 203.0 157.8 49.1 44.3

II. Total Military Assistance 0.3 1.3 2.0 2.2 2.3 3.1 37.9 9.7 0.5 0.0

III. Total Economic & Military Assistance 11.3 11.6 15.8 39.4 34.0 218.5 240.9 167.5 49.6 44.3
28

Program Name 1996 1997 1998 1998 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

I. Total Economic Assistance 11.0 10.3 13.8 37.2 31.7 215.4 203.0 157.8 49.1 44.3

A. USAID and Predecessor, Total 9.8 3.1 11.9 24.4 19.9 179.3 174.2 128.7 35.1 33.8

1) Economic Support Fund/Security 

Support Assistance 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.3 1.3 2.1 2.2 0.4 0.1

2) Development Assistance 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

3) Child Survival & Health 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.1

4) Other USAID Assistance 9.8 3.1 11.9 24.4 19.6 177.0 172.1 126.4 34.6 32.7

B. Department of Agriculture, Total 0.0 0.0 0.0 10.0 10.0 30.0 20.0 15.5 2.1 0.0

1) Food Aid, Total 0.0 0.0 0.0 10.0 10.0 30.0 20.0 15.5 2.1 0.0

a. Title I 0.0 0.0 0.0 10.0 10.0 30.0 20.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

b. Title II 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

c. Title III 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

d. Section 416(b)/ Commodity Credit 

Corporation Food for Progress 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15.5 2.1 0.0

e. Food For Education 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

2) Other USDA Assistance 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

C. State Department, Total 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.4 4.4 2.1 1.3 4.8

1) Global HIV/AIDS Initiative 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

2) Narcotics Control 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.1 0.0

3) Migration and Refugee Assistance 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

4) Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, 

Demining & Related 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.3 4.3 1.9 0.0 4.7

5) Other State Assistance 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.0

D. Other Economic Assistance, Total 1.1 7.2 1.9 2.8 1.7 5.7 4.5 11.7 10.6 5.6

1) Millennium Challenge Corporation 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

2) Peace Corps 1.1 1.3 1.3 1.8 1.7 1.8 0.8 1.9 2.1 1.1

3) Department of Defense Security 

Assistance 0.0 5.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.9 0.2 6.7 1.5 0.0

4) Other Active Grant Programs 0.0 0.0 0.6 1.0 0.0 1.0 3.5 3.1 7.0 4.5

5) Inactive Programs 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

II. Total Military Assistance 0.3 1.3 2.0 2.2 2.3 3.1 37.9 9.7 0.5 0.0

III. Total Economic & Military Assistance 11.3 11.6 15.8 39.4 34.0 218.5 240.9 167.5 49.6 44.3

IV. Total Non-Concessional U.S. Loans 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.1 0.0

A. Export-Import Bank Loans 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

B. OPIC & Other Non-Concessional U.S. 

Loans 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.1 0.0

Source: US Overseas Loans & Grants [Greenbook] 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Dr. Olcott. 

Dr. Hamzawy. 
29

STATEMENT OF AMR HAMZAWY, PH.D., SENIOR ASSOCIATE, 

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

Mr. HAMZAWY. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much for 

inviting me to testify today. 

Allow me to start by making two general points before turning 

to Saudi Arabia and human rights conditions in Saudi Arabia. 

My first general point is with regard to the distinction between 

rhetoric and policies on the ground. And I do believe the double 

standards with regard to human rights conditions in the Middle 

East cannot be simply addressed by getting the administration to 

get out consistent rhetoric. This is not an issue of rhetoric. And I 

must confess that in our part of the world, American rhetoric, official rhetoric from the U.S., has been discredited, especially in the 

last year. 

So regardless of whether we have a consistency of rhetoric or not, 

it is not what really matters today. What really matters today is 

action. What really matters today are policy measures that the 

U.S. conducts in the region, that the U.S. puts forward in the region. And as long as we have this dichotomy between Americafriendly regimes and America’s perceived enemies, both of them 

abuse human rights. We have systematic abusers of human rights 

in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco. All 

these four countries are allies of the United States. 

We have systematic abusers of human rights in Iran and other 

countries which are perceived to be enemies of the United States. 

In both patterns we have abusers, systematic abusers. And I stress 

‘‘systematic.’’ These are not sporadic. These are systematic abusers 

of human rights. And conditions with regard to political participation and potential for democratization are really depressing. 

We just need to look at yesterday, the sequence of violence which 

took place in three Arab capitals: In Baghdad, in Beirut, and moving to Gaza in Palestine. So conditions are similar. We are faced 

with autocratic or semi-autocratic regimes. Some of them are 

America-friendly, some are not. And as long as the distinction in 

attacking these human rights abusers is based on whether they are 

friendly or not, the U.S. unfortunately will get nowhere. 

Second point is, I do believe that even in the case of Saudi Arabia, an ally which is very crucial for the United States role in the 

Middle East as of now, especially against the background of what 

is happening in Iraq—and this is the big elephant in the room 

when we speak of Saudi Arabia today. It is less about oil and it 

is less about regional conditions in general. It is more about Iraq 

and the security needs of the United States and Iraq. 

Even considering Iraq and the Iraqi turmoil, there are chances 

for the United States to press the Saudi ruling elite with regard 

to human rights abuses and with regard to violations of citizens’ 

civil and political rights. 

Let me now turn to basically summarizing the two major points 

of my testimony which I submitted earlier to the committee. 

Saudi Arabia. Again, I agree with my friend Tom Lippman. 

Saudi Arabia has witnessed a degree of political dynamism in recent years. Since 2002, the Government of Saudi Arabia has pursued different reform policies. Most relevant measures have been 

the reform of the appointed quasi-legislative council, the so-called 
30

Shura Council, by expanding slightly its competences, the holding 

of partial municipal elections. I have to note here that women were 

excluded as voters and as candidates from the municipal elections 

that took place in 2005. 

And finally, the legalization, for the first time in Saudi history, 

of a few civil society actors as well as what Mr. Malinowski mentioned: Allowing human rights organizations, Western human 

rights organizations, to partially operate in Saudi Arabia. So these 

are significant measures when we look at Saudi reality and the fact 

that Saudi Arabia has been lacking any sense of political pluralism, 

any sense of dynamism in its public space over the last years. Yet 

these measures have not in any substantial way changed or altered 

the authoritarian nature of Saudi politics. 

The Royal Family al-Saud and its allied Wahhabi religious establishment remain in control, retains its position in society, and they 

have retained their ability to block reforms, bring them to a standstill, and even to reverse them in the case of changing conditions. 

Human rights abuses, human rights violations, have not decreased. 

Religious intolerance continues, regardless whether we look at the 

educational system or whether we look at the treatment of significant minorities in the Saudi society, primarily the Shi’a minority 

of the eastern provinces. 

The United States faces a set of difficult challenges in pushing 

for freedom and human rights in Saudi Arabia. One has to confess 

that the United States lacks in the Saudi case the economic or military aid that can be conditioned to the implementation of reform 

measures or to improvement in the realm of human rights. 

On the contrary, the American economy depends to a great extent on Saudi oil, which has grown even more important in recent 

years. Promoting democracy, freedom, human rights, in Saudi Arabia is therefore inherently difficult, especially when we see the regional picture, the wider regional picture over the last 3 years. 

The United States pressed Saudi Arabia to an extent after 9/11 

with regard to political reform, with regard to human rights abuses 

and violations. But with the developments in Iraq, with the Iraqi 

turmoil, and especially keeping in mind substantial worries that 

the United States does have, the possibility of a total destabilization in the gulf, the administration has minimized reference to 

human rights conditions of Saudi Arabia and has, in fact, minimized its rhetoric on issues pertaining to human rights or democratization. 

A quick comparison between statements that the administration 

put out in 2003, 2004, with 2006, and 2007 makes the case. This 

is becoming less and less of an issue for the administration even 

in terms of rhetoric, keeping in mind what I said that it is not really about it, it is about policy actions. 

Now, taking all of these conditions into consideration, I do believe that there are at least two entry points for the United States 

to press the Saudi Royal Family, to press the Saudi Government, 

with regard to democracy and human rights conditions. 

The first point is at the government level. And Mr. Malinowski 

mentioned the strategic dialogue which was initiated in 2005 between Saudi Arabia and—Saudi Arabia and the United States, and 

so far issues pertaining to human rights have been excluded from 
31

this strategic dialogue. And one entry point which can be pushed 

forward and where the United States can really make a good case 

for simply integrating the issue, just discussing the issue in a more 

systematic manner, not pressing Saudis in a quiet fashion, not 

pressing Saudis sporadically, depending on regional conditions and 

whether they need them and what kind of security needs the 

United States might be looking for from the Saudis in any specific 

moment of time, but integrating in a systematic structural manner 

issues pertaining to human rights conditions, religious tolerance, 

status of women in society, political participation of Saudi citizens. 

And these are not issues that are invented in the U.S., and here 

I disagree with my friend, Tom Lippman. These are not issues that 

are simply invented in Washington, DC, or Western capitals. We 

have home-grown Saudi voices, home-grown opposition movements 

in Saudi Arabia. They are not organized. They do not have constituencies, but these are authoritarian conditions that do exist. 

But we have voices coming up in Saudi Arabia and asking for improvement in the realm of human rights, asking for better participation in politics, and asking for better treatment of Sunni and 

Shi’a, of minority and majority, in Saudi Arabia. So we have an 

entry point at the government to government level. 

We have a second entry point at the nongovernmental level, 

where the United States should intensify contacts with some of the 

civil society actors in Saudi Arabia. 

I mentioned earlier that one of the minimum reform measures 

that were taken in the last years has been the expansion—the establishment of Saudi civil society organizations. Many of them are 

controlled by the government directly, or if not, they are monitored 

by the government. But at least there are a few or there are a few 

organizations that are coming up. And there is a need to identify 

contacts to them. This will necessitate joint efforts by the administration as well as American foundations operating in the fields of 

democracy promotion and human rights. 

The Saudi Government needs to be pressured to lessen authoritarian regulations with regard to the international cooperation between Saudi civil society actors and American democracy promotion and civil society and human rights organizations. Without 

these two entry points, any talk, any rhetoric, even imagining, 

dreaming of the rhetoric, might become consistent. 

In the coming years this will not add or change the picture of lost 

credibility of the U.S. because of the persistence of closing an eye, 

if not the two eyes, with regard to allies and focusing on human 

rights violations that are, in fact—sometimes in so-called U.S. enemies—less in terms of scale and less in terms of their impacts as 

compared to some of America’s best allies in the region. Thank you 

very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hamzawy follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMR HAMZAWY, PH.D., SENIOR ASSOCIATE, CARNEGIE

ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE

PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE CASE OF SAUDI

ARABIA

Instability, violence, and radicalism dominate Middle Eastern politics of today. In 

Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine a combination of the continued failure of state institutions, the rise of radical forces, and foreign interventions have brought these soci-
32

eties to the brink of civil war. In contrast, domestic conditions in Saudi Arabia seem 

stable. Radical Islamist violence has been going back in the past few years, the 

economy has recovered from the stagnation of the 1990s, and King Abdullah is considered to be one of the most popular kings the country has ever had. Yet, Saudi 

Arabia remains a clear case of authoritarian stability and therefore represents a serious challenge to the declared objective of the United States to promote democratic 

transition and human rights in the Middle East. 

Saudi Political Dynamism in Recent Years 

Recent years has witnessed a degree of political dynamism in Saudi Arabia. Since 

2002, the government has pursued different reform policies. Most relevant measures 

have been the reform of the consultative Shura Council, the holding of municipal 

elections, the legalization of civil society actors, the implementation of educational 

reform plans, and the institutionalization of the national dialogue conferences. Although these measures appear less significant when compared to political developments in other Arab countries such as Morocco and Yemen, they constitute elements 

of a meaningful opening in Saudi authoritarian politics. 

In the 1970s and 1980s, Saudi Arabia represented a clear case of authoritarian 

consolidation. The royal family, Al Saud, used high oil revenues to boost its control 

and expand existing networks of patrimonial allegiance across the country. The 

state apparatus swelled and with it the role of the security forces and the Wahhabi 

religious establishment grew dominant. The authoritarian grip over society was 

tightened. A degree of pluralism rooted in the tribal structures of the Saudi society 

and in the benevolent rule of the first kings was replaced by an emerging repressive 

state and an intolerant fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology. 

However, this political scene began to change slightly in the 1990s. The Gulf War 

1991 impacted negatively on the Saudi economy and diminished to an extent the 

religious legitimacy of the royal family due to the presence of American troops. Rising unemployment and poverty rates led liberal intellectuals and religious scholars 

alike to demand substantial political and economic reforms. Most significantly, a 

Memorandum of Advice was addressed to late King Fahd in 1991, in which almost 

fifty signatories called on him to create legislative councils, enact anticorruption 

measures, and promote an equal distribution of the country’s resources among citizens. After harsh reactions by the security forces against the signatories, the king 

announced in 1992 the establishment of an appointed national consultative council, 

the Shura Council, and detailed a plan to appoint municipal councils in all provinces 

of the kingdom. However, neither the Shura Council nor the municipal councils 

were endowed with legislative or oversight powers. In the second half of the 1990s, 

other minor reform measures, primarily administrative, were implemented to quiet 

down growing popular dissatisfaction. 

The authoritarian grip of the royal family did not loosen. Indeed, by the end of 

the last decade the government, faced with the rise of violent jihadist groups, resorted to outright repressive instruments and systematic human rights abuses in 

dealing with dissenting views in general and leaned heavily on the religious establishment to generate legitimacy among the population. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 exposed the Saudi society to the catastrophic outcomes of its authoritarian lethargy. Of course, the most immediate impact of the 9/11 attacks was 

to subject the royal family to increasing international pressures to introduce significant reforms aimed at combating terrorism and extremism. But, domestic calls for 

reform were also suddenly better heard. In recent years, these two factors—international and domestic reform demands—have injected new elements of dynamism 

and opening into Saudi Arabia’s political reality. 

Reform Measures 

The Shura Council has undergone two meaningful transformations. First, the 

council’s competences have been expanded. In December 2003, King Fahd announced that the council would be empowered to play a more active role. Yet, it was 

only in 2005 that several amendments were enacted. Most significantly, article 17 

of the council’s regulatory provisions was changed to allow the council to raise its 

decisions directly to the king, instead of the cabinet, ensuring in this way an improved degree of responsiveness on the side of the executive. Also, article 23 was 

amended to give council members more autonomy in proposing, discussing, and enacting new internal regulations. But, the popular expectations—specifically among 

liberal reformists—that the amendments might provide for partial elections of the 

council’s members and endow it with some oversight powers, did not materialize. 

Second, the council’s role has grown more politicized due to the diversification of its 

membership and agenda. In addition, since 2003, the president of the council—while 

making it clear that full membership for women is not on the council’s agenda—
33

has frequently extended invitations to female scholars and activists to attend open 

sessions and to consult members on social issues relevant to women. 

In 2005, and in direct response to domestic reform demands, the Saudi government decided to hold partial elections for the country’s 178 municipal councils. The 

elections took place in three stages over the period of three months, from February 

to April 2005 and were highly contested. In Riyadh, for example, 646 candidates 

competed over 7 municipal seats. The voter turnout ranged between 25 and 35 percent of eligible voters. Moderate Islamists, both in Sunni as well as in Shiite dominated provinces, emerged as winners in most races. Women were excluded as voters 

and candidates. In spite of all their limitations, the municipal elections have served 

two important purposes with regard to the process of political opening in Saudi Arabia. First, they have set a precedent for opening up existing consultative bodies for 

pluralist contestation. Second, the elections have garnered great attention among 

the Saudi population and in so far helped to better place reform debates in the public space. 

Over the past two years, the Saudi government has approved the establishment 

of two human rights organizations, institutionalized professional syndicates, and 

permitted the participation of women as voters and candidates in board elections 

of some of them. This has indicated a greater readiness on the part of the government to expand civil society and create modern mechanism for interest representation in society. The legalization of different non-governmental organizations has created new spaces for citizens’ participation. The government’s measures in this regard—modest in absolute terms but bold when compared to steps taken in other 

areas—have also highlighted the fact that the reform process in Saudi Arabia is 

bound to be uneven. Women acquired the right to vote and candidate for syndicates’ 

board elections, only to be completely excluded from the municipal elections. 

In June 2003, the government announced an initiative to host national dialogue 

conferences to discuss needed reforms and promote freedom of expression. A series 

of meetings was subsequently launched and invitations were extended to male and 

female university professors, intellectuals, and activists. Representatives of the Shiite minority and liberal reformists participated in the meetings alongside Wahhabi 

clerics and government officials. 

The Role of the United States 

Reforms implemented by the Saudi government over the past years have revitalized existing consultative councils and introduced the mechanism of elections at the 

municipal level. New spaces for citizens’ participation in civil society have emerged 

and the margin of freedom in the public space has expanded significantly. 

However, this opening in Saudi politics has not altered the authoritarian nature 

of the political system fundamentally. The royal family and the Wahabi religious establishment have sustained their domineering positions in society. Their ability to 

block reforms, bring them to a standstill, even to reverse them in case of changing 

conditions has not diminished substantially. In the absence of competing power centers, the reform process has remained inherently vulnerable and limited. In spite 

of the expansion of the Shura Council’s competences, it has not acquired real legislative or oversight power to hold the royal family accountable. Government promises 

to ensure the independence of the judiciary and provide for a better respect of 

human rights have not materialized in more than a series of minimal administrative reforms. Although two human rights organizations were legalized, human 

rights violations and discriminatory treatment of specific groups of the population 

as well as religious intolerance have not decreased. 

Within these limits and given the unchanged concentration of power in the hands 

of the royal family and the religious establishment, the United States faces a set 

of difficult challenges in promoting freedom and human rights in Saudi Arabia. The 

US lacks in the Saudi case the leverage of economic or military aid that can be conditioned to the implementation of further reform measures. On the contrary, the 

American economy depends to a great extent on Saudi oil, which has grown even 

more important in recent years. Promoting reform in a country like Saudi Arabia 

is also inherently difficult. Domestic dynamics generate but very few possibilities for 

a significant American role. 

American pressure since 9/11 has had an impact in pushing for reforms in Saudi 

Arabia, but it has rather been wavering. Shocked by the high level participation of 

Saudi citizens in the attacks, the Bush Administration has pressed the royal family 

to combat terrorism and extremism. Beside cooperation in the global War on Terror, 

the administration has also pushed for educational reform and political opening. 

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, specifically in 2002 and 2003, the administration sustained an unprecedented strong rhetoric with regard to Saudi reform. Faced with 

the danger of losing its strategic alliance with the US and amid growing domestic 
34

demands for change, the royal family was more inclined to implement reform measures. 

However, the emergence of the Iraqi turmoil has pushed the pendulum of USSaudi relations in the opposite direction. Over the past three years, the Bush Administration has softened its stance vis-a`-vis Saudi Arabia and kept a low profile 

on Saudi domestic issues. The royal family, on its side, has resorted to scare tactics 

arguing that uncalculated reforms would undermine its authority and eventually 

lead to a jihadist take-over, tactics that are used by many authoritarian rulers in 

the Middle East. 

The United States, worried about the possibility of total destabilization in the 

Gulf region, has abated its pressure for reform. American security needs in Iraq and 

with regard to the rising regional influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran as well 

as dramatic increases in oil prices have also contributed to this change. Today’s bilateral relations demonstrate growing areas of convergence. The rift, which 9/11 created between the US and Saudi governments, has largely been repaired. 

In its search for entry points to promote freedom and human rights in Saudi Arabia, the US is also constrained by domestic realities. While the current political 

opening is important, it is by no means the beginning of a Saudi democratization 

process. This is not a country that can be expected to legalize political parties or 

organize truly competitive elections in the near future. By the same token, the 

emergence of a powerful legislative authority or an independent judiciary is unlikely. Reforming the authoritarian polity in Saudi Arabia is bound to follow a slow 

path. It is an uneven process, which entails the gradual expansion of political representation and the creation of new spaces where citizens enjoy part of their civil 

and political freedoms. Ambivalence towards certain issues such as the me ́lange of 

religion and politics as well as the role of women in public life are integral parts 

of introducing reforms in a country like Saudi Arabia just as potential setbacks. 

The US needs to think of reform in Saudi Arabia in a different way than in other 

Arab countries. It lacks leverage and is strategically constrained in its possible actions due to regional developments. Saudi domestic realities also demand great cautiousness on the American side in identifying policy preferences with regard to promoting reform. 

Given these conditions, the US has two realistic entry points: First, at the government-to-government level, especially in the context of the Strategic Dialogue between the United States and Saudi Arabia that was initiated in 2005, the administration should focus on taking up the cause of Saudi groups advocating democracy, 

human rights, and religious tolerance. Specifically, with regard to consultative councils and civil society actors, the administration should push for more elections and 

for easing legal restrictions respectively. Pressing the Saudi government on these 

levels is likely to garner popular support due to the fact that domestic platforms 

have articulated similar demands. 

Second, at the non-governmental level, the US should intensify its contacts with 

civil society actors in Saudi Arabia. This will necessitate joint efforts by the administration as well as American foundations operating in the fields of democracy promotion and human rights. The Saudi government can be pressured to lessen its authoritarian regulations with regard to the international cooperation of domestic nongovernmental organizations. American foundations have long ignored Saudi Arabia. 

Although the current opening has induced some of these foundations to reach out 

to domestic counterparts, the scope of cooperation needs to be expanded. Including 

Saudi non-governmental organizations and professional syndicates in ongoing regional programs as well as devising country-specific measures can help developing 

their capacities and embolden their reform platforms by exposing them to the international democracy promotion agenda.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, thank you. 

And your presentations were outstanding. And I look forward to 

having a conversation that——

I know your presentations have provoked a number of questions 

that will be posed. Before I turn—I just wanted to ask one question 

before I recognize the ranking member, and then turn to Mr. Payne 

from New Jersey, who has also joined us. 

I have a sense that the term ‘‘democracy promotion’’ has an implication or an understanding, particularly in the Middle East and 

in Central Asia, and elsewhere that raises concerns, is oftentimes 

misinterpreted as meaning the United States is prepared to impose 
35

a form of government. If we reconfigured, if you will—I don’t want 

to call it a debate, but the conversation, away from democracy promotion to respect for human rights, universally declared human 

rights—we have a number of international conventions dealing 

with human rights, the various states, many of whom from our perspective, according to Department of State country reports, do not 

comply with—would it be able to be received in some countries in 

a different way than it is currently received? 

And I don’t know if I am being clear, but words do have nuances. 

And you know, we appropriate money for democracy promotion in 

various countries that we select. Now I don’t think we select—I 

don’t think we appropriate dollars for democracy promotion in 

Saudi Arabia, but we certainly do in Iran. And therefore, I think 

it provides the Iranian regime an opportunity to point out that democracy promotion is simply a disguise for an American effort toward regime change as opposed to the promotion of American values. Well, American values, at least we here believe them to be 

tantamount to human rights as enumerated in the Helsinki Accords and various international treaties. 

Would we be better off as a Congress to substitute or to examine 

the language that we use in terms of how we present these issues 

to the rest of the world? 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I like it when I get that kind of an answer. 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. To me the distinction doesn’t matter. I mean, 

democracy promotion is American language. It is the way we talk 

about these things. We talk about liberty. We talk about freedom. 

These are the words that resonate to us. They don’t resonate as 

well internationally. It is just an objective fact. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I think as you pointed out in your testimony, Mr. 

Malinowski, I mean, we have—I have had visits from Iranians who 

have pled, really, ‘‘Do not appropriate money, we will not take it. 

It does not aid our cause. In fact, it denigrates our efforts because 

it provides a rationale for the regime to crack down harder.’’ And 

it isn’t just from Iranians, it is from other nations. 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. There are two separate questions there. One is 

the language that you use. I think you are right. We are more effective—and we all want to be effective here. It is not just about 

sounding good. We are more effective internationally if we appeal 

to universal principles that everybody feels are their own rather 

than principles that sound like they are just made in the U.S.A. 

So absolutely, the human rights rhetoric just works better than 

the democracy rhetoric, even though to me the difference is meaningless. 

In terms of the money issue, you have to listen to the people on 

the ground who are fighting for the values that we care about. 

There are many dissidents around the world, civil society groups, 

opposition political parties, that welcome financial support from the 

United States and we ought to be providing it. 

There are many other places where that is absolutely not true, 

and Iran is one of those cases. 

Now most of the money the United States is appropriating is actually going to broadcasting inside Iran, and most Iranian dissidents I speak to are very much in favor of that. They welcome 
36

that. What they don’t want is for us to be saying that we are sending money inside Iran to help them fight their battle. Number one, 

we are not doing it. We are saying we are doing it. We are not actually doing it, and two, by saying we are doing it we are placing 

a target on their backs. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Dr. Olcott. 

Ms. OLCOTT. I would like to say a few things. 

I think the move to a more value neutral vocabulary not tied to 

American values is really critical. I think we do best when we are 

talking about universal values than when we are talking about 

international conventions that the country has assigned. We stand 

very strongly. 

I disagree with Mr. Malinowski on the funding. I think we have 

to decouple these conversations. When we tie human rights to giving a particular group legal registration in the country, we are 

tying our hands. I think we have to separate our consideration of 

those questions. 

It is a question of what increases our ability to get these 

changes. And I am not convinced that always—that making the litmus test, the registration of NGOs that we have labeled should be 

registered, is the appropriate litmus test. I think we have the potential for decoupling the two things. Especially when we go in a 

case like Uzbekistan and we will give funding to groups that are 

human rights groups that also are directly tied to notions of regime 

change. And we won’t give money to government groups that also 

claim that they are trying to do various forms of legal reform. 

We add to the burden at each level of conditionality that we put 

in, and we have to find ways that at least begin discussion with 

regimes that we don’t like that they are willing to engage on, and 

then it is easier to take the next step, I think, of conditionality 

with things that we want them to change. 

Uzbekistan is a strange case because most U.S. NGOs can’t get 

in, but NDI is still able to operate there. 

I think we really have to be very willing to learn how to be more 

savvy in playing with some of these really difficult cases to reform 

where they don’t have to take our money, and that is the problem. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Dr. Hamzawy. 

Mr. HAMZAWY. Yes. I disagree to an extent with regard to the 

language issue. We tend to ignore that there have been, and to a 

very considerable degree, a development in the region in the Middle East throughout the 1990s, especially in the last years, where 

concepts like democracy, human rights, have become part of local 

debates and discussions. Democracy and human rights, you will 

find them, the two concepts, on every single political platform, be 

it government-based or opposition-based. So we are not in a way 

imposing democracy and human rights on them. So the language 

is used. 

And at a different level, it is very hard to find any free concepts. 

So these concepts, all of them are loaded, are value-loaded. The 

question is whether we can respond in a systematic and in an intelligent way, as my colleague said, to homegrown rhetoric. 

The second issue is the fine line between submitting to the logic 

of authoritarian autocratic regimes when they play the game of national sovereignty with no intervention, no interference, do not 
37

fund them. The fine line between submitting to this logic and creating spaces where the United States can still reach out to democracy advocates, civil society actors, human rights organizations in 

a country like Morocco, Egypt, Uzbekistan or Saudi Arabia without 

discrediting them. Sometimes I feel that we submit too fast and in 

a systematic way to the logic of authoritarian, autocratic regimes 

when we wave the flag of national sovereignty and tell the U.S. do 

not—it is none of your business. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. My point is in terms of the rhetoric, and maybe 

I am making a false distinction here, although there seems to be 

some disagreement when I speak about democracy promotion as 

opposed to human rights. 

I think Dr. Olcott summed it up better than I did when there is 

a certain universality regarding human rights. There are, you 

know, conventions. There are international treaties with concomitant obligations that regimes, both those who respect and those 

who denigrate human rights, have signed on to. 

You know, we talk about sovereignty and democracy, we believe 

in democracy and human rights. And I think, I am guessing, and 

that is why I am seeking input from you, I am guessing that democracy is identified with the United States and the United States’ 

low standing at this moment in time all over the world, that in 

terms of how we market and package what we want to achieve in 

terms of our goals, which are democracy and human rights, reliance on the term ‘‘human rights,’’ ‘‘civil liberties,’’ ‘‘political freedoms,’’ is a better course as we engage in conversation and diplomacy. 

Mr. HAMZAWY. You need a case-by-case approach, and I will address myself just to the Arab world, and there are two patterns. 

Let me compare Egypt to Saudi Arabia very quickly. 

Egypt, I would say, in terms of packaging, promoting civil liberties, political freedoms, it is acceptable to use the term ‘‘democracy.’’ It is not identified 100 percent with the United States. Egypt 

has a different look at this. 

Now Saudi Arabia is a different case. But in Saudi Arabia we 

run the risk when you use ‘‘democracy,’’ when you use human 

rights, because there have been extensive debates on religious reservations with regard to international conventions and treaties and 

human rights, and Mr. Malinowski and Tom Lippman will know 

them. Saudi Arabia, as a conservative social fabric, has had intensive debates on whether human rights, in a universal sense, apply 

to the Saudi society that is based on Islam. 

So Iran goes into a very same risk using democracy and human 

rights. And here is what I meant by making a distinction between 

submitting to the government’s logic, to the official logic, and trying 

to listen to homegrown voices, Saudi liberals, Saudi moderates, 

Islamists, non-violent Islamists, who have been advocating democracy and human rights in a universal sense. Using the rhetoric 

would make it easier for the U.S. or any power interested in promoting democracy to make the case. 

Mr. LIPPMAN. It seems to me, as I listen to your questions, that 

you seem to be advocating a process similar to the Helsinki process 

that we use with the Soviet Union, saying this is what you signed. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Right. 
38

Mr. LIPPMAN. So really with all of these countries, except Saudi 

Arabia, or many of them, there is language in U.N. agreements, 

the language of their own Constitutions is available to say this is 

what we believe in and this is what we would like you to uphold. 

I think in this part of the world, in the Middle East now, it is 

complicated by the fact that in many ways we don’t hold the moral 

high ground, what you might call the anecdotal impact of incidents 

like Abu Ghraib of the violence in Iraq, which seems to have followed the establishment of a democratic system that we promoted. 

It seems to me that it undermines whatever rhetorical position we 

might otherwise effectively take. It is not a capricious moment for 

us to pursue that line, unfortunately. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Sometimes I feel we can’t win. Years ago, I remember I was—

I reached out to the moderate Muslim community here in the 

United States and gave speech after speech and talked about democracy and the importance of the United States promoting democracy in the Muslim world, and I received really a positive response. 

I mean, it was overwhelmingly positive. 

That was before we started making moves to try to promote democracy in the Muslim world, and as soon as the United States 

started promoting democracy in the Muslim world, especially in 

terms of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, all of a sudden those people who 

were applauding the concept of democracy in a Muslim world 

began to turn in a very negative way toward the United States and 

being involved in the Middle East. 

You know, there was—first of all, we tried an economic embargo 

against Saddam Hussein. Now it is understandable—those people 

say we should never have invaded Iraq and never used force like 

this. Well, we tried an embargo, and those people who generally 

are saying we should never have invaded opposed the embargo as 

well. It was the embargo that eventually brought on, by the way, 

the Oil-for-Food scandal that this committee investigated. 

So we had the embargo and also we heard with the embargo that 

there was of course millions of people who were languishing in 

squalor and not having enough food and not having the medicines, 

the tens of thousands of children that were dying. Of course, that 

was laid on our doorstep, not the doorstep of Saddam Hussein who 

we had provided enough revenue through Oil-for-Food to pay for all 

of those things. But instead, he of course used the money for other 

things. He stole it, and then he used it for military purposes. 

But the United States, by and large, by the very same people 

who had said they were for democracy in the Muslim world, did not 

side with the United States in that. Chose instead to become the 

nitpickers of the United States. 

And that, of course, when we used military intervention in order 

to bring democracy to Iraq, of course then that was even way beyond that. That was not even conceivable. 

I do not know what people in the Muslim world believe, how they 

believe that we will have a liberalization and a democratization of 

these countries now, whether they are pro-American and authoritarians or whether they are anti-American regimes. How do these 

people expect there is going to be a democratization? Is this going 
39

to be democracy and human rights are going to be left under their 

pillow by the tooth fairy, and they will just wake up and it will be 

given to them as a present without any cost? No, there is a cost. 

And maybe we should just give up and just say that this is not our 

strategy because the people there aren’t going to back us when we 

may have an attempt to actually get something done. 

And, of course, if we use the words about human rights, as the 

chairman has amply pointed out, we use the words about human 

rights and don’t do anything, our actions, which you have suggested actions aren’t taking place, then we are viewed as hypocrites. So maybe we should just shut up and let the world go. 

I disagree with that. I am with Human Rights Watch here, and 

the fact is we need to be strong advocates of human rights around 

the world. 

And let me note, for our witness, I couldn’t agree with you more 

about your analysis of what is going on in Pakistan and what has 

gone on in Pakistan. The fact is that the army, which is telling us 

they are the only alternative to radical Islam, the army is allied 

with radical Islam in Pakistan. They always have been. Those of 

us who have been active on that issue understand that it is the secular elements, they are the pro-democratic elements, that have 

been the enemy of Islam and the army that has been the ally of 

Islam in Pakistan. 

So if we want to base our policy on what is going to help radical 

Islam, it is let us not support a military dictatorship in Pakistan. 

Mr. Lippman, I found your remarks a little bit disturbing because of some of the words you were using about our standards. I 

don’t think democracy and human rights are our standards. I think 

it is a universal standard. Using the word that they will decide, 

who is ‘‘they’’? We are talking about a dictatorship or an authoritarian country like Saudi Arabia. Who is ‘‘they’’? ‘‘They’’ isn’t the 

people. ‘‘They’’ is an elite group of people in the Royal Family and 

perhaps some others who they have cut some deals within the 

Wahhabi movement there and their cronies. 

And then the end, where it said that, you know, they are going 

to be ones to make the decisions, and the fact is I don’t know in 

your remarks if you just assumed that what the Saudi Government, it says it doesn’t wish to be anything else. ‘‘It.’’ What is ‘‘it’’? 

I mean, all the people of Saudi Arabia don’t wish to be anything 

else? How do you know? Do we have an open discussion so we can 

determine if that is it? It represents the will of the people? If people are not going to have any type of open discussion in a pre-election, people willing to talk back and forth, how do you know it isn’t 

the wish of the people to have something else? 

Maybe you could go to that. 

Mr. LIPPMAN. First, I would also suggest that you hear from Dr. 

Hamzawy on this subject, whose knowledge is greater than mine, 

but I think you will see that I don’t necessarily accept the premise 

that there is some great gap between the leadership of the country 

and the masses of the people. Saudi Arabia is not North Korea. By 

and large, in my experience there, which goes back now 30 years, 

if our standard is that we wish a government to function with the 

consent of the governed, I believe Saudi Arabia—the government 

system in Saudi Arabia generally meets that standard. 
40

There is a constant frisson, you might say, of dissent, of desire 

to do things better, of distress about corruption. But if you read 

most of the manifestoes that have come out within the limited 

range of freedom that people have in Saudi Arabia to express 

themselves, by and large they seek reform and change within the 

present system, not replacement of the present system. 

Saudi Arabia is a deeply conservative society which, as far as I 

can tell, is largely content to function according to the rules of 

Islam and Islamic law. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is as far as you can tell. 

Ms. OLCOTT. As far as one can tell, that is correct. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I will agree with you that when you talk 

about consent of the governed, which is what we are really talking 

about here, it doesn’t necessarily have to take exactly this shape. 

We are not trying to superimpose our exact type of democracy on 

people when we talk about human rights and democracy. And consent of the governed is important. 

Would you like to comment on that? 

Mr. HAMZAWY. Yes. I agree with what you said. We really do not 

know and how could we know. I mean, this is a society where we 

do not have—we have a minimal degree of beginning political pluralism. As I said, a few civil society organizations. We hear individual voices, but we have no access to proper constituencies in 

Saudi Arabia and the ways of autocratic regimes. We are left to either believe or disbelieve in the logic and rhetoric of governing. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And that is precisely correct. If you are talking about hypocrisy, what is hypocrisy about people—except people 

when they leave their country are deeply involved in all sorts of incredibly anti-religious, or not anti-religious but things that Muslims would consider to be sinful, but then they go back home and 

they put their robes on and act in a totally different way and act 

very piously. And we know that many people from Saudi Arabia 

and the Saudi Arabian leadership do exactly that as they go to Las 

Vegas and lose millions of dollars at the roulette wheel and things 

like that. 

Mr. LIPPMAN. I understand. I hold no beef for the Saudi Arabian 

way of life. I wouldn’t want to live that way myself, and I wouldn’t 

want my family to live that way. 

But the other side about the point you just raised about how the 

Saudis live differently when they go home is they all do go home. 

You may recall a period when there was—southern California had 

tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dissident Iranians, people 

who had come to this country to study. The Saudis were always 

very proud of the fact that when the Iranian students, they were 

so unhappy with their country, when they came here, they stayed. 

And Saudi Arabian students, when they came here and when they 

finished their education, they went home. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What happens is that happens when the government doesn’t confiscate someone’s wealth, and the people who 

are over here are the sons and daughters of the elite. I think that 

is one of the explanations of that. 

Let me note for the record that I had a resolution that I put forward in 19—excuse me—2003. Unfortunately, Mr. Lantos and I 

were the only ones who supported this, and it was condemning the 
41

lack of human rights in Saudi Arabia. I will just submit this for 

the record. I think many of the things that we pointed out are still 

true of Saudi Arabia today. 

[The information referred to follows:]
42
43

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Look, we have a country in Saudi Arabia. I 

saw no problem during World War II for us to ally with Joe Stalin 

in order to defeat Adolf Hitler. No problem with that. 

I don’t find any problem, also, with making short-term adjustments with relationships with less-than-free societies in order to 

defeat radical Islam, if indeed in the long run it will lead us to 

where we want to go. The end of World War II, the defeat of Nazism, and then we had a total compromise in eliminating the possibility of approaching the move in the future. As long as we are 

doing that. 
44

Now what we have to realize today is that Saudi Arabia, during 

this time period, they have been financing the war against us. So 

here we are closing a blind eye to the human rights abuses in 

Saudi Arabia while at the same time they have been building these 

mosques in which anti-American and anti-Western sentiment is 

being stirred up so they can create a whole generation of people, 

especially in Pakistan, who hate us and join this anti-Western war 

against our way of life. That made no sense. 

In terms of Uzbekistan, I have got—you know, I know Mr. 

Karimov, and I was deeply involved with that region of the world 

prior to 9/11 and I had a personal discussion with Mr. Karimov and 

told him the best thing he could possibly do for himself and the 

country would be to declare that he would not be a candidate in 

the next election and declare free and open elections, and he would 

be known as the father of his country and everything else would 

be forgiven and he would go down in history as a hero. Unfortunately, he didn’t follow that advice. He was upset about maybe the 

fact that he believed that we were getting short—he was getting 

shortchanged from what he did expect for his support of us during 

the war in Afghanistan. That could be an explanation. 

Mr. Chairman, that does underscore your points that the war in 

Iraq, by going into Iraq, perhaps we didn’t have the resources to 

fulfill the expectations of those people like Mr. Karimov who helped 

us defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. 

And so would you like to comment on that? 

Ms. OLCOTT. I am very interested in your comment about President Karimov because I, too, share your view that he should step 

down now and he should have stepped down before, but I don’t 

think he is capable, unfortunately, of making that decision and 

that is really bad for the Uzbek people especially. 

I agree with what you said about the war in Iraq needing the resources. I think the whole question to me, a reconstruction project 

in Afghanistan could only have succeeded if it was a strong regional project and that would have created the kind of economic incentives. It didn’t require for a country like Uzbekistan to see they 

were getting something out of the relationship. It didn’t require the 

kind of double standard that would make human rights activists 

mad. It did require a regional approach to rebuilding Afghanistan, 

which we really haven’t done. All of the problems we are having 

in Afghanistan are really part and parcel of not having diverted 

enough resources, human or material, to that problem. 

But, no, I think that if we had done that we would have created 

enough economic incentives for the kind of political reforms that 

the Uzbeks have to do because in my mind that is the line that 

works best, at least in Central Asia, that if you have economic reforms you generate a part of the elite that becomes defenders of the 

political reforms because they need economic transparency, they 

need legal transparency. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. This type of evolution, I hope that we can 

have evolutions like that. I haven’t seen much of it happen around 

the world. Usually there is some sort of a coup or a death and some 

general allies with somebody who then decides it is going to be 

democratic, but there has been some sort of upheaval in the establishment rather than an evolution. 
45

Ms. OLCOTT. I think Kazakhstan is the test case if we get this. 

I mean there are a lot of hopes that they will find that kind of evolution, but it is in no way preordained. But I think where you have 

deeply rooted beliefs it is very hard unless they see it as their economic benefit. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me finish my end of this, and I will make 

sure that you get a chance to comment from Human Rights Watch. 

Look, when we talk about hypocrisy and double standards, I accept 

that there are some types of hypocrisy and double standards in any 

type of historic situation. You have to make decisions that you believe get you beyond a crisis. If your buildings are being blown up 

and thousands of people are being slaughtered, you make certain 

decisions to get you beyond that point. 

However, with that said, I think the United States—it behooves 

the United States to have a long-term commitment to human 

rights and not ever to even create a short-term commitment that 

will prevent us from maintaining that long-term goal. 

With that said, when people talk about the United States being 

hypocrites, I am sorry. I don’t accept somebody being upset about 

Abu Ghraib, where there was mistreatment of some prisoners and 

then we immediately came in and of course tried to correct it by 

arresting those people who were not doing what was right, those 

soldiers that were not doing what was right, by those same people 

who criticized us for that while they turned the blind eye or even 

condone the mass bombings of civilians that are going on in Iraq 

today. 

You know, don’t tell me about hypocrisy when people are turning 

a blind eye to the slaughter of innocent civilians that is going on 

in Iraq and oh, yes, we turned people off because we mistreated 

people at Abu Ghraib. I am sorry, I am not going to apologize for 

that. Once we learned there was something wrong, we tried to correct it. Those people who were attacking the United States for that 

sort of thing, they need to sit back and see if they are being honest 

with themselves and honest with the world. 

So with that, our human rights friend wants to probably comment on something like that. 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. I wanted to—let me try to introduce some 

healthy disagreement here on a couple of different points. 

First, on this question of resources, I totally agree on Afghanistan. We should have pumped much, much more both economically 

and militarily in every possible way. And I think as a general rule, 

that is right. 

But with respect to Uzbekistan, I couldn’t disagree more. I think 

the notion that if we had paid Karimov more, if we had pumped 

$1 billion in there and treated him like Pakistan, that he would 

have seen the light or felt that he needed to do more for the United 

States, I think it profoundly misunderstands the nature of that regime. I think that kind of largess in that situation, in fact, increases the determination of rulers to cling to power because they 

get to——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That misinterprets the strategies that will 

work. That never works with a dictator. Smother him with money, 

hug him and he is going to become——
46

Mr. MALINOWSKI. I mentioned Pakistan for a reason. It clearly 

has had an opposite affect in Pakistan. It entrenched the military 

in a position of authority. They use the largess to take control of 

the economic life of the country, and in fact that kind of largess diminishes the likelihood of real market-based economic reforms 

which will empower the middle class that will lead to the political 

change that will have the positive impact that my friend, I think, 

suggested. 

You know, and the notion that if we had done that they wouldn’t 

have machine-gunned a crowd of innocent people in Andijan, I 

think is just wrong. I think, you know, the very same thing would 

have happened, and we would have been faced with the same 

choice. 

In terms of your comment, Mr. Rohrabacher, I totally agree there 

is no comparison between anything the United States has done and 

the mass murder of innocent people in Iraq every single day by 

these bombers. 

At the same time we are held, and rightly so, to a far higher 

standard. You know, when Saddam Hussein was torturing people 

in his prisons, nobody around the world was saying, ‘‘Well gosh, 

Saddam’s doing it, so that makes it legitimate.’’ When the President of the United States, and forget about Abu Ghraib, but when 

he defends the use of secret detention, when he says waterboarding 

is okay, that has a profoundly negative impact on all of our work 

around the world. When the chief defender of human rights in the 

world begins to make those kinds of excuses and equivocations, the 

whole framework begins to fall apart. So I think that is the distinction. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Malinowski, and 

I concur with your—we do claim a certain moral authority, and 

we ought to be the standard. We ought to be the benchmark, and 

we ought not ever to allow an erosion in terms of those standards 

because, what I believe is that America inspires because of those 

standards. 

They don’t hate us because of our values. They believe us. Rather, they are disappointed because there is a perception that we 

haven’t met our own standards. And I would submit that is the 

basis for why we see the perception of the rest of the world, and 

not just Europeans, and not just Latin Americans, and not just 

people in the Middle East but people here in this country, and a 

growing number that are concerned about that. 

With that, let me yield to the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. 

Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

And I, too, concur with the chairman and the gentleman, the witness, who said that we are held to a different standard. I think 

that our ranking member has a lot of passion, and he has really 

worked through the administrations going through the Cold War 

and he has a distinguished record. 

However, I definitely disagree that we cannot wallow down into 

the depths of dictators and bloodthirsty leaders and say that because they do it, we can do it. If we ever start to equate ourselves 

to these people around the world, we are in serious trouble. I mean 

very serious trouble. 
47

As a matter of fact, even growing up as a kid, all I heard about 

was December the 7th, the day that will go down in infamy, the 

secret attack of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese 

forces, the Imperial Forces of Japan. And even though we did have 

a little inkling that there was some aggression being built up, and 

then for us to say we have got to do a preemptive strike on Iraq, 

you know, some people around the world are equating what is the 

difference between that day that went down in infamy and the day 

that we had a preemptive strike in Iraq because someone said 

there are weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons. Just 

made up. The reasons kept changing. Finally, it came down to regime change. 

If you start going in bombing countries and destroying them because you want to change a President, you know, where is the 

world going? 

So I do think that as we fight this so-called war on terror, we 

have to be very careful how, you know, in Dante’s Inferno there 

was seven levels to purgatory. I don’t know if we are supposed to 

get down to the lowest level to equate ourselves to our enemies. 

But let me just ask. You know, was it Mr. Malinowski, I hope 

I am saying it almost right, about Iran, human rights activists 

there said, you know, please let us do this alone. Our concern about 

being identified with the U.S. You know, in Venezuela we got all 

involved in the election and I think even in—might have been 

Peru, another Latin American country where the United States 

cozied up to a particular party, and that was actually used to help 

defeat the ones that we thought we were helping. 

So what do you think about the administration has actually 

asked for $75 million for Iran to help opposition activists. Now they 

have said thanks, but no thanks, please. Let us do it ourselves. 

Do you think that the administration should certainly listen to 

what the Iranians are saying, or do you think they should continue 

to try to help with this funding? 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. They are not listening very well, and here is 

what Iranian dissidents say to us and I think what they have said 

to the administration. They want the United States to be speaking 

out on human rights in their country. They want us to be raising 

these issues with the Iranian Government. In fact, they don’t want 

the United States to cut a deal on the nuclear issue, among other 

things, which gives Iran a lot of aid without raising the human 

rights issue as part of it. 

I think most of them are absolutely fine and, in fact, supportive 

of spending money on things like broadcasting into Iran which increases the flow of information. They also want us to be spending 

money on exchanges and on anything that increases contact between the two societies, because the more people-to-people contact 

we have, you know, and things like academic exchanges and other 

things that are nonpolitical, the easier it is for them to find space 

to do political activism. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Will the gentleman yield for a moment? 

If you can expand for just a moment. 

I don’t think many Americans, and certainly not most Members 

of Congress, are aware that there are exchanges that are in exist-
48

ence between Iranians and the United States at this moment in 

time. 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. At this moment it is pretty much frozen because the Iranian Government has been arresting, as you know, 

Americans who have been involved in some of these very below-theradar screen——

Mr. DELAHUNT. Do we have Iranians studying in the United 

States or participating in any exchanges? 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. There have been—I am not sure if they are 

Iranian students. This is all very much below the radar screen. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. We will keep it below the radar screen. 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. They also, frankly, want dialogue between the 

United States Government and the Iranian Government, and one 

reason they want this is because, you know, the position of the Iranian Government, the Ahmadinejad regime, is if you talk to the 

Americans, you are a traitor. But if every Iranian sees on television 

the Iranian Government talking to the Americans, it will be far 

more difficult for the Iranian Government to enforce that point of 

view with respect to these citizen-to-citizen dialogues, which they 

think are so important. 

So they want all of that. The one thing that they don’t want is 

for the United States to be saying that we are sending money inside Iran to help the dissidents, to help political activists, to support human rights and democracy because that puts a target on 

their back. 

The truth is, we are not sending it in and yet we say we are. 

The State Department put out a fact sheet a week or 10 days ago 

in which it describes how we are spending this money, and there 

is a line in there, some of this money supports people inside Iran 

who are fighting for democracy and human rights. And what they 

mean by that is well, the broadcasting does that indirectly and 

they run some seminars outside Iran that Iranians go to. So indirectly it does that. And they are trying to exaggerate the impact 

of these programs by saying we are helping these people inside. 

But the effect that has on Iranians inside is very, very negative, 

and they have been begging the administration to stop advertising 

that, to stop saying we are sending money inside. 

So I think when you all consider the money and the appropriation, I am not saying you shouldn’t be appropriating money for 

things like broadcasting. I think you should be. But I think you 

should be absolutely clear in what you say and urge the administration to be clear that this is not meant to be pumping money inside Iran to be helping these groups because it isn’t and because 

that hurts them. 

Mr. PAYNE. Just in the same questioning, there was some recent 

arrests, as you know, what was her name?—Haleh Esfandiari 

worked for the Wilson Center in Washington. The program was 

being subsidized by government funds. Do you know how this particular case is proceeding and the prospects of the arrest, and do 

you think that the government did that as sort of a reaction 

against this sort of funding that they hear is happening? 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. I don’t think they did it because of the funding. 

They are doing it because they are threatened by these contacts. 
49

They are threatened by these exchanges. They are threatened by 

the notion of civil society. 

The funding gives them a pretext. The funding gives them a sort 

of a nationalistic pretext to crack down on these groups, which resonates with some Iranians, with parts of Ahmadinejad’s base. 

So it is not that they would be a kinder, gentler government if 

we stopped saying these things. They wouldn’t be, of course. But 

this is giving them a pretext that they wouldn’t otherwise have. 

And again, the bottom line is the very dissidents who we want 

to be supporting are asking us please don’t do this. I think that 

should be enough. And, you know, there are precedents for this. 

One story I remember back in the 1980s, Congress appropriated 

funding to help the Solidarity labor union in Poland. It was a great 

gesture. Everybody wanted to help Solidarity in that particular 

time. Money was appropriated. Solidarity said ‘‘Oh, actually, no, we 

can’t—we don’t want to take this because the Communist government in Poland will label us as a puppet of the United States if 

we take this money.’’

And so the Reagan administration said, ‘‘Okay, very well. What 

do you want us to use it for?’’ And Solidarity said, ‘‘Well, we have 

a medical crisis in Poland. We need ambulances. Use that money 

to pay for ambulances for our national health service.’’ Which they 

did, and Solidarity got credit for what was turned into humanitarian assistance. 

That is a good example of a government that was listening to 

people on the ground who were fighting for these goals, and I don’t 

quite understand why it has been hard to break through with the 

current administration on this issue. 

Mr. PAYNE. Just continuing on Iran before my time expires. 

It is interesting to note that many younger people—there is a 

pretty pro-United States thread that runs through many Iranian 

younger people. I mean our, you know, the styles, the music, it just 

is not an anti-American sentiment. And I wonder if there is some 

way, you know, which is positive—as a matter of fact, my alma 

mater, Seton Hall University, actually invited the former President 

of Iran 3 or 4 years ago to come and speak at the university, and 

of course it caught all kinds of devilment from people by doing this, 

but I think these are the kinds of things that you mention that we 

should be doing more of. 

I just wonder what do you think about the recent statement by 

the—I guess it is the Independent from Connecticut, Senator 

Lieberman, who has the bright idea: Let us just go bomb Iran. Do 

you think that is a good diplomatic tool to help us win over our 

people? 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. As I suggested, in my testimony, if our goal is 

to unite the Iranian people with their leadership, I think that is 

a good way of doing that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Payne, will you yield? Mr. Meeks has an appointment. I am going to yield right back to you. But I want to give 

him an opportunity because he is a man with a very frenetic, busy 

schedule. 

With that, let me yield to Mr. Meeks of New York, co-chair of the 

Caribbean Caucus. 
50

Mr. MEEKS. I come at this, you know, in listening and I heard 

what our ranking member, who I respect a great deal, had to say. 

But we talked about democracy, and I can’t help to think as I travel, democracy could mean anything to anybody. It is just the word 

‘‘democracy.’’ What are you talking about, democracy? And what 

kind of democracy and democracy for who? Because you can have 

a country that is, you know, a so-called democracy but yet the people within the country or a fragment of that really don’t see democracy. And so it takes a lot for the people from within to come together to try to make a difference to do something. 

And I think that for me, I am my country’s biggest critic. I think 

I should be. That is part of my responsibility. I would hope that 

others would be their country’s biggest critic. But I think when 

people look at us, they look at certain things. 

There was a recent report that came out, a group of economists, 

from the people who publish the Economist magazine, along with 

a number of U.S. universities and President Carter, the Dalai 

Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Harry Fulbright. They came 

up with this program to try to determine, you know, who is the 

most peace-accomplished nation, et cetera. And they did it with 121 

countries, 121 countries. Where did the United States fall? I will 

tell you. In there it talked about human rights, prison population, 

violence, access to weapons, military expenditure. And the United 

States, out of 121, ranked 96. 96. 

And that is what happens when we go out and we start talking 

to people and trying to tell people what to do without putting or 

placing the highest standard on ourselves. That is why those of us 

in this government, if we want others to respect what we say, we 

have got to hold our Government to a higher standard, if we want 

folks to listen to us and appreciate us, especially the grassroot 

folks. 

Because I talk to poor people and you talk to folks over there, 

they say, well, you know, conditions of a lot of folks in the United 

States is not right, and I think about our history. Democracy was, 

I guess, supposed to have been here for over, you know, 200 years, 

250 years. But it sure wasn’t that way for people of African descent 

in the United States of America. Surely it was not that way in a 

so-called democracy. 

So people get to question whether you are talking about just telling you to do what we tell you to do because we are telling you to 

do it and try to throw it down somebody’s throats, or working with 

people so that they can in fact accomplish what they want to accomplish. 

I think that is exactly what you are talking about when you say 

give them ambulances as opposed—because we listened to the people there. Too often we don’t want to listen to anybody. We tell you 

how to do it. If you don’t do it the way we tell you how to do it, 

then you are not with us. That is what, you know, people feel. It 

is starting to happen now, not only with individuals in the Middle 

East. It is starting to happen with some of our allies. It is starting 

to happen with some of the Europeans. They are starting to get 

upset about how we pushed this thing called democracy as opposed 

to working with people, as opposed to trying to understand. 
51

I mean, I am concerned. This guy, for example, in Iran, 

Ahmadinejad, he is a bad guy. One of my questions, I will just 

throw that out real quick, but the way we are talking about we 

want them to have democracy, you know, I was looking at, you 

know, some time ago, you know, when he got elected, he was supposed to have been just a figurehead, his government was in trouble recently, not too long ago, because you look at the municipal 

elections, his party was losing large elections. But we put the ships 

in and different things start to happen and Lieberman said what 

he had to say, and then all of a sudden we see he is getting stronger. 

So my question, maybe I am not saying it right, but do you believe, in Iran, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is gaining power at the 

expense of the moderates simply because we are not listening and 

we are saying, ‘‘Do as I tell you to do or it ain’t gonna happen.’’? 

I will throw that question out there. 

Mr. HAMZAWY. Yes. Ahmadinejad has gained over the last 2 

years at least from the administration’s rhetoric on Iran and from 

exactly the attitude which you just described, pushing them, prescribing to Iranians what they should do, and Ahmadinejad and his 

propaganda machinery, and I use this term in a very conscious 

way, have done an excellent job in using and playing a nationalistic 

card and portraying Ahmadinejad and his policies as the only way 

to defend Iranian national interests and Iranian sovereignty 

against systematic interventions. And here the manual was used, 

75 million which were assigned to so-called democracy promotion 

programs, were used to discredit homegrown opposition movements. 

But this issue raises a substantial question with regard to democracy promotion and whether the U.S. is really willing—given 

the different security interests—is really willing to listen to what 

homegrown opposition movements, democratic movements put forward, or whether the U.S. has an interest in ignoring them and in 

a way keeping its contacts and keeping its alliance with friendly 

regimes or keeping its attitude with regard to pressing or undermining America’s perceived enemies. 

So the real bottom line is whether the U.S. is willing to promote 

democracy to homegrown opposition movements and to take risks 

and tradeoffs because democracy promotion will not come without 

tradeoffs. Promoting democracy in a country like Saudi Arabia 

means there are tradeoffs which are bound to happen. And the U.S. 

is better to compromise it as a priority. It was a perception of a 

hierarchy of priority, what it can give up on and what it cannot 

give up on. 

And finally this third issue, and here I am coming back to your 

remarks, Mr. Rohrabacher, on regime change and democracy promotion. I agree with what you said, and until now, this is the case, 

if you listen to constituencies not in Iran but in many Middle Eastern countries, people are for democratization and for democratic 

change and even for a measure of American help, for a measure of 

American assistance to promote democracy. 

But they are definitely against regime change used as a carrier 

to promote democracy because this is basically in a way, in a very 
52

explicit way, you are ignoring, you are ignoring homegrown domestic sentiment. 

Mr. MEEKS. The people don’t want to be puppets. I have got to 

go. People don’t want to be puppets. They don’t want to be perceived as if they don’t know anything and, ‘‘We have got to do it 

the way that you tell us to do it, and that is it.’’ Because what is 

happening is they have pride also, and their culture is different, 

and oftentimes when we move in certain places we don’t consider 

what those people’s culture is or value their culture at all. It is our 

culture that we are talking about, and we want to impose our culture on other individuals who want democracy, and they can get 

it in their way, not in our way. 

I am sorry. I cut you off. 

Mr. HAMZAWY. And imposing democracy, especially as it was 

practiced in terms of justifying the occupation or the invasion of 

Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power, has only resulted 

in discrediting the rhetoric, not only the Americans, but the rhetoric, and the democracy promotion agenda across the region. 

So what I am saying is we do have constituencies in many countries asking for measured American assistance in improving 

human rights conditions, in promoting democracy, but the condition really is to listen to homegrown opposition movements and to 

take them seriously, not by imposing on them a set of benchmarks 

or impressions devised and in fact identified here in the U.S. but 

by listening to them. 

This is my final point. This society is not static. We have trouble. 

We have crisis. We have autocratic rulers. But they are dynamic, 

and they have a voice that we can listen to. Many of them come 

to the U.S. We just need to listen carefully to what they put forward. We just need to listen carefully to what Saudi Arabians put 

forward. We need to listen carefully to what Egyptians and Moroccans and Yemenis put forward. 

But at the end of the day, their experience has been that this administration, previous administrations, have kept their strategic alliance with autocratic regimes just based on national security 

issues and interests of the U.S. which undermine the rhetoric. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I yield back to Mr. 

Payne. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. I will certainly just conclude. 

Just about, you know, our great ally, Saudi Arabia. There recently have been some supposedly moves on the Government of 

Saudi Arabia. The King funded a human rights society, nongovernmental organization to investigate human rights violations. 

Do you really think that this society has any independence? I 

don’t know whether the rights of women that are totally abused—

can women drive yet in Saudi Arabia? No. They let them vote, 

right? Are they voting now? Can they vote? 

Mr. HAMZAWY. No. 

Mr. PAYNE. How about they have to walk a half or foot or two 

behind the men? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. The ranking member just said they can’t drive 

to the polls. 

Mr. HAMZAWY. It is a depressing picture. 
53

Let me tackle first your question on the Human Rights Council 

which was established. 

Yes. This organization is not independent, is not autonomous. It 

is controlled and managed by the government. In fact, if you look 

at the board of directors of the organizations, these are figures that 

are really close to the Saudi Royal Family and the Saudi ruling establishment. Yet it is a step institutionalizing even when it is government controlled, even when it is managed and contained by the 

government, institutionalizing, realizing an organization. This was 

not the case in Saudi Arabia until 2004, 2005. Saudi Arabia was 

an undemocratic society where we did not have any barriers between rulers and so-called citizens. The layer of civil society organizations, nongovernmental organizations did not exist. 

So even if it is government and it is government controlled, institutionalizing nongovernmental organizations is a step forward. 

But human rights abuses have continued systematically with no 

change. Human rights workers which go to Saudi Arabia document 

human rights abuses. There is a growing active scene of growing 

activists, of human rights. But in no way has this impacted positively on to the government attitude. So abuses continue systematically. 

Finally, on women, yes, we do not have—they cannot drive and 

they are not registered voters or candidates in elections. They 

were, however, which is significant, they were allowed to vote and 

to run as candidates in syndicates which, once again, shows the importance of the civil society arena in a country like Saudi Arabia. 

Saudi Arabia institutionalized the professional syndicate, once 

again controlled by the government, but they did that—allowing 

these syndicates, chambers of commerce, professional syndicates, 

they did allow women to vote and to run as candidates, which was 

a step forward in the way it did create the meaning of women participating in public affairs. And it is not a significant step. It is a 

slight, positive step ahead which needs to be noted but will have 

wider impact on the society. 

It remains a society which is extremely driven by conservative 

ideology, by conservative, religious-based ideology which has the official establishment and this ideology assigns no role to women in 

public life so far. 

Mr. PAYNE. I think that we made a mistake. You know, USAID 

never got really involved in education, you know, building of 

schools or funding education in countries around—especially in Africa where the Saudis are sending in funds for the Wahhabi teachings and schools. And so as a result, you know, we have seen sort 

of a quiet radicalizing of countries where Islam—in Africa Islam 

was never a serious difference between people. I mean, in families, 

some are Muslim, some are Christians. It didn’t even matter. It 

wasn’t even discussed. 

Now with the radicalism coming in, you see in Nigeria, of course 

Sudan is a prime example of the whole power of religion and 

Shari’a and that is what the Sudan civil war was all about. And 

so I think that we sort of allowed the Saudis to kind of push their 

ideology around in developing countries that were just anxious to 

get some assistance in education, but the bad part went with it 

where we could have been doing that rather than spending so 
54

much money propping up, you know, the Mobutus and the military 

dictators where we spent hundreds of times more money on weaponry and those kind of things, and the radical Islamists were 

spending, you know, just a miniscule amount compared to what we 

were spending but getting their whole point across. 

So I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, thank you, Mr. Payne. 

Would you agree with the statement that when there is a choice 

or in framing American public policy while human rights is a component in terms of the formulation of policy, it really has historically been at the low rung of the ladder? If there is a conflicting 

imperative, mostly—usually on national security concerns, it is always the national security concern that will trump the human 

rights concerns. I think it was your testimony, Mr. Malinowski, 

where you pointed out that Saudi Arabia has been condemned by 

the State Department for its policies on human trafficking. It is labeled a Tier 3 country. But the administration waived the designation so as not to impose any of the sanctions pursuant to the legislation, particularly as it relates to military sales to Saudi Arabia, 

because the waiver would be to advance goals of the global war on 

terror and United States commercial interests, re: The oil. 

If you agree with that statement, then my question would be, 

how do we respond to—we find ourselves, Members of Congress, 

others, in a real conundrum when we confront those nations that 

have comparable—in some cases better—human rights records, but 

whom we castigate day, after day, after day from Washington, from 

daises such as this, about violation of press freedoms or lack of respect for labor organizations. Because when we examine on the 

record in terms of absolutes without putting it in context, if you 

just talk about torture and religious freedom and all of those 

human rights that we have been discussing today, I mean, Saudi 

Arabia doesn’t come out very well. I mean, I have been to Havana. 

I have seen women drive cars in Cuba. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Old cars. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Old cars, but still cars. In fact, I have attended, 

you know, mass in Cuba. I have had multiple conversations with 

Cardinal Ortega, who is the Primate, the Roman Catholic Primate 

of Cuba. I have met with the Jewish community in Havana. So 

when I go to an event and they say, ‘‘Please, give me a break, you 

are in bed with the Saudis, and you have the arrogance to condemn 

the human rights record of the Castro government,’’ which I do. In 

fact, many of the dissidents that were arrested and incarcerated, 

the so-called 75, in April 2003, some of them were close, personal 

friends of mine. But how do we work out the conundrum? How do 

we say we are not hypocrites? How do we do that? Give me some 

guidance. 

Mr. LIPPMAN. Can I try a bite of that? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Sure. 

Mr. LIPPMAN. I think my colleagues would agree there is a difference between tactical maneuvering that has to go on here and 

standing for what we believe in and believing in what we stand for 

and letting everybody know, we mentioned earlier, that we are held 

to a higher standard. We should want to be held to a higher standard. We should ask to be held to a higher standard, and we should 
55

let the world know that we have our faults. We are going to make 

mistakes. Some people are going to feel that we didn’t serve their 

interests or their particular cause the way we should have, but consistency of principle and consistency, I would say, of principled 

rhetoric is not unachievable. I think part of the problem is that—

particularly the way the government is organized—the State Department and the Defense Department are compartmentalized. The 

Africa deaths and the Middle East deaths and the China people 

and all that. And you see this and because it sometimes results in 

almost policy paralysis. I believe that a consistent adherence to the 

principle and to the ideals of human freedom, individual liberty, 

personal security that we believe in is not inconsistent with tactical 

maneuvering to do what we have to do in a messy world. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Dr. Hamzawy. 

Mr. HAMZAWY. Once again, I agree with what Tom said. But in 

reality, the potential for consistency in the rhetoric is minimal. And 

we just need to look at the last few years to discover many spaces 

of inconsistency. What Congress can do I would say at two levels: 

One, Congress ought to be consistent about its own rhetoric with 

regard to ideals of human rights. Congress does not face the same 

restraints which the administration faces when looking at Saudi 

Arabia. Maybe to a lesser extent. 

And secondly, and here is the more policy-oriented part of it, 

Congress has the obligation to guide the administration even while 

it is in bed with the Saudis, as to where are the spaces, where are 

the spaces where the Saudis can be pressed without leaving the 

bed. And there are spaces where the Saudis can be pressed. There 

are spaces where the Saudis can be systematically pressed. And 

the U.S. has the leverage to do so if it is interested. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Doctor, I appreciate that. And let me—and I am 

going to go right down the line here. But I am going to ask—I 

thought—I think it was your recommendation that we incorporate—or maybe it was Mr. Malinowski’s, or someone else, but 

into the——

Mr. HAMZAWY. Strategic dialogue. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Within the strategic dialogue between the United 

States and Saudi Arabia that we encouraged the administration, 

maybe through a sense of Congress resolution, to incorporate a discussion of human rights. Does that make sense? 

Mr. HAMZAWY. It does. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I mean, I hear you. You are what I would describe as a pragmatist and an incrementalist, particularly when 

faced with certain realities. Does that make sense? 

Mr. HAMZAWY. It would make great sense to institutionalize the 

discussion with the Saudis. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I will ask my good friend from California, the 

noted surfer, if he will do that. Dr. Olcott. 

Ms. OLCOTT. I would like to make two short points. I think that 

both Mr. Meeks and Mr. Payne made important comments. I think 

that the double standard is going to be that the oil states have double standards. I think we would get people to take our rhetoric 

more seriously, as we talked about before, by introducing vocabulary of universal goals or things they have signed, but also by having more humility about our own experience and our imperfections. 
56

It is clear we should be moving forward more humbly than we 

sometimes appear to be. That is the first point. 

I think Mr. Payne’s point was also really critical. I think we have 

to become more sensitive not just to the human rights abuses of 

today but the potential abuses. His point about not having spent 

money on education in Africa was really critical. We are not spending on education in post-Soviet states too. The Uzbeks are not letting in Saudi money, but education is declining in all these places. 

In places where we are not engaging because of current human 

rights abuses we have to protect ourselves better against the risk 

that we are helping to create future human rights abuses because 

of the low level of international engagement more generally. And 

so we run the risk of undereducated women all over the place, and 

with it the decline of secularism. These are all future abuses that 

we have to be more sensitive to and aware of as we move forward. 

Thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Malinowski. 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. Thanks. A note about Saudi Arabia and then 

a point on your question on how to balance interests. You mentioned on the Saudi case that the government is now cited officially 

for violations of religious freedom and the trafficking thing, and 

that reminded me that for many years the State Department didn’t 

designate Saudi Arabia a major violator of religious freedom even 

though it clearly was. And it didn’t because the wisest experts on 

Saudi Arabia at the State Department said persuasively, apparently, that if we did that it would blow up the relationship with 

Saudi Arabia. Well, eventually the State Department did it, and 

the sky didn’t fall. There is still a close relationship between the 

United States and Saudi Arabia. 

Of course, there is a way to speak honestly even to governments 

as sensitive as the Saudis about——

Mr. DELAHUNT. With respect. 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. With respect, of course. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. With cultural respect. 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. Of course you can speak about these things, 

and I think if we did just what you just suggested and urged that 

these issues be part of the formal strategic dialogue, that would be 

welcomed by the vast majority of Saudis, who also believe that 

these problems exist and that they should be openly discussed, and 

I think they would welcome it. 

On the whole issue of, you know, do other interests always take 

precedence, I think if you look at it historically we do always end 

up doing the right thing after we exhaust all other options. And 

back in the 1980s we—my organization was thought of as being 

somewhat naive and unrealistic for suggesting that the United 

States should not continue to pursue a completely uncritical relationship with another very important power in the Middle East, 

and that was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. And you know, well, call us 

naive. We thought that was probably a bad idea for U.S. interests, 

that that government was probably not a good partner and friend. 

And you know, come the invasion of Kuwait, everybody came to 

agree with us. 

On Pakistan, setting aside the moral issues and focusing on core 

United States national interests, what is the core interest right 
57

now? It is Afghanistan; it is the fight against the Taliban and alQaeda. Why is the Government of Pakistan not being particularly 

helpful in that? Well, it is actually fairly simple to explain. The 

military leader of Pakistan cannot depend on the support of the 

majority of people in that country who want a more moderate secular course for that country’s future. Therefore, he has to depend 

on the minority in that country that is more inclined to support 

groups like the Taliban, and therefore feels he cannot afford to 

crack down on them. You know, set aside our wonderful idealistic 

goals about liberty and freedom for everybody. There is a linkage 

between the core national interest and our promotion of human 

rights. 

And so I think my answer to that question when I talk to folks 

at the State Department and elsewhere is not to separate these 

things out but to see the linkages. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, let me go to my friend from California. 

Dana? We try to wear out our panel. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Closing statements? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. No. We are just starting actually. 

Mr. LIPPMAN. The working groups and the so-called strategic dialogue were created. They grew out of the same meeting at the 

Crawford ranch between Bush and Abdullah where the statement 

came out that essentially gave the Saudis a free pass, in my opinion. The subject of human rights was so conspicuous by the absence 

from the list of topics to be addressed that it called attention to the 

fact that we weren’t even addressing it, and even in a most respectful way. And I would say that I agree completely with Tom 

Malinowski that it is possible to discuss many of these issues now 

in a helpful, respectful, creative way because the Saudis do it 

themselves. And you go to Saudi Arabia today, issues of public interest along these lines—the rights of gay people, for example, are 

ventilated in open forums and in the media in ways that they 

never were before. You may not like the tenor of the discussion, but 

it is on the table. And if they could have it on their own table, I 

don’t see why we can’t discuss it with them. 

Half the people, more than half the people coming out of Saudi 

Arabia’s universities as graduates now are women, new dynamic 

coming up through the society as they seek to protect and advance 

some of their own interests. It is a static society, as I said in my 

opening remarks, and they are not totally resistant to any suggestion that we might have some helpful ideas. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. No. I really do appreciate the testimony. Because 

I think you are correct. And I wonder—I don’t know, but I would 

speculate that—this subcommittee has never had until today a 

hearing that would review the issues that we have reviewed specifically, looking at the three countries. Mr. Malinowski added 

Pakistan, and appropriately so. And I think it is important. I think 

there is a reluctance on the part of—well, ‘‘let’s just, you know, not 

talk about it.’’ And I think we are making a mistake not doing that. 

And it does not have to implicate strident rhetoric that is 

confrontational in nature and, like Mr. Meeks said, my friend from 

New York, in-your-face because that is not going to accomplish it. 

We keep pointing our finger in your face, in someone else’s face, it 

is going to get bitten off. 
58

So I would suggest a very pragmatic approach, get it all out, acknowledge that there is a problem or that we have a serious disagreement. I mean, I applauded the administration for shifting 

gears and sitting down with representatives of Iran and Syria. Got 

to talk to everybody. I am an attorney by profession and it is all 

about—I would equate it with a discovery proceeding. It is like, I 

would rather watch C–SPAN than a variety of cable shows because 

you have got to hear it yourself. Everybody has an opinion and, you 

know, opinions tend to be selective. We examine those facts that 

we look to to support and buttress our own argument or our own 

advocacy. So getting it all out. 

What I find frustrating is here we are speaking about Saudi Arabia. But I guarantee, you come to any hearing in this room, you 

are not going to hear a lot about Saudi Arabia. You will hear a lot 

about Iran and Cuba and North Korea and not that, you know, 

that they have records that don’t deserve substantial criticism. But 

I know when I travel and I go overseas and I hear, ‘‘Hey, you know, 

we know it is all just politics and posturing.’’ I mean, here we have 

our own President. I think it was you, Mr. Malinowski, in the discussion on Pakistan. What is occurring here today in Pakistan is 

outrageous. And yet President Bush describes what I believe the 

democratic forces—and maybe I am wrong but I am open to listening—the democratic forces there in terms that undermine them. 

They are posturing. What do we gain? I mean, I really wonder 

sometimes whether we, you know, should—whether all the bills 

and the sense of Congress resolutions that we pass, if in aggregate 

they tend to hurt our foreign policy goals and our ambitions as opposed to assist. I applaud the goals, but I wonder sometimes 

whether we have developed such an extraordinary talent in doing 

it the wrong way that we should take a hiatus for a decade in 

terms of putting anything on paper. 

Mr. Rohrabacher? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, and I appreciate it 

again. I think that you have chosen a number of very provocative 

subjects for our hearings. It is important to open up discussion like 

this that will stimulate discussion throughout the world, actually. 

People who read what goes on here or are watching on C–SPAN, 

et cetera. 

Just a few closing thoughts on my part, and that is, number one, 

I do have a very strong record on human rights. And in fact, as 

I say, back in 2003 I had a piece of legislation talking specifically 

about Saudi Arabia and how we should be including that in our 

dialogue. I would be happy to present that as a present for you 

today and for your consideration. We might use it as the basis of 

insisting that that be part of the diplomatic discussion between our 

countries, which I of course would support, which is the idea that 

you presented, which I think is a very fine idea. 

Let me note this, I do not believe that it is compromising my 

human commitment to human rights or moral principles that we 

kill murderers. Take a murderer and you execute him. I know that 

Human Rights Watch may mirror Amnesty International. Whether 

you equate the murderer in killing him while you have him in custody to the murder, act of murder, which the murderer committed. 

I see that totally different, and I have no apologies for that. People 
59

can think that I have a double standard and am being hypocritical. 

Those who believe that know, you get some guy who has slaughtered some young children someplace; I will pull the lever myself 

and get rid of him. And I am not a murderer. I am someone who 

society has elected to make these types of decisions and the people 

of our country made that. I don’t believe that that moral standard 

is something that should be equated with the moral standards of 

the murderer himself. 

Similarly, I do not believe, for example, that it is hypocritical for 

those of us who believe in democracy and oppose the use by tyrants 

of torture and oppose the use of force by tyrants to maintain their 

power. I don’t consider it hypocritical for those of us who believe 

in democracy and are trying to defend democracy to compel a terrorist, who would impose a dictatorship on the world and the rest 

of us, to disclose information that might save 10,000 lives of those 

who have been targeted by that terrorist in his attempt to terrorize 

democratic peoples into submission to religious dictatorship. No, I 

don’t consider that to be moral equivalency at all. And I don’t consider it to be—and if some people try to uplift that and try to create that and say ah, that is a double standard and that is just 

making people angry, if the people of the world can’t see that, so 

be it. 

The United States of America has every race, every religion, 

every ethnic group here. We are here as an example of what happens. We will have to make our decisions on what is the moral 

standards for humankind and taking a terrorist that is going to 

slaughter 10,000 people or 100,000 people or try to create a poison 

in the food system of a country that would result in millions of people dying, trying to compel that terrorist to talk, taking him off the 

streets—we have taken 200 of them off the street and are holding 

them somewhere—that is not equivalent of us being willing to kill 

millions of people to terrorize the world into some form of dictatorship. 

Now, maybe that is the moral decision we all have to struggle 

with. I don’t have any struggle with that. And if the people of the 

world want to judge me differently or judge the United States differently, they can. But I don’t believe that down deep people—and 

if they do, if they can’t understand the significant difference between those two elements, well then so be it. We will just try to 

do our very best, those of us who believe in trying to take a practical approach. But that does not excuse—walking away from 

practicalism does not excuse walking away from your standards. 

Just like we were talking about Uzbekistan. I couldn’t agree with 

you more. Simply providing more money for Uzbekistan, or some 

of these other dictatorships, whether it is in Africa or elsewhere, 

is not going to convince the ruling elite of those countries to become 

more democratic. In fact, it is what I call a ‘‘Hug a Nazi, Make a 

Liberal’’ theory. I don’t think it has ever worked. You don’t try to 

embrace these people or try to give them money and buy them off. 

You just have to stand up for principle. It doesn’t mean that every 

time there is someone who does not meet our standards that we 

have to invade them. All right? We don’t have to invade Saudi Arabia like we did with Saddam Hussein. Okay? We don’t have to do 

that. To be non-hypocritical, we can indeed use force against Sad-
60

dam Hussein while choosing to use persuasion with the Saudis. 

However, we should be using persuasion with the Saudis. That 

would be hypocritical if we backed away from making a principal 

stand as compared to just saying, ‘‘Oh, you can’t use force here unless you are willing to use it everywhere.’’

So with that, I think we have had a very provocative discussion 

here today, Mr. Chairman, and we have brought up some specific 

information about what is going on in the world, and I really enjoyed all of your opinions and learned a lot today. So thank you 

very much. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher, and I am glad for 

your declaration of non-invasion of Saudi Arabia. I am sure that 

that will calm those in Riyadh and Jedda will feel safe and secure 

tonight that we won’t be. 

Any closing? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Not in Cuba. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Not in Cuba, right. They are easy, they don’t 

have any oil. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Not yet. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Let me just ask Dr. Olcott one final question. 

You reference Kazakhstan and the fact that there appears to be silence about the constitutional amendment that we would create a 

President for life potential. Do you wish to comment on that? Does 

that have anything to do with oil? 

Ms. OLCOTT. By the silence? I am sure the silence does have to 

do with oil. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I know that is speculation. 

Ms. OLCOTT. No, no. I have spent a lot of time trying to think 

this issue through. I think that there were some good things in the 

reform. I mean, I think people were a little stunned that this provision came up, making him President for life, because there had 

been a draft that had been leaked 2 months before of what the constitutional amendments were going to be, and there were some 

modifications to them. But this thing was not part of it and there 

were no leaks about it. So I think part of the silence was that he 

just kind of caught everybody by surprise. And yes, I think that 

Kazakhstan is viewed as a critical strategic partner of the United 

States, and that is one reason why this didn’t become a huge point 

of controversy. He is not up for election now, and what he has 

gained is the ability to run again if he wishes in 2012. 

So it is a confusing thing to wrap your head around. The Kazakh 

opposition has been very outspoken about it. Is it a double standard? Well, I think Karimov was betting on the fact that he will get 

to do the same thing, and that is part of why I think this occurred. 

It frees a lot of other people to do the same thing. But it wasn’t 

the most important thing. That reform was very imperfect but it 

did democratize. So I think that the State Department’s statement 

was wishy-washy, but they were driven to a wishy-washy statement by the fact that they got a bunch of the things they wanted 

but not as much as they wanted, and then they had this thing 

thrown in that they had no anticipation was coming. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Malinowski? 

Mr. MALINOWSKI. One thing that my experience in government 

taught me is that oftentimes things happen for a reason. Often-
61

times things happen because people just mess up and there is no 

good reason. And actually, my friends at the State Department tell 

me this was actually the latter case, that the reason they made a 

wishy-washy statement was because the spokesman blew it, he 

didn’t have guidance that day, and they were all kind of embarrassed by what was not said. 

The problem sometimes—you know, the problem that happens 

when the State Department makes a mistake is they don’t rush out 

to correct it unless people ask them to repeatedly. Media or the 

Congress. My sense is if you are concerned about this, and I hope 

you are, that you do ask the State Department to clarify its position. My guess is you might get a slightly less wishy-washy answer 

and that would be very helpful. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Any final, any final? Anyone want to say anything? Anybody in the audience? Thank you so much. We will adjourn. 

[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(63)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD BY THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON

INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

IRAN

The government of Iran engages in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations 

of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based 

primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused. Over the past year, the Iranian government’s poor religious freedom record deteriorated, especially for religious 

minorities and in particular for Baha’is, Sufi Muslims, and Evangelical Christians, 

including intensified harassment, detention, arrests, and imprisonment. Heightened 

anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial rhetoric and activities by senior government officials have increased fear among Iran’s Jewish community. Since the 1979 Iranian 

revolution, significant numbers from religious minority communities have fled Iran 

for fear of persecution. Dissident Muslims also continue to be subject to abuse. Since 

1999, the State Department has designated Iran as a ‘‘country of particular concern,’’ or CPC. The Commission continues to recommend that Iran remain a CPC. 

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran proclaims Islam, specifically the 

doctrine of the Twelver (Shi’a) Jaafari School, to be the official religion of the country. It stipulates that all laws and regulations, including the Constitution itself, be 

based on Islamic criteria. The head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and has direct control over the armed 

forces, the internal security forces, and the judiciary. The Council of Guardians, half 

of whose members are appointed by the Supreme Leader, reviews all legislation 

passed by the Majlis (parliament) for adherence to Islamic and constitutional principles. The Constitution grants the Council of Guardians the power to screen and 

disqualify candidates for elective offices based on a vague and arbitrary set of requirements, including candidates’ ideological and religious beliefs. 

In recent years, hundreds of prominent Muslim activists and dissidents from 

among the Shi’a majority advocating political reform have been sentenced to lengthy 

prison terms by the Revolutionary Court, on charges of seeking to overthrow the Islamic system in Iran; others have been arrested and detained for alleged blasphemy 

and criticizing the nature of the Islamic regime. Reformists and journalists are regularly tried under current press laws and the Penal Code on charges of ‘‘insulting 

Islam,’’ criticizing the Islamic Republic, and publishing materials that deviate from 

Islamic standards. Prominent Iranian investigative journalist Akbar Ganji was released from prison in March 2006 after serving a six-year prison sentence on reportedly spurious charges of ‘‘harming national security’’ and ‘‘spreading propaganda’’ 

against the Islamic Republic. Ganji was arrested and convicted as a result of attending a human rights conference in 2000 in Germany, where he publicly expressed 

views critical of the Iranian regime. Following a visit to Iran, the UN Special 

Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression concluded in early 

2004 that such charges brought by Iranian courts ‘‘lack any objective criteria’’ and 

are open to ‘‘subjective and arbitrary interpretation by judges implementing them.’’

A number of senior Shi’a religious leaders who have opposed various religious 

and/or political tenets and practices of the Iranian government have also been targets of state repression, including house arrest, detention without charge, trial without due process, torture, and other forms of ill treatment. In October 2006, a senior 

Shi’a cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeni Boroujerdi, who opposes religious rule 

in Iran, and a number of his followers were arrested and detained after clashes with 

riot police. Iranian officials charged him with ‘‘sacrilege’’ for having claimed to be 

a representative of the hidden Imam, a venerated figure in Shi’a Islam. Boroujerdi 
64

has denied these charges. While the current status of Boroujerdi and his followers 

is unknown, it appears that he and several of his followers remain in detention. 

Muslim minorities continue to face repression. Some Iranian Sunni leaders have 

reported widespread abuses and restrictions on their religious practice, including detentions and torture of Sunni clerics, as well as bans on Sunni teachings in public 

schools and Sunni religious literature, even in predominantly Sunni areas. Sufi and 

Sunni Muslim leaders are regularly intimidated and harassed by intelligence and 

security services and report widespread official discrimination. The Sunni community still has not been able to build a mosque in Tehran. In February 2006, Iranian 

authorities closed and destroyed a Sufi house of worship in the northwestern city 

of Qom and arrested approximately 1,200 Sufis who took to the streets in protest. 

Most were released within hours or days, although dozens reportedly suffered serious injuries. More than 170 Sufis were detained and reportedly tortured in order 

to extract confessions that would be broadcast on national television. Those who 

were released were forced to sign agreements saying they would not attend Sufi religious activities in Qom and would make themselves known to intelligence offices. 

Some were forced to sign documents renouncing their beliefs. In May, a court sentenced more than 50 Sufis to jail on various charges in connection with the February incident. According to the State Department, the defendants and their two 

lawyers were sentenced to a year in prison, fines, and 74 lashes. In addition, there 

were reports in the past year that the government is considering banning Sufism 

outright. 

The constitution of Iran formally recognizes Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians as 

protected religious minorities who may worship freely and have autonomy over their 

own matters of personal status (e.g. marriage, divorce, and inheritance). Nevertheless, the primacy of Islam and Islamic laws and institutions adversely affects the 

rights and status of non-Muslims. Members of these groups are subject to legal and 

other forms of discrimination, particularly in education, government jobs and services, and the armed services. Non-Muslims may not engage in public religious expression and persuasion among Muslims; some also face restrictions on publishing 

religious material in Persian. 

Since August 2005, the Iranian government has intensified its campaign against 

non-Muslim religious minorities. A consistent stream of virulent and inflammatory 

statements by political and religious leaders and an increase in harassment and imprisonment of, and physical attacks against, these groups indicate a renewal of the 

kind of oppression seen in previous years. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the 

Guardian Council, has publicly attacked non-Muslims and referred to them as ‘‘sinful animals’’ and ‘‘corrupt.’’ In November 2005, after publicly criticizing Ayatollah 

Jannati’s remarks, the lone Zoroastrian member of the Iranian parliament was 

charged with the ‘‘dissemination of false information, slander and insult’’ by Iranian 

authorities, though as of this writing, the case has not gone to trial. In March 2006, 

the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or Belief confirmed that religious freedom conditions are worsening for all religious minorities in Iran, particularly Baha’is. 

The Baha’i community has long been subject to particularly severe religious freedom violations in Iran. Baha’is, who number approximately 300,000—350,000, are 

viewed as ‘‘heretics’’ by Iranian authorities, and may face repression on the grounds 

of apostasy. Since 1979, Iranian government authorities have killed more than 200 

Baha’i leaders in Iran, and more than 10,000 have been dismissed from government 

and university jobs. Baha’is may not establish places of worship, schools, or any 

independent religious associations in Iran. In addition, Baha’is are barred from the 

military and denied government jobs and pensions as well as the right to inherit 

property, and their marriages and divorces are not recognized. Baha’i cemeteries, 

holy places, and community properties are often seized and many important religious sites have been destroyed. 

In recent years, Baha’is in Iran have faced increasingly harsh treatment. Baha’i 

property has been confiscated or destroyed and dozens of Baha’is have been harassed, interrogated, detained, imprisoned, or physically attacked. In 2005, the personal property of several Baha’is in Yazd was confiscated and destroyed and a 

Baha’i cemetery in Yazd was razed. In the past several years, a series of articles 

in the government-controlled newspaper Kayhan, whose managing editor is appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, have vilified and demonized the 

Baha’i faith and its community in Iran. In March 2006, the UN Special Rapporteur 

on Freedom of Religion or Belief exposed a confidential October 2005 letter from the 

Iranian Chairman of the Command Headquarters of the Armed Forces to several 

Iranian government agencies directing these entities to collect information on all 

members of the Baha’i community in Iran and to monitor their activities. In the 

past, waves of repression against Baha’is began with government orders to collect 
65

such information, and the new directives have created a renewed sense of insecurity 

and fear among Baha’i adherents. 

In the past two years, dozens of Baha’is have been arrested, detained, interrogated, and subsequently released after, in some cases, weeks or months in detention. Charges typically ranged from ‘‘causing anxiety in the minds of the public and 

of officials’’ to ‘‘spreading propaganda against the regime.’’ In December 2005, 

Zabihullah Mahrami, a Baha’i who had been jailed for more than 10 years on 

charges of apostasy, died in prison under mysterious circumstances. In May 2006, 

54 Baha’is, mostly young women in their teens and 20s, were arrested in Shiraz 

while teaching underprivileged children non-religious subjects such as math and 

science. Throughout the fall of 2006, several other Baha’is were arrested and released pending trial. In none of these cases were any formal charges ever filed. More 

than 120 Baha’is have been arbitrarily arrested since early 2005. Dozens are awaiting trial, while others have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 90 days 

to one year. All of those convicted are in the process of appealing the verdicts. As 

of this writing, there are more than 60 Baha’is awaiting trial on account of their 

religious beliefs. 

In the past, members of the Baha’i religion have not been allowed to attend university. Significantly, in the fall of 2006, for the first time in decades, nearly 200 

Baha’i students were admitted to a number of universities and colleges in Iran, although more than 90 of those admitted have since been expelled after university officials learned that they were Baha’is. Furthermore, during the past year, young 

Baha’i schoolchildren in primary and high schools increasingly have been pressured 

to convert to Islam, and in some cases, expelled on account of their religion. In December 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the Iranian government’s poor human rights record, including its continued human rights 

abuses targeting religious minorities and its escalation and increasing frequency of 

violations against members of the Baha’i faith. 

Christians in Iran continue to be subject to harassment, arrests, close surveillance, and imprisonment; many are reported to have fled the country. Over the past 

few years, there have been several incidents of Iranian authorities raiding church 

services, detaining worshippers and church leaders, and harassing and threatening 

church members. As a result of one of these raids, an Evangelical pastor, Hamid 

Pourmand, was imprisoned in September 2004 and sentenced in February 2005 to 

three years in prison by a military court. In November 2005, he was acquitted by 

an Islamic court of charges of apostasy but was ordered to serve the balance of his 

original three year sentence. In July 2006, without explanation, Pourmand was released from prison but was reportedly warned by authorities that if he attended any 

church services, his release orders would be revoked. It is a common practice, particularly in cases involving offenses based on religious belief, for Iranian authorities 

to release prisoners but to leave the charges against them or their convictions in 

place in order to threaten them with re-imprisonment at any time in the future. 

In May 2006, a Muslim convert to Christianity, Ali Kaboli, was taken into custody 

in Gorgan after several years of police surveillance and threatened with prosecution 

if he did not leave the country. He was interrogated, held incommunicado, and released after a month. No charges have been filed against him. According to the 

State Department, a Christian couple who had been arrested in September 2006 for 

leading a house church in Mashhad was released after almost two weeks in detention. Formal charges have still not been pressed against the couple, but authorities 

have indicated that the couple’s arrest and detention were in connection with their 

Christian beliefs and activities. In December 2006, at least eight house church leaders were arrested in a sweep by authorities in four different cities. The church leaders were charged with evangelization and ‘‘acts against the national security of the 

Islamic Republic.’’ All but one was released either within days or weeks of the original arrests; as of this writing, Behrouz Sadegh-Khandjani is the only one from 

among that group who remains in police custody in Tehran. Iranian President 

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly has called for an end to the development of 

Christianity in Iran. During the past few years, representatives of the Sabian 

Mandaean Association reported that even the small, unrecognized Mandaean religious community, numbering between five and ten thousand is facing intensifying 

harassment and repression by authorities. 

Official policies promoting anti-Semitism are on the rise in Iran, though members 

of the Jewish community have usually been singled out on the basis of ‘‘ties to 

Israel,’’ whether real or perceived. President Ahmadinejad and other top political 

and clerical leaders have made public remarks in the past year denying the existence of the Holocaust and stating that Israel should be ‘‘wiped off the map.’’ AntiSemitic tracts have also increased in the government-controlled media, including 

editorial cartoons depicting demonic and stereotypical images of Jews along with 
66

Jewish symbols. In the fall of 2006, and in response to the Danish cartoon controversy, a prominent newspaper, Hamshahri, cosponsored a cartoon contest in 

which the paper solicited submissions from around the world attacking Jews and 

the Holocaust. Iran’s official Cultural Ministry awarded the contest’s first prize of 

$12,000. In past years, several government-controlled newspapers celebrated the anniversary of the anti-Semitic publication, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In February 2006, the leader of Iran’s Jewish community, Haroun Yashayaei, sent an unprecedented public letter to President Ahmadinejad expressing serious concern 

about the President’s repeated Holocaust denial statements and the extent to which 

these statements have intensified fears among Iran’s 30,000-member Jewish community. Official government discrimination against Jews continues to be pervasive. 

According to the State Department, despite minimal restriction on Jewish religious 

practice, education of Jewish children has become increasingly difficult in recent 

years, and distribution of Hebrew religious texts is strongly discouraged. In December 2006, President Ahmadinejad hosted a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran. 

In response, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan denounced the conference, and the 

UN Security Council issued a Presidential Statement condemning statements made 

by President Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust. 

The government’s monopoly on and enforcement of the official interpretation of 

Islam negatively affect the human rights of women in Iran, including their right to 

freedoms of movement, association, thought, conscience, and religion, and freedom 

from coercion in matters of religion or belief. The Iranian justice system does not 

grant women the same legal status as men; for example, testimony by a man is 

equivalent to the testimony of two women. Provisions of both the Civil and Penal 

Codes, in particular those sections dealing with family and property law, discriminate against women. In early April, Iranian authorities arrested five women’s rights 

activists for their involvement in collecting signatures for a project aimed at ending 

discrimination against women in the application of Islamic law in Iran. Some of the 

activists’ demands included: 1) that women’s testimony in court carry the same 

weight as that of men; 2) equality of inheritance rights between men and women; 

3) eliminating polygamy; and 4) the equality of compensation payments between 

women and men in the event of wrongful death. Two were released after one day 

and the other three were released on bail after nearly two weeks in detention. 

Throughout the past year, Commission staff met with members of non-governmental organizations representing various religious communities in Iran, as well as 

human rights groups and other Iran experts and policymakers. In February 2006, 

the Commission issued a statement documenting recent religious freedom abuses by 

Iranian authorities and expressing concern about the worsening treatment of religious minorities in Iran. In June, Commission Vice Chair Nina Shea testified before 

the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights 

and International Operations at a hearing titled ‘‘The Plight of Religious Minorities: 

Can Religious Pluralism Survive?’’ Commissioner Shea’s testimony focused on religious freedom conditions in five countries—Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi 

Arabia—and presented recommendations for U.S. policy. 

In August, the Commission called on the National Cathedral to ensure that 

former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami would be questioned about his record 

on human rights and religious freedom during any presentation he made at the Cathedral in September. The Commission wrote a letter to Reverend Canon John Peterson of the National Cathedral’s Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation 

pointing out the irony of inviting Mr. Khatami to speak on the role of the 

Abrahamic faiths in the peace process when, in his own country, Mr. Khatami presided as President during a time when religious minorities—including Jews, Christians, Sunni and Sufi Muslims, Baha’is, dissident Shia Muslims, and others—faced 

systematic harassment, discrimination, imprisonment, torture, and even execution 

based on their religious beliefs. In September, Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer and 

Vice Chair Nina Shea published an opinion-editorial in the Washington Post citing 

a ‘‘troubling irony’’ in inviting President Khatami to speak at the National Cathedral on the role the Abrahamic faiths can play in shaping peace in the world. The 

opinion-editorial stated that Khatami held office as president from 1997 to 2005 

while religious minorities—including Jews, Christians, Sunni and Sufi Muslims, Baha’is, dissident Shiite Muslims, and Zoroastrians—faced systematic harassment, discrimination, imprisonment, torture, and even execution because of their religious beliefs. Also during his term, Iranian officials persecuted reformers, students, labor activists, and journalists for ‘‘insulting Islam’’ and publishing materials deemed to deviate from Islamic standards. 

In addition to recommending that Iran continue to be designated a CPC, the Commission recommends that the U.S. government should:
67

• at the highest levels, vigorously speak out publicly about the deteriorating 

conditions for freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief in Iran, 

including drawing attention to the need to hold authorities accountable in 

specific cases where severe violations have occurred, such as: 

— extremely poor treatment of the Baha’i community; 

— increasing problems facing Christians, Sufi Muslims, and dissident Muslims; and 

— state-sponsored virulent anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial activities;

• work within its current overall policy framework to ensure that violations of 

freedom of religion and belief, and related human rights, are included in any 

multilateral or bilateral discussions with the Iranian government;

• ensure that funding budgeted to promote democracy and human rights in 

Iran includes support for effective initiatives advancing freedom of religion or 

belief, as well as ways to promote rule of law programs that specifically seek 

to protect religious minorities in Iran;

• increase funding for U.S. public diplomacy entities, such as Voice of America 

and Radio Farda, and expand and develop new programming solely focusing 

on the situation of human rights—including the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief—in Iran;

• continue to support a UN General Assembly resolution condemning severe 

violations of human rights, including freedom of religion or belief, in Iran, 

and calling for officials responsible for such violations to be held to account;

• call on the UN Human Rights Council to monitor carefully and demand compliance with the implementation of recommendations of the representatives 

of those special mechanisms that have already visited Iran, particularly those 

of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief (1995), the 

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (2003), and the Special Rapporteur on 

Freedom of Opinion and Expression (2003); and

• encourage the UN Human Rights Council to continue to use its procedures 

to maintain oversight of conditions for freedom of religion or belief in Iran, 

including, as Iran has issued a standing invitation, continued visits and reporting by the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, and other 

relevant special rapporteurs and working groups. 

SAUDI ARABIA

The government of Saudi Arabia engages in systematic, ongoing, and egregious 

violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief. Since its inception, the Commission has recommended that Saudi Arabia be designated a ‘‘country of particular 

concern,’’ or CPC. In September 2004, the State Department for the first time followed the Commission’s recommendation and designated Saudi Arabia a CPC. In 

September 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice approved a temporary 180-day 

waiver of further action, as a consequence of CPC designation, to allow for continued diplomatic discussions between the U.S. and Saudi governments and ‘‘to further 

the purposes of the International Religious Freedom Act.’’ In July 2006, the Secretary decided to leave in place the waiver ‘‘to further the purposes of the Act’’ by 

announcing that these bilateral discussions with Saudi Arabia had enabled the 

United States to identify and confirm a number of policies that the Saudi government ‘‘is pursuing and will continue to pursue for the purpose of promoting greater 

freedom for religious practice and increased tolerance for religious groups.’’ Despite 

this potentially positive development, the Commission has studied the situation and 

again determines that freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi Arabia and that 

the country should continue to be designated a CPC. 

The Saudi government continues to engage in an array of severe violations of 

human rights as part of its repression of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief. Abuses include: torture and cruel and degrading treatment or punishment imposed by judicial and administrative authorities; prolonged detention without charges and often incommunicado; and blatant denials of the right to liberty and 

security of the person, including coercive measures aimed at women and the broad 

jurisdiction of the mutawaa (religious police), whose powers are vaguely defined and 

exercised in ways that violate the religious freedom of others. 

The government of Saudi Arabia persists in enforcing vigorously its ban on all 

forms of public religious expression other than the government’s interpretation and 

enforcement of the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam. This policy has violated the rights 

of the large communities of non-Muslims and Muslims from a variety of doctrinal 

schools of Islam who reside in Saudi Arabia, including Shi’as, who make up 10–15 

percent of the population. The government tightly controls even the restricted reli-
68

gious activity it does permit—through limits on the building of mosques, the appointment of imams, the regulation of sermons and public celebrations, and the content of religious education in public schools—and suppresses the religious views of 

Saudi and non-Saudi Muslims who do not conform to official positions. 

Members of the Shi’a and other non-Sunni communities, as well as non-conforming Sunnis, are subject to government restrictions on public religious practices 

and official discrimination in numerous areas, particularly in government employment. In past years, prominent Shi’a clerics and religious scholars were arrested 

and detained without charges for their religious views; some were reportedly beaten 

or otherwise ill-treated. Reports indicate that some of these Shi’a clerics have been 

released, but the current status of a number of others remains unknown. Between 

2002–2004, several imams, both Sunni and Shi’a, who spoke out in opposition to 

government policies or against the official government interpretation of Islam, were 

harassed, arrested, and detained. Some members of the Shi’a community remained 

unjustly imprisoned though there were no known arrests of Shi’a religious leaders 

on account of religion in the past year. On a positive note, in February 2006, thousands of members of the Shi’a community in Qatif, in the Eastern Province, made 

their largest public appearance in observance of Ashura without government interference. However, authorities continue to disallow observance in other areas of the 

Eastern Province, such as Al-Ahsa and Dammam. 

Spurious charges of ‘‘sorcery’’ and ‘‘witchcraft’’ continue to be used by the Saudi 

authorities against non-conforming Muslims. Several individuals remain in prison 

on these charges. Human rights advocates report that Ismailis, a Shi’a sect numbering some 700,000 inside Saudi Arabia, continue to suffer severe discrimination 

and abuse by Saudi authorities. In 2000, in the Najran region, after the mutawaa

raided an Ismaili mosque for practicing ‘‘sorcery,’’ approximately 100 Ismailis, including clerics, were arrested. Many were released after serving reduced sentences, 

but dozens remain in prison. In late October 2006, Saudi state media reported that 

any remaining Ismaili religious prisoners held in Najran as a result of the 2000 

riots would be pardoned and released. Despite these reports, only 10 Ismailis were 

released and at least 18 other religious prisoners still remain in jail; some of those 

that remain in prison are reportedly subject to flogging. 

In late December 2006, approximately 49 foreign guest workers, all members of 

the Ahmadi Muslim religious movement, were arrested by the mutawaa at a place 

of worship in Jeddah. In January and February, nine more Ahmadis were arrested. 

In January, Saudi authorities began deporting several of the Ahmadi prisoners, 

mostly Indian and Pakistani nationals, and international human rights groups 

called on the Saudi government to halt expulsions of foreign workers on account of 

their religious beliefs and affiliations. Despite this call, by early April, all 58 of the 

Ahmadis who had been arrested were deported. None of those deported are known 

to have been charged with any criminal offenses. In addition, two other Ahmadi religious leaders, who were not in Saudi Arabia during the initial arrests of 49 in December, have not returned to the country for fear of arrest and prosecution by Saudi 

authorities. 

Over the past few years, members of the Sufi community have been harassed, arrested, and detained because of their non-conforming religious views, although there 

have been no new reports of such incidents in the past year. In September 2003, 

the mutawaa arrested 16 foreign workers for allegedly practicing Sufism; their status remains unknown. In June 2005, Saudi authorities shut down a weekly gathering held by a Sufi leader who adheres to the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence. 

Criminal charges of apostasy, blasphemy, and criticizing the nature of the regime 

are used by the Saudi government to suppress discussion and debate and silence 

dissidents. Promoters of political and human rights reforms, as well as those seeking to debate the appropriate role of religion in relation to the state, its laws, and 

society are typically the target of such charges. For example, in April 2007, an 

Egyptian Muslim guest worker reportedly was sentenced to death in the town of 

Arar in northern Saudi Arabia for allegedly desecrating the Koran and renouncing 

Islam. Media reports indicated that a court found the man guilty of no longer being 

a Muslim for ‘‘violating the boundaries set by God.’’ Hadi Al-Mutaif, an Ismaili man, 

was originally sentenced to death in 1994 for a remark deemed blasphemous that 

he made as a teenager. In 1999, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison. 

In late 2006, Saudi state media reported that Ismaili religious prisoners held in 

Najran would be pardoned and released. However, Al-Mutaif continues to serve a 

life sentence on blasphemy charges. In April 2006, a Saudi journalist was arrested 

and detained by Saudi authorities for almost two weeks for ‘‘denigrating Islamic beliefs’’ and criticizing the Saudi government’s strict interpretations of Islam. In November 2005, a Saudi high school teacher, accused for discussing topics such as the 
69

Bible, Judaism, and the causes of terrorism, was tried on charges of blasphemy and 

insulting Islam and sentenced to three years in prison and 750 lashes. Although he 

was pardoned by King Abdullah in December 2005, he nevertheless lost his job and 

suffered other repercussions. 

Restrictions on public religious practice, for both Saudis and non-Saudis, are officially enforced in large part by the mutawaa, and fall under the direction of the 

Ministry of Interior. The mutawaa conduct raids on worship services, including in 

private homes. They have also harassed, detained, whipped, beaten, and otherwise 

meted out extrajudicial punishments to individuals deemed to have strayed from 

‘‘appropriate’’ dress and/or behavior, including any outward displays of religiosity, 

such as wearing Muslim religious symbols not sanctioned by the government. In recent years, the Saudi government has stated publicly that it has fired and/or disciplined members of the mutawaa for abuses of power, although reports of abuse 

persist. 

Although the government has publicly taken the position—reiterated again in 

2006—that it permits non-Muslims to worship in private, the guidelines as to what 

constitutes ‘‘private’’ worship are vague. Surveillance by the mutawaa and Saudi security services of private non-Muslim religious activity continues. Many persons 

worshipping privately continue to be harassed, arrested, imprisoned, and then tortured and deported. They are generally forced to go to great lengths to conceal religious activity from the authorities. Foreign migrant workers without diplomatic 

standing, and with little or no access to private religious services conducted at diplomatic facilities, face great difficulties. Moreover, the Saudi government does not 

allow clergy to enter the country for the purpose of performing private religious 

services for foreigners legally residing in Saudi Arabia. 

There is a continuing pattern of punishment and abuse of non-Muslim foreigners 

for private religious practice in Saudi Arabia. According to the State Department, 

there was a decrease in both long and short-term detentions and arrests and deportations of non-Muslims in the past year. However, there were also reports that the 

mutawaa continued to target non-Muslim religious leaders and groups for harassment, arrest, and deportation in an effort to deter these groups from conducting private religious services. In March 2005, a Hindu temple constructed near Riyadh was 

destroyed by the mutawaa, and three guest workers worshiping at the site were 

subsequently deported. Also in March 2005, the mutawaa arrested an Indian Christian and confiscated religious materials in his possession; he was released in July 

2005 after four months of detention. In April 2005, the mutawaa raided a Filipino 

Christian private service in Riyadh and confiscated religious materials such as Bibles and Christian symbols. Also in April 2005, at least 40 Pakistani, three Ethiopian, and two Eritrean Christians were arrested in Riyadh during a raid on separate private religious services. All of the Pakistani Christians were released within 

days and all five of the African Christians were released after a month in detention. 

In May 2005, at least eight Indian Protestant leaders were arrested, interrogated, 

and subsequently released for reportedly being on a list, obtained by the mutawaa, 

of Christian leaders in the country. Six were deported or left the country on their 

own accord and the status of the other two is unknown. In April 2006, an Indian 

Roman Catholic priest, who was visiting Saudi Arabia, was deported after being detained for four days in Riyadh for conducting a private religious service. Also in 

April 2006, the mutawaa reportedly arrested a female Shi’a student in Riyadh, allegedly for proselytizing to other students. She was released several days later. In 

June, four East African Christians were arrested in Jeddah while leading a private 

worship ceremony. All were deported the following month. In October, the mutawaa

raided a private religious service in Tabuk, detained a Christian Filipino religious 

leader, and confiscated Bibles and other religious materials. 

The government’s monopoly on the interpretation of Islam and other violations of 

freedom of religion adversely affect the human rights of women in Saudi Arabia, including freedom of speech, movement, association, and religion, freedom from coercion, access to education, and full equality before the law. For example, women must 

adhere to a strict dress code when appearing in public and can only be admitted 

to a hospital for medical treatment with the consent of a male relative. Women need 

to receive written permission from a male relative to travel inside or outside the 

country and are not permitted to drive motor vehicles. Religiously based directives 

limit women’s right to choose employment by prohibiting them from studying for 

certain professions such as engineering, journalism, and architecture. In addition, 

the Saudi justice system, in which courts apply Islamic law to the cases before 

them, does not grant women legal status equal to men’s. For example, testimony 

by a man is equivalent to the testimony of two women; daughters receive half the 

inheritance that their brothers receive; and women have to demonstrate legally 

specified grounds for divorce, while men may divorce without giving cause. 
70

1 Center for Religious Freedom and Institute for Gulf Affairs, Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of 

Intolerance, Freedom House, 2006, (http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/CRFl

SaudiReportl2006.pdf). 

In March 2006, the Saudi Embassy in Washington published a report summarizing efforts by the Saudi government to revise the state curriculum and a number 

of school textbooks to exclude language promoting religious intolerance. Nevertheless, non-governmental organizations from outside Saudi Arabia continue to report 

the presence of highly intolerant and discriminatory language, particularly against 

Jews, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims, in these educational materials published by 

the Saudi Ministry of Education.1 Furthermore, in the past year, there were frequent reports, including by the State Department, of virulently anti-Semitic and 

anti-Christian sentiments expressed in the official media and in sermons delivered 

by clerics who are under the authority of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. 

In March 2004, the Saudi government approved the formation of a National 

Human Rights Association, the country’s first purportedly independent human 

rights body, but, as of this writing, there is no indication that this entity is publicly 

reporting on or investigating religious freedom concerns. It is comprised of 40 members and chaired by a member of the Consultative Council, a 150-member advisory 

body appointed by then-King Fahd. In September 2005, the Council of Ministers, 

chaired by King Abdullah, approved the establishment of a government-appointed, 

25-member Human Rights Commission. The following month, King Abdullah appointed, with the rank of minister, Turki bin Khaled al-Sudairi, a former state minister and Cabinet member, as chairman of the Commission. The Human Rights 

Commission is mandated to ‘‘protect human rights and create awareness about them 

. . . in keeping with the provisions of Islamic law.’’ It is not yet possible to determine if either human rights body will prove to be a positive mechanism for addressing human rights concerns in Saudi Arabia. 

In recent years, senior Saudi government officials, including the Crown Prince 

and the Grand Mufti, made statements with the reported aim of improving the climate of tolerance toward other religions; both also continued publicly to call for 

moderation. In a public interview in 2005, King Abdullah reiterated that non-Muslims are free to practice their faith privately but that public worship by non-Muslims is not permitted. He also said that to allow any non-Muslim places of worship 

to be built in Saudi Arabia ‘‘would be like asking the Vatican to build a mosque 

inside of it.’’

In July 2006, the State Department announced that ongoing bilateral discussions 

with Saudi Arabia had enabled the United States to identify and confirm a number 

of policies that the Saudi government ‘‘is pursuing and will continue to pursue for 

the purpose of promoting greater freedom for religious practice and increased tolerance for religious groups.’’ This announcement followed extensive discussions between the U.S. and Saudi governments as a result of CPC designation. Among the 

measures that were confirmed by Saudi Arabia as state policies are: 

Halt the Dissemination of Intolerant Literature and Extremist Ideology in Saudi 

Arabia and around the World 

• Revise and update textbooks to remove remaining intolerant references that 

disparage Muslims or non-Muslims or that promote hatred toward other religions or religious groups, a process the Saudi government expects to complete 

in one to two years.

• Prohibit the use of government channels or government funds to publish or 

promote textbooks, literature, or other materials that advocate intolerance 

and sanction hatred of religions or religious groups.

• Ensure Saudi embassies and consulates abroad review and destroy any material given to them by charities or other entities that promote intolerance or 

hatred. 

Protect the Right to Private Worship and the Right to Possess Personal Religious Materials 

• Guarantee and protect the right to private worship for all, including non-Muslims who gather in homes for religious practice.

• Address grievances when this right is violated.

• Ensure that customs inspectors at borders do not confiscate personal religious 

materials. 
71

Curb Harassment of Religious Practice 

• Ensure that members of the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice 

(also known as the mutawaa) do not detain or conduct investigations of suspects, implement punishment, violate the sanctity of private homes, conduct 

surveillance, or confiscate private religious materials.

• Require all members of the mutawaa to wear identification badges with their 

pictures and names. 

Empower the Human Rights Commission 

• Bring the Kingdom’s rules and regulations into compliance with human rights 

standards.

The Commission welcomed the announcement and stated that the newly-reported 

Saudi policies—if actually implemented in full—could advance much-needed efforts 

to dismantle some of the institutionalized policies that have promoted severe violations of freedom of religion or belief in Saudi Arabia and worldwide. 

The State Department reports that during the past year, the Saudi government 

took limited measures to remove from educational curricula what it deemed to be 

disparaging references to other religious traditions. In 2006, the Saudi government 

reportedly put into place policies to limit harassment of religious practice and curb 

violations by the mutawaa. According to the State Department, reports of harassment of non-Muslims and non-Sunni Muslims by the mutawaa continue, but there 

were fewer reports in 2006 than in previous years. The sixth National Dialogue, 

held in late November 2006, resulted in many prominent Saudi educators and scholars calling for reforms of religious education materials and curricula. 

In addition to the Saudi government’s violations of religious freedom within its 

own borders, evidence has mounted that funding originating in Saudi Arabia has 

been used to finance globally religious schools and other activities that support religious intolerance, and, in some cases, violence toward non-Muslims and disfavored 

Muslims. For example, the Saudi government operates a network in over a dozen 

world capitals, including one outside of Washington, DC, of Islamic academies, 

chaired by the local Saudi ambassador, reportedly using the same religious curriculum as the public educational system in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government 

itself has been implicated in promoting and exporting views associated with certain 

Islamic militant and extremist organizations in several parts of the world, and a 

number of reports have identified members of extremist and militant groups that 

have been trained as clerics in Saudi Arabia. These reports point to a role for the 

Saudi government in propagating worldwide an ideology that is incompatible with 

universal norms of the right to freedom of religion or belief. 

The Saudi government funds mosques, university chairs, Islamic study centers, 

and religious schools (madrassas) all over the world. During Afghanistan’s war 

against the former Soviet Union, Saudi-funded madrassas were established in Pakistan that were reportedly less focused on education than on promoting an extremist 

agenda glorifying violence. These madrassas provided ideological training for some 

of those who went on to fight in Kashmir, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. The peaceful 

expression and propagation of religious beliefs, including Islam, is a human right. 

However, there is legitimate concern when a government may be propagating an 

ideology that promotes hatred and violence against both Muslims and non-Muslims. 

The religious extremism reportedly preached by some Saudi clerics and the violence incited and perpetrated by certain state-supported radicals continues to warrant further investigation by the U.S. government. The Commission has urged the 

U.S. government to address publicly concerns that have arisen from the propagation 

of religious hatred and intolerance from Saudi Arabia. The Commission has published reports and held public hearings over the past several years regarding this 

issue, and issued a number of recommendations for U.S. policy. The Commission 

welcomed the public statements made in the past year by Ambassador Hanford raising concerns about the role of the Saudi government in the promotion of religious 

intolerance and extremist ideology. 

Throughout the past year, the Commission has spoken out numerous times about 

religious freedom concerns in Saudi Arabia. In June 2006, Commission Vice Chair 

Nina Shea testified on behalf of the Commission before the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations 

at a hearing entitled ‘‘The Plight of Religious Minorities: Can Religious Pluralism 

Survive?’’ Commissioner Shea’s testimony focused on religious freedom conditions in 

five countries—Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia—as well as recommendations for U.S. policy. In September, the Commission publicly expressed 

concern that the State Department had removed longstanding and widely quoted 

language, ‘‘freedom of religion does not exist,’’ from its 2006 Report on International 
72

Religious Freedom on Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that the report states that 

‘‘there generally was no change in the status of religious freedom during the reporting period.’’ In October, the Commission held a briefing on the current status of 

human rights and reform in Saudi Arabia with Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb, President of 

Human Rights First Society, a human rights organization in Saudi Arabia that, despite repeated attempts to gain official recognition, has never been granted a license 

to function by the Saudi government. Mr. al-Mugaiteeb operates in the Kingdom at 

his own risk. In November, the Commission issued a statement and wrote to U.S. 

Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Oberwetter about misleading claims by Saudi 

authorities regarding the purported release of religious prisoners in the southwestern region of Najran. In April 2007, Commissioners Gaer and Shea met with 

the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ford M. Fraker, to discuss 

persistent religious freedom concerns. 

Throughout 2006, the Commission continued to meet with representatives of a variety of human rights and other non-governmental organizations, academics, and 

other experts on Saudi Arabia. 

In light of the July 2006 confirmation of Saudi government policies on religious 

practice and tolerance, the Commission recommends that the U.S. government 

should:

• urge the Saudi government to identify specific benchmarks and timetables for 

implementation of those benchmarks;

• create a formal mechanism to monitor implementation of the July 2006 confirmation of policies as part of every Ministerial Meeting of the United StatesSaudi Arabia Strategic Dialogue, co-chaired by Secretary of State Rice and 

Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia Prince Saud al-Faisal;

• ensure that U.S. representatives to the relevant Working Group of the Strategic Dialogue, after each session, or at least every six months, report its findings to Congress; the policies that can be monitored with clear-cut criteria for 

progress include: 

— analyzing the content of Saudi textbooks at the beginning of every new 

school year (September); 

— retraining teachers and principals in schools to ensure that tolerance is 

promoted; 

— revising teacher manuals to include promotion of tolerance; 

— retraining and reassigning imams who espouse intolerance; 

— ensuring that customs inspectors at borders do not confiscate religious 

materials; 

— ensuring that Saudi embassies and consulates abroad destroy any material given to them that promote intolerance and hatred; 

— ensuring that members of the mutawaa do not operate outside of 

agreed-upon parameters; 

— ensuring that all mutawaa wear identification badges; 

— holding accountable any member of the mutawaa who commits an act 

of torture; and 

— monitoring sermons in mosques regularly; and

• communicate and share information with other concerned governments about 

the confirmed policies of the July 2006 announcement, particularly those policies related to Saudi exportation of hate literature and extremist ideology.

With regard to religious freedom conditions in Saudi Arabia, the Commission reiterates its recommendations that the U.S. government should:

• press for immediate improvements in respect for religious freedom, including: 

— establishing genuine safeguards for the freedom to worship privately; 

— entrusting law enforcement to professionals in law enforcement agencies 

subject to judicial review and dissolving the mutawaa; 

— permitting non-conforming Muslim and non-Muslim places of worship in 

specially designated areas and allowing clergy to enter the country to 

carry out such worship services; 

— reviewing cases and releasing those who have been detained or imprisoned on account of their religious belief or practices; 

— permitting independent non-governmental organizations to advance 

human rights; 

— ending state prosecution of individuals charged with apostasy, blasphemy, sorcery, and criticism of the government; 

— ceasing state-sponsored messages of hatred, intolerance, or incitement to 

violence against Muslims and members of non-Muslim religious groups 
73

in the educational curricula and textbooks, as well as in governmentcontrolled mosques and media; 

— inviting the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief to 

conduct a fact-finding mission; and 

— ratifying international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and cooperating with 

UN human rights mechanisms; and

• use its leverage to encourage implementation of numerous Saudi government 

statements to ensure that the Saudi government carries out political, educational, and judicial reforms in the Kingdom by: 

— raising concerns about human rights, including religious freedom, both 

publicly and privately in the U.S. anti-terrorism dialogue with the Saudi 

government; 

— expanding human rights assistance, public diplomacy, and other programs and initiatives—such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative—

to include more components specifically for Saudi Arabia; 

— continue to seek proposals from private entities to conduct religious freedom programs in Saudi Arabia; and 

— increase the number of International Visitor and other exchange programs to include educators, religious leaders, journalists, and other 

members of civil society.

With regard to the exportation of religious intolerance from Saudi Arabia, the 

Commission has recommended that the U.S. government should:

• continue efforts, along with those of the Congress, to monitor Saudi state 

promises to end its sponsorship of government officials and programs, individual members of the royal family, and Saudi-funded individuals or institutions that directly or indirectly propagate globally, including in the United 

States, an ideology that explicitly promotes hate, intolerance, human rights 

violations, and, in some cases, violence, toward members of other religious 

groups, both Muslim and non-Muslim;

• request the Saudi government to provide an accounting of what kinds of 

Saudi support have been and continue to be provided to which religious 

schools, mosques, centers of learning, and other religious organizations globally, including in the United States;

• request the Saudi government to stop funding religious activities abroad until 

it knows the content of the teachings and is satisfied that such activities do 

not promote hatred, intolerance, or other human rights violations;

• request the Saudi government to monitor, regulate, and report publicly about 

the activities of Saudi charitable organizations based outside Saudi Arabia in 

countries throughout the world; and

• request the Saudi government to: a) cease granting diplomatic status to Islamic clerics and educators teaching outside Saudi Arabia; and b) close down 

any Islamic affairs sections in Saudi embassies throughout the world that 

have been responsible for propagating intolerance.

The Commission urges the U.S. Congress to hold biannual hearings at which the 

State Department reports on what issues have been raised with the Saudi government regarding violations of religious freedom and what actions have been taken 

by the United States in light of the Saudi government’s response. 

UZBEKISTAN

Since Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991, fundamental human rights, including freedom of religion or belief, have been under assault. A restrictive law on 

religion severely limits the ability of religious communities to function in 

Uzbekistan, facilitating the Uzbek government’s exercise of a high degree of control 

over religious communities and the approved manner in which the Islamic religion 

is practiced. The Uzbek government has continued to arrest Muslim individuals and 

harshly repress the activities of groups and mosques that do not conform to government-prescribed practices or that the government claims are associated with extremist political programs. This policy has resulted in the imprisonment of thousands of persons in recent years, many of whom are denied the right to due process, 

and there are credible reports that many of those arrested continue to be tortured 

or beaten in detention. Though security threats do exist in Uzbekistan, including 

from members of Hizb ut-Tahrir and other groups that claim a religious linkage, 

these threats do not excuse or justify the scope and harshness of the government’s 

ill treatment of religious believers. The Commission recommends to the Secretary 
74

of State that Uzbekistan continue to be designated a ‘‘country of particular concern,’’ 

or CPC. The Commission’s CPC recommendation for Uzbekistan should not in any 

way be construed as an exculpatory defense of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist and 

highly intolerant organization that promotes hatred of the West, moderate Muslims, 

Jews, and others. In 2006, the State Department followed the Commission’s recommendation and for the first time designated Uzbekistan a CPC. 

Despite the constitutional separation of religion and state, the Uzbek government 

strictly regulates Islamic institutions and practice through the officially sanctioned 

Muslim Spiritual Board (the Muftiate). In 1998, the Uzbek government closed down 

approximately 3,000 of the 5,000 mosques that were open at that time. In the 

Ferghana Valley, viewed as the country’s most actively religious region, the state 

has confiscated a number of mosques and used them as warehouses or for other 

state purposes. Uzbek human rights defenders reported that as of late 2006, the 

Uzbek government had introduced various administrative and other obstacles to 

daily prayer practice in the Ferghana valley. For example, in the Andijon region, 

the regional head of administration introduced other restrictions on Islamic practice, 

such as a ban on the five daily public calls to prayer from mosques and on preaching 

by mullahs at weddings. Despite the presence of a Shi’a minority in the country, 

there is no training for Shi’a religious leaders, nor does the government recognize 

foreign Shi’a religious education. 

The state fully controls the training, appointments, and dismissals of Muslim 

leaders through the official Muftiate. There are 10 state-controlled madrassas (including two for women), which provide secondary education in Uzbekistan. In addition, the official Islamic Institute and Islamic University in Tashkent provide higher 

educational instruction. The State Department reported in 2006 that regional leaders in Uzbekistan have been instructed that children should not attend mosque; in 

the city of Bukhara, police have reportedly prevented children from doing so. The 

state also closes or confiscates privately-funded religious schools for its own purposes. For example, in Margilan and Andijon the government in 2004 and 2005 confiscated two religious schools, or madrassas, reportedly built with community funds. 

The state-controlled Muslim Board publishes some books and periodicals, as does 

the independent former Chief Mufti Muhamad Sadyk Muhamad Yusuf. 

Over the past decade and particularly since 1999, the Uzbek government has arrested and imprisoned, with sentences of up to 20 years, thousands of Muslims who 

reject the state’s control over religious practice or who the government claims are 

associated with extremist groups. As of 2005, according to a State Department estimate, there were at least 5,500 such persons, including individuals sent to psychiatric hospitals. According to Uzbek human rights activists, in the past year, the 

number of arrests and detentions linked to religious convictions has risen sharply 

in the Uzbek capital Tashkent and its surrounding region. These Uzbek sources also 

estimate that during the first half of 2006, an estimated 150 Muslims were arrested 

and sentenced on charges related to their religious beliefs. Most of those arrested 

have no political connections, Uzbek human rights activists claim, and their only 

‘‘crime’’ is that of performing their daily prayers and learning about Islam. According to the State Department’s 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 

‘‘authorities made little distinction between actual [Hizb ut-Tahrir] members and 

those with marginal affiliation with the group, such as persons who had attended 

Koranic study sessions with the group.’’ Human rights organizations report that 

many of those in detention were arrested on false drug charges or for possession 

of literature of a banned organization. Once arrested, they often are denied access 

to a lawyer or are held incommunicado for weeks or months. Many of those imprisoned or detained for charges related to religion are treated particularly harshly; 

prisoners who pray or observe Muslim religious festivals are by many accounts subjected to further harassment, beatings, and other torture, in efforts to force them 

to renounce their religious or political views. 

The use of torture continues to be widespread in Uzbekistan, despite promises 

from the government to halt the practice. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, 

in his February 2003 report on Uzbekistan, concluded that ‘‘torture or similar illtreatment is systematic’’ and that the ‘‘pervasive and persistent nature of torture 

throughout the investigative process cannot be denied.’’ Even after the publication 

of the Rapporteur’s report, reliance on the use of torture in detention did not significantly decrease. According to the State Department’s 2006 human rights report, ‘‘police, prison officials, and the [security services] allegedly used suffocation, electric 

shock, deprivation of food and water, and sexual abuse, with beating the most commonly reported method of abuse [and] torture.’’ Convictions in the cases described 

above are based almost entirely on confessions, which, according to the State Department and many human rights organizations, are frequently gained through the 

use of torture. 
75

The government of Uzbekistan does face threats to its security from certain extremist or terrorist groups that claim religious links, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has used violence but whose membership reportedly declined after U.S. military action in Afghanistan in late 2001 killed its leaders. 

Uzbekistan continues to be subject to violent attacks; there were several incidents 

in 2004, although the motivation of those involved is difficult to determine. In the 

city of Andijon in May 2005, there were daily peaceful protests in support of 23 

businessmen on trial for alleged ties to Islamic extremism. A small group reportedly 

seized weapons from a police garrison, stormed the prison holding the businessmen, 

released the defendants, and attacked other sites in the city. In connection with 

these events, on May 13, after several thousand mostly unarmed civilians gathered 

on the central square, Uzbek armed forces fired indiscriminately and without warning into the crowd. Estimated fatalities range from an official total of 187 to over 

700 according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); 

some reports of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) say as many as 1,000 men, 

women, and children were killed. The Uzbek government has rejected repeated calls 

from the United States, the European Union, the OSCE, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for an independent international investigation into these 

events. 

In the aftermath of Andijon, Uzbek authorities jailed hundreds of local residents, 

human rights activists, and journalists on suspicion of involvement in the events. 

One Uzbek human rights NGO compiled a list of arrestees totaling 363 persons, in 

addition to those already convicted by the end of 2005, including dozens of people 

who had spoken to the press or reported on the events. Relatives of human rights 

defenders have also been targeted in attempts to pressure activists to stop speaking 

out about human rights violations; those related to human rights activists have reportedly been threatened, dismissed from their jobs, beaten, and sometimes arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned on fabricated criminal charges. In January 2006, 

one arrestee, human rights activist Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov, with whom a Commission delegation met in October 2004, was convicted of extremist activity and other 

offenses and sentenced to seven years in prison. He had reportedly shown journalists bullet casings used by the Uzbek authorities against the Andijon demonstrators. 

The State Department reported that in several cases, the Uzbek government has 

pressured other countries forcibly to return Uzbek refugees who were under the protection of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 

Hizb ut-Tahrir, banned in most Muslim countries, purports not to engage in violence but is intolerant of other religions and has in some circumstances sanctioned 

violence. The group calls for a worldwide caliphate to replace existing governments 

and the imposition of an extremist interpretation of Islamic law. Although it does 

not specify the methods it would use to attain those goals, it does, according to the 

State Department, reserve the ‘‘possibility that its own members might resort to violence.’’ In addition, the State Department reports that Hizb ut-Tahrir material includes ‘‘strong anti-Semitic and anti-Western rhetoric.’’ Alleged members of Hizb utTahrir comprise many of the thousands in prison; in most cases, however, Uzbek 

authorities have failed to present evidence to the court that these persons have committed violence. Many of those arrested and imprisoned are not affiliated with Hizb 

ut-Tahrir but are wrongfully accused of membership or association, sometimes due 

to alleged—or planted—possession of the group’s literature at the time of arrest. 

After the May 2005 Andijon events, the number of court cases against independent Muslims in Uzbekistan reportedly increased considerably. While before 

May 2005, the authorities often accused arrested Muslims of being members of Hizb 

ut-Tahrir, since that time, arrested Muslims are usually accused—frequently without evidence—of being ‘‘Wahhabis’’ or members of another banned Islamist group, 

Akromiya, which played an important role in the Andijon events. ‘‘Wahhabi’’ is a 

term that usually refers to followers of a highly restrictive interpretation of Sunni 

Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. In Uzbekistan, however, ‘‘Wahhabi’’ is a catchphrase used to refer to a range of Muslim individuals and groups, such as genuine 

extremists, those that oppose the Karimov regime, and those who practice Islam 

independently of government strictures. For the Uzbek authorities, all these groups 

and individuals are equally suspect and subject to government repression. The 

Uzbek criminal code distinguishes between ‘‘illegal’’ groups, which are not properly 

registered, and ‘‘prohibited’’ groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, Tabligh, a Muslim missionary movement which originated in South Asia in 1920, and Akromiya, a group 

based on the 1992 writings of an imprisoned Uzbek mathematics teacher, Akram 

Yuldashev, which, according to human rights defenders in Uzbekistan, espouses 

charitable work and a return to Islamic moral principles. According to the State Department’s 2006 Human Rights Report, the Uzbek government has pressured and 

prosecuted members of Akromiya (also known as Akromiylar) since 1997, claiming 
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that the group is a branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and that it attempted, together with 

the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, to overthrow the government through an 

armed rebellion in May 2005 in Andijon. The charges against the 23 local businessmen on trial in Andijon in May 2005 included alleged membership in Akromiya. Some 20 policemen searched a house in Tashkent in June 2006, confiscating a 

copy of the Koran, the hadiths (sayings attributed to the prophet Muhammad), religious books, and tape recordings of the exiled mullah Obid kori Nazarov and his 

pupil Hairullah Hamidov, the Uzbek ‘‘Human Rights Initiative Group’’ reported. The 

items were seized as material evidence against two men who were arrested and accused of ‘‘Wahhabism,’’ although reportedly they merely sought independent religious education. Human rights sources indicate that Nazarov, who had been forced 

to flee the country after the authorities branded him a ‘‘Wahhabi’’ leader, was not 

promoting extremism, but simply operating outside of government strictures. The 

State Department reported that in September 2006, Ruhitdin Fakhrutdinov, a 

former imam of a Tashkent mosque, was sentenced in a closed trial to 17 years in 

prison. During his trial, which involved clear violations of due process, the independent imam was accused of being an extremist and charged with involvement in 

a 1999 car bombing in Tashkent, although no evidence was presented to the court 

of involvement in violent acts. Fakhrutdinov was delivered in 2005 to the Uzbek authorities from his place of asylum in Kazakhstan, allegedly with the assistance of 

the Kazakh authorities. 

The Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations passed in May 

1998 severely restricts the exercise of religious freedom. Through regulations that 

are often arbitrarily applied, the law imposes onerous hurdles for the registration 

of religious groups, such as stipulating that a group must have a list of at least 100 

members who are Uzbek citizens and a legal address; criminalizes unregistered religious activity; bans the production and distribution of unofficial religious publications; prohibits minors from participating in religious organizations; prohibits private teaching of religious principles; and forbids the wearing of religious clothing 

in public by anyone other than clerics. Only six entities meet the law’s requirement 

that religious groups must have a registered central administrative body so as to 

train religious personnel. The law also limits religious instruction to officially sanctioned religious schools and state-approved instructors, does not permit private instruction, and levies fines for violations. In December 2005, the government modified the country’s criminal and administrative codes to introduce much heavier fines 

for repeated violations of rules on religious meetings, processions, and other religious ceremonies, as well as for violations of the law on religious organizations. As 

a result, police monitoring of places of worship has intensified. While the government has not intervened significantly in Christian training and appointments, it 

prohibits the Jewish community from establishing a rabbinate or yeshiva to train 

rabbis. 

According to the State Department, seven evangelical groups repeatedly have 

been denied registration in 2006. All Protestant churches in the autonomous region 

of Karakalpakistan lost their registration appeals by September 2005, and 

Karakalpakistan authorities also continued to exert pressure on the Hare Krishna 

community. As of late 2006, the Uzbek government was threatening to close the 

country’s last registered Jehovah’s Witnesses community. Sometimes the state-run 

media engages in harassment of religious minorities. Two prime-time Uzbek-language programs, broadcast on national state TV in late 2006, claimed that Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses turned people into ‘‘zombies.’’ Protestant leaders 

have reported fears that these programs were part of a campaign to prepare the 

Uzbek population for further repression of minority religious communities. 

In past years, Christian leaders have reportedly been detained in psychiatric hospitals, severely beaten, and/or sentenced to labor camps. Some Christian communities continue to have their churches raided, services interrupted, Bibles confiscated, and the names of adherents recorded by Uzbek officials. In late 2006, the 

Uzbek authorities stepped up their campaign against the leaders of several unregistered Protestant communities. In Karakalpakistan, two Pentecostal Christians have 

been charged for their religious activity and if convicted, each faces five years of imprisonment. In March 2007, a court in Andijon sentenced local Protestant pastor 

Dmitry Shestakov to four years internal exile for ‘‘illegal’’ religious activity; he was 

arrested in January 2007 and had faced a possible total of 20 years of imprisonment. Government harassment of Shestakov dates back almost a decade, increasing 

in May 2006, reportedly because some ethnic Uzbeks had converted to Christianity. 

It has become more difficult to secure permission to publish religious literature 

in the past year, the Forum 18 News Service reports. Permission is still required 

from the state Committee for Religious Affairs and the state-controlled Muslim Spiritual Board (Muftiate), but reportedly, a secret instruction was issued in 2006 lim-
77

iting publications to less than 1,000 copies of any single religious book. Amendments 

to the criminal and administrative codes, which came into force in June 2006, instituted new penalties for the ‘‘illegal’’ production, storage, import, and distribution of 

religious literature, with penalties of up to three years’ imprisonment for repeat offenders. Reportedly, the Chairman of the state Committee for Religious Affairs has 

said that the import of foreign literature for Muslims had practically ceased. Fines 

for violations of these codes can be up to 100—200 times the minimum monthly 

wage or ‘‘corrective labor’’ of up to three years. 

The Russian Orthodox Church publishes a newspaper and a journal (both in Russian) and maintains a website. The Catholic Church in Tashkent maintains an 

internet news agency. Various Christian churches have set up a Bible Society in 

Tashkent, which produces limited supplies of Christian books, but the Religious Affairs Committee must approve each edition. Other religious minorities are almost 

entirely banned from producing religious literature in Uzbekistan, especially in the 

Uzbek language. The Jehovah’s Witnesses note that they cannot print or import 

their religious literature in Uzbek; the Religious Affairs Committee limits imports 

of Russian-language literature to registered congregations, making imports to the 

many unregistered Jehovah’s Witnesses communities prohibited. 

For many years, the Uzbek government has allowed only about 20 percent of the 

country’s quota of pilgrims to make the religious hajj to Mecca. Since May 2005, 

the Uzbek government has intensified its efforts to isolate the people of Uzbekistan. 

It has cracked down on both domestic and foreign-based NGOs in order to minimize 

Western influence; after many audits targeting a number of international, human 

rights oriented NGOs, almost three-fourths of these organizations were closed during 2006, the State Department reported. Other elements of this campaign include: 

the detention and deportation in 2005 of a Forum 18 reporter and the demand, in 

March 2006, that the UNHCR close its office within one month. In April 2007, the 

Uzbek government granted a three-month extension of the work accreditation for 

the Tashkent office director of Human Rights Watch. 

In October 2004, the Commission traveled to Uzbekistan and met with senior officials of the Foreign, Internal Affairs, and Justice Ministries, the Presidential Administration, the Committee on Religious Affairs, and the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s office. The delegation also met with the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities, as well as other religious groups, Uzbek human rights activists and lawyers, alleged victims of repression and their families, Western NGOs active in 

Uzbekistan, and U.S. Embassy personnel. In November 2006, the Commission 

issued a press statement welcoming the designation of Uzbekistan as a Country of 

Particular Concern. 

Commission staff continue to take part in meetings with delegations of Uzbek religious leaders, human rights groups and academics from Uzbekistan, and U.S.-based 

experts and activists concerned with Uzbekistan. In January 2007, the Commission 

co-sponsored an event entitled ‘‘Religious Freedom and State Policy in Central 

Asia,’’ together with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), to 

discuss religious freedom conditions in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and other Central 

Asian states. In July 2005, the Commission held a public briefing on ‘‘U.S. Strategic 

Dilemmas in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,’’ also with CSIS. At a June 2005 Carnegie Endowment roundtable on Andijon, the Commission released its Policy Focus 

report, which includes numerous policy recommendations. In May 2005, then-Commission Chair Michael Cromartie testified on Uzbekistan at a hearing of the U.S. 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

Language reflecting a Commission recommendation on Uzbekistan was included 

in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005. The Congress conditioned funds to 

Uzbekistan on its ‘‘making substantial and continuing progress in meeting its commitments under the ‘Declaration of Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Framework Between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the United States of America,’ ’’ such 

as respect for human rights, including religious freedom. The Commission’s recommendation to re-open the Voice of America’s (VOA) Uzbek Service was adopted 

in June 2005, but the U.S. Board for Broadcasting Governors and the President’s 

Budget request for fiscal year 2008 have again proposed the closure of the VOA’s 

Uzbek Service. 

I. The U.S. government should ensure that it speaks in a unified voice in its relations 

with the Uzbek government. To that end, the U.S. government should: 

• ensure that U.S. statements and actions are coordinated across agencies to 

ensure that U.S. concerns about human rights conditions in Uzbekistan are 

reflected in all dealings with the Uzbek government;

• following the European Union’s October 2005 decision, reduce aid and arms 

sales to Uzbekistan and ban visits by high-level Uzbek officials in response 
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to the Uzbek government’s refusal to allow an independent investigation into 

the violence in Andijon in May 2005;

• ensure that U.S. assistance to the Uzbek government, with the exception of 

assistance to improve humanitarian conditions and advance human rights, be 

made contingent upon establishing and implementing a specific timetable for 

the government to take concrete steps to improve conditions of freedom of religion or belief and observe international human rights standards, steps 

which should include: 

— ending reliance on convictions based solely on confessions, a practice 

that often is linked to ill-treatment of prisoners, and implementing the 

recommendations of the UN Committee Against Torture (June 2002) 

and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (February 2003); 

— establishing a mechanism to review the cases of persons previously detained under suspicion of or charged with religious, political, or security 

offenses, including Criminal Code Articles 159 (criminalizing ‘‘anti-state 

activity’’) and 216 (criminalizing membership in a ‘‘forbidden religious 

organization’’); releasing those who have been imprisoned solely because 

of their religious beliefs or practices as well as any others who have 

been unjustly detained or sentenced; and making public a list of specific 

and detailed information about individuals who are currently detained 

under these articles or imprisoned following conviction; 

— implementing the recommendations of the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Panel of Experts on Religion or Belief to 

revise the 1998 law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations and bring it into accordance with international standards; 

— registering religious groups that have sought to comply with the legal 

requirements; and 

— ensuring that every prisoner has access to his or her family, human 

rights monitors, adequate medical care, and a lawyer, as specified in 

international human rights instruments, and allowing prisoners to practice their religion while in detention to the fullest extent compatible 

with the specific nature of their detention;

• ensure that U.S. security and other forms of assistance are scrutinized to 

make certain that this assistance does not go to Uzbek government agencies, 

such as certain branches of the Interior and Justice Ministries, which have 

been responsible for particularly severe violations of religious freedom as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA); and

• use appropriate avenues of public diplomacy to explain to the people of 

Uzbekistan why religious freedom is an important element of U.S. foreign policy, as well as specific concerns about violations of religious freedom in their 

country. 

II. The U.S. government should encourage greater international scrutiny of 

Uzbekistan’s human rights record. To that end, the U.S. government should: 

• work with other governments to urge the UN Human Rights Council to reverse its recent decision to end human rights scrutiny of Uzbekistan under 

confidential resolution 1503 and to address this situation in a public country 

resolution at the Council;

• encourage scrutiny of Uzbek human rights concerns in appropriate international fora such as the OSCE and other multilateral venues and facilitate 

the participation of Uzbek human rights defenders in multilateral human 

rights mechanisms; and

• urge the Uzbek government to agree to a visit by UN Special Rapporteurs on 

Freedom of Religion or Belief and the Independence of the Judiciary and provide the full and necessary conditions for such a visit. 

III. The U.S. government should support Uzbek human rights defenders and religious freedom initiatives. To that end, the U.S. government should: 

• respond publicly and privately to the recent expulsions of U.S. non-governmental organizations and the numerous new restrictions placed on their activities; unless these restrictions are rescinded, the U.S. government should 

make clear that there will be serious consequences in the U.S.-Uzbek bilateral 

relationship, including a ban on high-level meetings;

• continue the careful monitoring of the status of individuals who are arrested 

for alleged religious, political, and security offenses and continue efforts to improve the situation of Uzbek human rights defenders, including by pressing 

for the registration of human rights groups and religious communities;
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• support efforts to counteract the Uzbek government’s blockade on information 

into the country by increasing radio, Internet, and other broadcasting of objective news and information on issues relevant to Uzbekistan, including education, human rights, freedom of religion, and religious tolerance;

• reinstate funding for the Voice of America (VOA) Uzbek Language Service to 

the fiscal year 2007 level of $600,000 so as to meet the Broadcasting Board 

of Governors’ stated goal of outreach to the Muslim world; reinstatement of 

the VOA Uzbek Service would reach the news-deprived population of 

Uzbekistan, in addition to the large Uzbek diaspora in Afghanistan and other 

neighboring countries;

• increase foreign travel opportunities for civil society activists, religious leaders, and others concerned with religious freedom to permit them to take part 

in relevant international conferences;

• continue to attempt to overcome the objections of the Uzbek government in 

order to develop assistance programs for Uzbekistan designed to encourage 

the creation of institutions of civil society that protect human rights and promote religious freedom, programs that could include training in human 

rights, the rule of law, and crime investigation for police and other law enforcement officials; since such programs have been attempted in the past with 

little effect, they should be carefully structured to accomplish, and carefully 

monitored and conditioned upon fulfillment of these specific goals: 

— expanding legal assistance programs for Uzbek relatives of detainees, 

which have sometimes led to the release of detainees; 

— expanding ‘‘train-the-trainer’’ legal assistance programs for representatives of religious communities to act as legal advisers in the registration 

process; 

— specifying freedom of religion as a grants category and area of activity 

in the Democracy and Conflict Mitigation program of the U.S. Agency 

for International Development and the Democracy Commission Small 

Grants program administered by the U.S. Embassy; and 

— encouraging national and local public roundtables between Uzbek officials and representatives of Uzbek civil society on freedom of religion; 

and

• increase opportunities in its exchange programs for Uzbek human rights advocates and religious figures, and more specifically: 

— expand exchange programs for Uzbek religious leaders to include representatives from all religious communities; 

— expand exchange programs for Uzbek human rights defenders, including 

participation in relevant international conferences and opportunities to 

interact with Uzbek officials; and 

— ensure that the U.S. Embassy vigorously protests cases when an Uzbek 

participant in an exchange program encounters difficulties with the 

Uzbek authorities upon return to Uzbekistan, and if such difficulties 

continue, inform the Uzbek authorities that there will be negative consequences in other areas of U.S.-Uzbek bilateral relations, including a 

ban on high-level meetings. 

STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MR. JOSEPH K. GRIEBOSKI, FOUNDER

AND PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY

Mr. Chairman: 

An ambivalent United States foreign policy staunchly condemns violations of 

human rights and religious freedom around the world, but in practice turns a blind 

eye towards violations which take place in allied countries or those who are strategically important in whatever vital interest the United States seems to have at some 

particular moment in time. The U.S. continues to provide significant political and 

military support to governments who are guilty of human rights and religious freedom violations. Such support contravenes Congressional intent of the unanimously 

passed International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which established the incorporation of religious freedom into the overall foreign policy of the United States. 

While much can be stated on the subject of this hearing, I will compare the balance of the United States’ response in cases of Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan to the 

current situation regarding human rights and, particularly, religious freedom violations occurring in these two countries in the recent years. The United States currently engages in formal relations with both Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan and thus 
80

has the ability to facilitate change through direct influence, negotiations, and punishments. 

The same cannot be said regarding the United States’ relationship with Iran. 

With the first formal meeting between the U.S. and Iranian representatives in decades taking place only this spring, the United States efforts to exhort religious freedom protection all too often falls on deaf ears and thus must take a path different 

than that which I will explicate regarding Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan. 

SAUDI ARABIA

In 2004, the U.S. Secretary of State identified Saudi Arabia as a ‘‘Country of Particular Concern for Severe Violations of Religious Freedom’’ under the International 

Religious Freedom Act for its ruthless attacks on religious freedom. Although reports indicate that Saudi Arabia is beginning to adopt a new rhetoric in dealing 

with the importance of religious tolerance, the actual situation on the ground has 

not improved. The international community has tracked the numerous pledges of 

the government to improve aspects of its policies toward religion. Unfortunately, 

there is little proof of implementation. 

The Saudi government maintains its ban on all forms of public religious expression that do not fall in line with the Hanbali School of Sunni Islam. The government 

maintains and enforces a strict interpretation of Islam, and any Muslims questioning or deviating from this interpretation face harsh treatment, including torture 

and imprisonment without charges. Women face perhaps the harshest treatment 

under the state’s interpretation of Islam, prohibiting women from traveling, choosing their place of employment without male consent, or driving, among other horrid 

conditions they face. 

Proselytization by non-Sunni Muslims is illegal and the promotion of non-Salafi 

Sunni Islam is restricted. The public practice of religion by non-Muslims continues 

to be banned, and although the government recognizes the right of non-Muslims to 

privately worship, this right is not enforced or protected. Non-Muslims as well as 

Muslims who do not follow the state sanctioned form of Islam are victims of a range 

of injustices including harassment by religious police, restrictions on the practice of 

faith, restrictions on the building of religious institutions and community centers, 

political and economic discrimination, limited employment opportunities, and little 

representation in government institutions. The Saudi religious police, Mutaween, 

have broad and arbitrary discretionary powers of surveillance and entry to property, 

detention and interrogation of suspects, and summary judgment and execution of 

punishment for perceived violations of Sharia. While nominally tasked with disciplining Muslims, the religious police invest themselves with the authority to harass and persecute non-Muslim dhimmi, ‘‘guest workers,’’ and kafir or infidels into 

converting to Islam. Evidence demonstrates that the Mutaween have even gone so 

far as to destroy Islamic symbols, holy places, and other items, considering their 

usage to be idolatry and a violation of Sharia. 

Non-Salafi Muslims visiting Saudi for completion of the Hajj find themselves discriminated, persecuted, and even tortured for their way of practicing Islam. 

These violations occur with frequency, despite published pledges to the contrary. 

The 2003 Riyadh Declaration on Human Rights in Peace and War pledges protection of universal human rights with articulations such as:

Respecting human life and dignity is the basic source to respect and activate 

and implement human rights and duties . . . Mankind himself is honored by 

God without discrimination regardless of his gender, color, race or religion 

(Article1, 3).

Under the provisions of Shari’a law as practiced in the country, judges may discount the testimony of non-Muslims, non-observant Muslims, or individuals who do 

not adhere to the official interpretation of Islam. Legal sources report that testimony by Shi’a Muslims is often ignored in legal courts or is deemed to have less 

weight than testimony provided by Sunni Muslims. In calculating accidental death 

or injury compensation, the Saudis embrace an interpretation of Islamic law that 

more greatly discriminates against Hindus, who are seen as polytheists under traditional Islamic law, than it does against Christians and Jews, who are classified as 

‘‘People of the Book.’’ According to the country’s Hanbali Shari’a interpretation, once 

fault is determined by a court, a Muslim male receives 100 percent of the amount 

of compensation determined, a male Jew or Christian receives 50 percent, and all 

others (including Hindus and Sikhs) receive 1/16 of the amount a male Muslim may 

receive. 

Contrary to a report published by the Saudi Embassy in Washington in 2006, the 

promotion of religious intolerance remains prevalent in school textbooks, particu-
81

larly against Jews, Christians and Shi’a Muslims. In addition, the government has 

been active in funding madrassas, or religious schools overseas, fostering extremism 

on the basis of fundamentalist teachings in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, 

and Serbia’s province of Kosovo. 

In July 2006, the U.S. State Department’s Office for International Religious Freedom, headed by Ambassador-at-Large John Hanford, announced that ongoing bilateral discussions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were eliciting promising developments within the Muslin state in regards to religious freedom and agreements 

were signed to such effect. According to Ambassador Hanford, the Saudis agreed to 

undertake many initiatives to improve the state of religious freedom, including removal of extremist, discriminatory or intolerant literature from school curricula. Unfortunately, not only has the Saudi Government not implemented any such changes, 

but they also claim that no agreements with Ambassador Hanford were made. 

Assurances were made by the Saudi government for greater protection of the right 

to private worship and curbing police harassment of religious minorities; the State 

Department reports that the harassment of non-Muslims and non-Sunni Muslims 

declined in 2006. However, religious persecution continues to be a serious and ongoing problem in Saudi Arabia. 

Despite these plentiful broken promises and unmet assurances from the Kingdom 

of Saudi Arabia, the United States continues to give Saudi Arabia the benefit of the 

doubt and ignores the Saudi religious freedom track record in favor of other ventures. Knowing full well the documented history of the Saudi government through 

reports, testimony and recommendations from international NGOs and the United 

States Government’s own Commission on International Religious Freedom, the 

United States and Saudi Arabia entered into an agreement ‘‘to strengthen commercial and investment relations.’’ Moreover the United States is the largest foreign investor in Saudi Arabia, with over 300 joint ventures between companies currently 

estimated. 

In July 2006 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a waiver of sanctions 

against Saudi Arabia, in spite of the her own redesignation of Saudi Arabia as a 

Country of Particular Concern. This waiver has given the Saudi government a green 

light to continue their heinous violations of human rights and religious freedom, 

providing Saudi Arabia an immunity to any mechanisms for punishment set forth 

in the International Religious Freedom Act. In effect the United States government 

is implicitly endorsing Saudi Arabia’s egregious actions and confirming that religious freedom is indeed not a main concern of the United States Government’s foreign policy initiative. Furthermore, the waiver sends a clear signal to the international community that human rights and religious freedom are secondary to financial interests, that America’s commitment to fundamental rights and values goes 

only as far as its present vital interests. Such imbalance in our foreign policy only 

adds to the already disreputable condition of our global reputation. 

UZBEKISTAN

The Uzbek Constitution endorses freedom of religion and separation of church and 

state. In practice the Government does restrict religious rights for minority faiths, 

mainly though registration mechanisms and legal fines. The government generally 

recognizes the religious rights of ‘‘mainstream’’ Muslim, Jewish, and Christian religious groups. However, anti-proselytizing laws exist and are enforced and there are 

restrictions on dissemination of religious literature and offering private religious instruction. 

Individual members of various religious faiths generally maintain amicable relations, although ethnic Uzbeks who convert to Christianity often face harassment at 

the local level from neighbors, family, employers, etc and thus, are subject to social 

and cultural prejudice, but not to persecution or discrimination by the State. In 

2006 the U.S. State Department reported intensification of the Uzbek government’s 

campaign against Christians. According to the State Department, seven evangelical 

groups were repeatedly denied registration. Two Pentecostal Christians were 

charged for their religious activity and face five years in prison if convicted. By comparison, Christians in fellow Country of Particular Concern (CPC) Saudi Arabia face 

death for their religious beliefs, let alone denial of registration with the state. The 

disparity in punishment for Christians in Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan and the 

United States’ official reaction to each further demonstrates a severely flawed religious freedom foreign policy. 

Although Uzbekistan is listed as a ‘‘state[s], which cause a particular concern in 

the sphere of observance of religious freedoms,’’ according to a public poll by the 

‘‘Izhtimoiy Firk’’ agency (‘‘Public Opinion’’), only 3.9% of the Uzbek population feels 

that their religious rights are being violated—which involves, primarily, denying 
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state registration and legal fines. Conversely, the government of Saudi Arabia is a 

gross human rights violator, exempted from the US sanctions 

The Government of Uzbekistan has been accused of particularly harsh reprisals 

against Islamic groups suspected of extremist activities, which has raised concern 

among human rights organizations. The Uzbek government was criticized and 

blamed by some groups for the handling and outcome of the prison riot and ensuing 

public demonstration in Andijan in May 2005. The Government of Uzbekistan was 

accused of concealing facts and barring international teams of investigators from access to the location where the demonstration in Andijan took place in May of 2005. 

Eventually, in December 2006 and April 2007 a team of EU experts visited 

Uzbekistan to examine court records, interview witnesses and travel to Andijan to 

meet with the local population to discuss the tragic events of May 2005. 

The Uzbek government has taken an active role in regulating Islam as practiced 

by Muslims in Uzbekistan. The government promotes an indigenous, moderate form 

of the religion through control of the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan (the Muftiate), 

which oversees the country’s religious hierarchy, published Islamic literature, content of religious sermons, etc. In further efforts to curb extremism, the government 

has embraced a firm policy for registering religious organizations, although the 

membership threshold for registration is relatively low in comparison even to many 

Western European states. 

According to the 1998 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organization, 

all registering religious groups and congregations must present a list of at least 100 

citizen members to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in order to legally register. This 

provision, however, has granted the government considerable power in banning minority religious groups. Muslims who seek to worship outside the system of statesponsored mosques, as well as a variety of Christian confessions and Protestant 

groups with ethnic Uzbek members are often discriminated against by this law. And 

yet, NO non-Muslim religious organization in Saudi Arabia can build a worship 

place and members of minority religions, particularly, Christians feel on regular 

basis fear for their lives while Saudi Arabia is virtually immune from any punitive 

measures by the U.S. for its human rights record. 

On the other hand, in 2005 the U.S. embassy expanded its cross-cultural and educational programs with Uzbekistan, such as the University of Washington partnership program for Cultural and Comparative Religious Studies, the program on Cultural and Religious Pluralism in Uzbekistan and the United States, and a Community Connection group exploring Islam in a Religiously Diverse United States. Such 

engagement is a positive sign of the level of dialogue between the U.S. and 

Uzbekistan over shared issues of concern regarding human rights and religious freedom and the assessment of which yielded highly positive responses at the conference 

in Tashkent last September. By comparison, the government of Saudi Arabia refuses to merely acknowledge its grave violations of human rights and religious freedom against minority religions, which has no bearing on its strategic relationship 

with the United States of America. 

The Uzbek government justifies its harsh treatment of members of the Muslim 

community as the security measures posed by certain terrorist groups that claim religious affiliation, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. According to the 

U.S. State Department’s 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, ‘‘authorities make little distinction between actual members of [extremist groups] and 

those with marginal affiliation with the group, such as persons who had attended 

Koranic study sessions with the group.’’ One might interpret it as natural for the 

government to make little if any distinction between established members of an extremist group and potential recruits who are attending the sessions where ‘‘brainwashing’’ takes place, aka ‘‘Koranic study sessions’’ although the relationship between the two can be considered marginal. The U.S., first and foremost, would take 

note of such groups and their attending audiences if such meetings were taking 

place in the United States. 

Aside from Muslims and Christians, Jews also continued to face persecution in 

2006. The Jewish community is prevented from establishing a rabbinate to train 

rabbis. Other acts of violence committed against members of the Jewish community 

have been written off by the government as singular acts of anti-Semitism. However, any such singular act represents a societal atmosphere allowing for such acts 

to take place, as does the relaxed attitude of the government toward even individual 

acts of anti-Semitism. 

CONCLUSION

The main quandary presently is the level of response to these respective abuses 

by the U.S. government. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is widely regarded as the 
83

pinnacle of religious repression and has not followed through on promises of change. 

The Government of Uzbekistan, while a proven violator of its citizen’s fundamental 

rights, has not to this point reached the pervasive abuses of Saudi Arabia and has 

exhibited interest in improvement through programs initiated. Nevertheless, the 

United States has granted Saudi Arabia a waiver from sanctions designed to force 

repressive governments to modify policy and practice. 

The United States Government must form a consistent foreign policy addressing 

human rights and religious freedom. There exists within the American foreign policy-making elite a mistaken belief that the United States cannot speak frankly with 

its friends on such issues, fearing that doing so will harm the relationship. In all 

truth, U.S. prestige and influence will grow as we continue to raise with consistent 

follow up the human rights and religious freedom conditions in all states. 

Without a consistent foreign policy on human rights and religious freedom, the 

credibility and effectiveness of the International Religious Freedom Act and the CPC 

designation becomes null. 

In order to create a stronger and consistent protection and promotion of religious 

freedom in U.S. foreign policy, I propose the following amendments to the International Religious Freedom Act: 

Section 102(b)(1) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (Public 

Law 105–292) is amended by adding at the end the following:

‘(G) Classification of religious freedom.—A classification of religious freedom in 

each foreign country to one of five tiers with——

(i) the ‘tier 1’ classification consisting of foreign countries with a record of 

religious freedom ;

(ii) the ‘tier 2’ classification consisting of foreign countries with a record of 

discriminatory legislation or policies prejudicial to certain religions, including denouncing certain religions by identifying them as dangerous ‘‘Cults’’ 

or ‘‘Sects’’;

(iii) the ‘tier 3’ classification consisting of foreign countries with a record of 

government abuse against religious groups and failure to discourage or prevent societal discrimination against religious groups;

(iv) the ‘tier 4’ classification consisting of foreign countries with a record of 

state hostility toward religions that threaten or limit the ability of practitioners to safely manifest their religion or freely act or associate as a religious group;

(v) the ‘tier 5’ classification consisting of foreign countries which systematically suppress or control religious belief or practice through totalitarian or 

authoritarian policies and actions.

U.S. foreign aid must be tied directly to a government’s human rights and religious freedom record. Non-humanitarian aid must be withheld from any and all 

countries that are guilty of violations of religious freedom on a proportional level 

according to the seriousness of their religious freedom violations. It is illogical to 

continue giving military aid and full trading rights and benefits to governments that 

condone or even promote religious discrimination, persecution, torture and murder. 

The United States Government must not be afraid to stand for the principles upon 

which this nation was founded. If we do not, we will soon lose more than our credibility.

Æ