ANNUAL REPORT OF THE

UNITED STATES COMMISSION 

ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

MAY 2003
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

800 North Capitol Street, NW

Suite 790

Washington, DC 20002

202-523-3240

202-523-5020 (fax)

www.uscirf.gov
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Felice D. Gaer

Chair

Michael K. Young

Vice Chair

Firuz Kazemzadeh

Richard D. Land

Bishop William F. Murphy

Leila Nadya Sadat

Nina Shea

The Honorable Charles R. Stith

The Honorable Shirin Tahir-Kheli*

Joseph R. Crapa

Executive Director

* Effective March 24, 2003, Ambassador Shirin Tahir-Kheli was appointed Special Assistant to 

the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations by 

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. This appointment necessitated Amb. Tahir-Kheli's 

resignation from the Commission.
STAFF OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

May 2003

Tad Stahnke, Deputy Director for Policy

David Dettoni, Deputy Director for Outreach

Christy Hines, Director of Government Affairs

Anne Johnson, Director of Communications

Carmelita Pratt, Director of Administration

Dwight N. Bashir, Policy Analyst

Patricia Carley, Senior Policy Analyst

Deborah DuCre, Receptionist

Scott Flipse, Policy Analyst

Allison B. Hollabaugh, Research Assistant

Susan Kemp, Communications Assistant

Caitlin Lacy, Intern

Jacqueline A. Mitchell, Executive Assistant

James W. Newton, Policy Analyst

Stephen R. Snow, Senior Policy Analyst

Eileen A. Sullivan, Deputy Director of Communications

John W. Tai, Policy Analyst
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

__________

UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Washington, DC, May 1, 2003

The PRESIDENT

The White House

 DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: On behalf of the United States Commission on International 

Religious Freedom, I am transmitting to you the annual report, prepared in compliance with 

section 202(a)(2) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, 22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq., 

P.L. 105-292, as amended by P.L. 106-55 and P.L. 107-228.

 We would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you this Report, and the policy 

recommendations that it contains. 

 Sincerely, 

 FELICE D. GAER

Chair 

Enclosure

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

__________

UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Washington, DC, May 1, 2003

Hon. COLIN POWELL

Secretary of State

Department of State

 DEAR MR. SECRETARY: On behalf of the United States Commission on International 

Religious Freedom, I am transmitting to you the annual report, prepared in compliance with 

section 202(a)(2) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, 22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq., 

P.L. 105-292, as amended by P.L. 106-55 and P.L. 107-228.

 We would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you this Report, and the policy 

recommendations that it contains. 

 Sincerely, 

FELICE D. GAER

Chair

Enclosure
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

__________

UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Washington, DC, May 1, 2003

Hon. DENNIS HASTERT

Speaker of the House

U.S. House of Representatives

 DEAR MR. SPEAKER: On behalf of the United States Commission on International Religious 

Freedom, I am transmitting to you the annual report, prepared in compliance with section 

202(a)(2) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, 22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq., P.L. 105-

292, as amended by P.L. 106-55 and P.L. 107-228.

 We would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you this Report, and the policy 

recommendations that it contains. 

 Sincerely, 

FELICE D. GAER

Chair

Enclosure

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

__________

UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Washington, DC, May 1, 2003

Hon. TED STEVENS

President Pro Tempore

U.S. Senate

 DEAR MR. STEVENS: On behalf of the United States Commission on International Religious 

Freedom, I am transmitting to you the annual report, prepared in compliance with section 

202(a)(2) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, 22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq., P.L. 105-

292, as amended by P.L. 106-55 and P.L. 107-228.

 We would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you this Report, and the policy 

recommendations that it contains. 

 Sincerely, 

FELICE D. GAER

Chair 

Enclosure
I. THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS 

FREEDOM: INTRODUCTION AND ACTIVITIES FROM MAY 1, 2002 TO MAY 1, 

2003............................................................................................................................................1

A. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF THE COMMISSION..............................................1

B. MEMBERSHIP OF THE COMMISSION..........................................................................2

C. POLICY IMPACT ......................................................................................................3

D. COMMISSION ACTIVITIES DURING THE 2002-2003 REPORTING CYCLE .....................6

1. Reporting and Policy Recommendations.............................................................6

a. Third annual report..........................................................................................6

b. Countries of particular concern .......................................................................7

c. “Watch List” countries....................................................................................7

d. IRFA and the State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious 

Freedom..........................................................................................................................7

e. Individual reports............................................................................................8

2. Outreach.............................................................................................................8

a. Public hearings................................................................................................8

b. Media and public appearances.........................................................................8

c. USCIRF’s Web site.........................................................................................9

d. Commission staff activities.............................................................................9

3. Training............................................................................................................10

a. Asylum and refugee issues ............................................................................10

b. U.S. Foreign Service Officer training ............................................................10

E. SYNOPSIS OF THE COMMISSION’S WORK WITH RESPECT TO SPECIFIC COUNTRIES AND 

ISSUES...................................................................................................................................10

1. Afghanistan.......................................................................................................10

2. Belarus.............................................................................................................12

3. Belgium ............................................................................................................13

4. Burma...............................................................................................................13

5. China.................................................................................................................13

6. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) ....................................14

7. Egypt ................................................................................................................15

8. France ..............................................................................................................16

9. Georgia ............................................................................................................16

10. India ...............................................................................................................17

11. Indonesia ........................................................................................................17

12. Iran.................................................................................................................18

13. Iraq.................................................................................................................18

14. Laos................................................................................................................18

15. Nigeria............................................................................................................19

16. Pakistan..........................................................................................................19

17. Russia.............................................................................................................20

18. Saudi Arabia...................................................................................................20

19. Sudan..............................................................................................................21

20. Turkmenistan ..................................................................................................22

21. Uzbekistan ......................................................................................................23

22. Vietnam ..........................................................................................................23
23. Anti-Semitism..................................................................................................24

24. European Union..............................................................................................24

25. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ....................................25

26. United Nations Commission on Human Rights................................................25

II. COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN....................................................27

BURMA ......................................................................................................................27

CHINA........................................................................................................................28

INDIA*.......................................................................................................................30

IRAN ..........................................................................................................................31

IRAQ ..........................................................................................................................33

LAOS .........................................................................................................................34

DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA (NORTH KOREA)...................................35

PAKISTAN ..................................................................................................................36

SAUDI ARABIA ...........................................................................................................38

SUDAN.......................................................................................................................39

TURKMENISTAN .........................................................................................................40

VIETNAM ...................................................................................................................41

III. THE INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT AND THE STATE

DEPARTMENT’S ANNUAL REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM –

2002..........................................................................................................................................45

A. THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S ANNUAL REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

.............................................................................................................................................45

B. THE STATE DEPARTMENT SHOULD EXPAND AND STRENGTHEN REPORTING ON U.S. 

POLICIES AND ACTIONS TO ADVANCE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM....................................................46

C. THE STATE DEPARTMENT SHOULD FURTHER IMPROVE REPORTING ON RELIGIOUS 

FREEDOM VIOLATIONS...........................................................................................................48

D. THE STATE DEPARTMENT SHOULD DESIGNATE AS “COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR 

CONCERN” THOSE COUNTRIES THAT MEET THE STATUTORY CRITERIA...................................50

E. THE STATE DEPARTMENT SHOULD TAKE ACTIONS UNDER IRFA AS A RESULT OF 

CPC DESIGNATION................................................................................................................52

F. OTHER IRFA ISSUES .............................................................................................54

G. COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS......................................................................54

IV. COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS ..........................................................63

A. RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE COMMISSION’S 2002-2003 REPORTING CYCLE .....63

1. AFGHANISTAN (May 2003).............................................................................63

Recommendations..............................................................................................64

I. Security: Afghans must be protected so that they can exercise their human 

rights.............................................................................................................................64

II. Legal Reform: Institutions should be established to respect, protect, and 

ensure rights..................................................................................................................65

A. Primacy of the Constitution: The U.S. government must ensure that human 

rights are fully guaranteed in Afghanistan’s new constitution. .......................................65

B. Judicial Reform............................................................................................65

C. Rights to be Guaranteed ...............................................................................66
D. Rights to Religious Freedom........................................................................66

E. Assistance to the Human Rights Commission...............................................67

III. Education about Rights: The Afghan people should be educated in human 

rights principles.............................................................................................................67

IV. The Recovery and Reconstruction Process: The United States should appoint 

a high-ranking official to ensure that U.S. assistance actively promotes human rights....68

2. AFGHANISTAN (June 2002 Report).................................................................68

3. BELARUS.........................................................................................................70

Recommendations..............................................................................................71

4. LAOS................................................................................................................72

Recommendations..............................................................................................73

5. RUSSIAN FEDERATION..................................................................................75

Recommendations..............................................................................................76

I. Raise Concern about the Growing Influence of Undemocratic Forces on 

Russian Government Policies........................................................................................76

II. Oppose Attempts to Rollback Religious Freedom.........................................76

III. Protect Religious Minorities in Russia Against Violent Attacks and 

Intolerance ....................................................................................................................77

IV. Continue U.S. Vigilance on the Progress of Democratic Reform and 

Protections for Human Rights in Russia ........................................................................78

V. Support Those Who Advance Democracy, Religious Freedom, and Other

Human Rights in Russia ................................................................................................78

6. SAUDI ARABIA................................................................................................78

Recommendations..............................................................................................79

I. Advocate Effective Guarantees of Religious Freedom and Necessary Action to 

Implement Those Guarantees ........................................................................................79

II. Address Global Propagation .........................................................................81

III. Use U.S. Leverage to Encourage and Implement Reform ............................82

IV. Change U.S. Government and Business Practices .......................................82

7. SUDAN.............................................................................................................83

Recommendations..............................................................................................83

8. VIETNAM.........................................................................................................85

Recommendations..............................................................................................85

I. Advocate Specific Steps to Advance Religious Freedom and Reform the Legal 

Framework....................................................................................................................85

II. Use U.S. Leverage to Encourage Vietnam to End Religious Freedom 

Violations......................................................................................................................87

III. Strengthen Monitoring and Reporting of Vietnam’s Human Rights Violations

......................................................................................................................................88

IV. Support Programs to Advance Freedom of Religion in Vietnam..................88

B. RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE COMMISSION’S 2002-2003 REPORTING CYCLE......88

1. CHINA..............................................................................................................88

Recommendations..............................................................................................89

I. Ending the Crackdown...................................................................................89

II. Reforming the Repressive Legal Framework ................................................91

III. Affirming the Universality of Religious Freedom and China’s International 
Obligations....................................................................................................................92

IV. Fostering a Culture of Respect for Human Rights........................................93

2. INDONESIA .....................................................................................................95

Recommendations..............................................................................................96

3. DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA (NORTH KOREA) ..........97

Recommendations..............................................................................................98

I. International Initiative Against Human Rights Abuses in North Korea...........98

II. Protecting North Korean Refugees and Advancing Human Rights................99

III. Advancing Human Rights Through Official Contacts..................................99

4. SUDAN...........................................................................................................100

Recommendations............................................................................................101

5. TURKMENISTAN...........................................................................................103

Recommendations............................................................................................104

6. UZBEKISTAN.................................................................................................105

Recommendations............................................................................................106

APPENDIX 1: BIOGRAPHIES OF MEMBERS U.S. COMMISSION ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM...................................................................108

APPENDIX 2: THE INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT OF 1998

...............................................................................................................................................111

1

I. THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS 

FREEDOM: INTRODUCTION AND ACTIVITIES FROM MAY 1, 2002 TO MAY 1, 

2003

“Religious freedom is a fundamental right of every individual, regardless of race, sex, 

country, creed, or nationality, and should never be arbitrarily abridged by any 

government.”

International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (U.S. Public Law 105-92)

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right 

includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in 

community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in 

teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Article 18, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

A. Introduction and Overview of the Commission

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an 

independent federal government agency created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 

1998 (IRFA) to monitor religious freedom in other countries and advise the President, Secretary 

of State, and Congress on how best to promote it.1 The Commission is the only government 

commission in the world with a mandate to review and report violations of the internationallyguaranteed right to freedom of religion and belief worldwide. By providing reliable information, 

analysis, and careful and creative policy recommendations, the Commission gives the U.S. 

government and the American public the tools necessary to promote religious freedom 

throughout the world.

The Commission’s impact and its success in accomplishing its mission are dependent on 

bringing advice and accountability to U.S. foreign policy in its promotion of international 

religious freedom. In its four years of operation, the Commission has made recommendations to 

the Administration and Congress that have had a significant impact on the promotion of religious 

freedom as an integral part of U.S. foreign policy. The Commission’s recommendations have 

been implemented by the President, the State Department, and Congress concerning several 

countries that violate international norms of religious freedom, including Afghanistan, China, the 

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), Pakistan, Sudan, and Vietnam. 

Several examples are listed in Section C., below. 

In carrying out its mandate, the Commission reviews information on violations of 

religious freedom as presented in the Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights 

Practices, and its Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. The Commission also 

consults regularly with independent human rights groups, non-governmental organizations 

including representatives of religious communities and denominations, academics, and policy 

experts, as well as the intelligence community and other government agencies. It also undertakes 

its own missions to foreign countries to examine religious freedom conditions firsthand. The 
2

Commission holds public hearings, taking testimony from expert witnesses and victims of 

religious freedom violations.

While the work of the Commission is conducted year round, the Commission compiles an 

annual report in May to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress that provides country 

and issue-specific policy recommendations to promote religious freedom. In addition, the 

Commission testifies before Congress and gives briefings to government officials on religious 

liberty issues.

Collected in Chapter IV of this report are policy recommendations on Afghanistan, 

Belarus, Laos, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Vietnam, all of which were released during this 

reporting cycle (May 1, 2002 to May 1, 2003). Individual reports on those countries (except 

Sudan) were released during the reporting cycle. The present report also contains a description 

of the Commission and its activities during this reporting cycle, information on the 12 countries 

that the Commission recommended be designated as “countries of particular concern” under 

IRFA, and a progress report on the implementation of the IRFA, including a critique of the State 

Department’s 2002 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.

B. Membership of the Commission 

The Commission is composed of 10 members – three of whom are appointed by the 

President, three by the President pro tempore of the Senate, three by the Speaker of the House of 

Representatives, and an Ambassador-at-Large who serves ex officio as a non-voting member. 

The system of appointments provides that leaders of the party in the White House shall appoint 

five voting members and leaders of the other party shall appoint four voting members. 

Each member of the Commission serves a two-year term and can be reappointed. The 

current commissioners’ terms began on May 15, 2001 and will end on May 14, 2003. 

Commissioner Ambassador Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli resigned from the Commission, effective 

March 24, 2003, when she was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director 

for Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations on the National Security Council. 

Commissioner Dean Michael Young served as the Chair and Commissioners Felice Gaer 

and Ambassador Charles Stith served with the Chair on an executive committee until July 1, 

2002. Commissioner Gaer then became the Commission’s Chair for the remainder of the current 

reporting period, with Commissioner Young as Vice Chair. In May 2002, John V. Hanford III 

was sworn in as the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. (See further 

information about Commissioners in Appendix I).

Current commissioners reflect a wide range of expertise and religious diversity. 

Commissioners are noted for their knowledge and experience in fields relevant to the issue of 

international religious freedom, including foreign affairs, direct experience abroad, human rights, 

and international law. In addition to attending regular meetings of the Commission where they 

develop policy recommendations, commissioners meet with Members of Congress, testify before 

Congress on the Commission’s behalf, meet with Administration officials and other government 

agency officials, issue public statements, receive testimony at hearings from experts and victims, 

conduct foreign fact-finding trips, meet with religious adherents and officials from other 
3

countries, meet with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and participate in expert 

briefings.

C. Policy Impact

One of the primary functions of the Commission is to make creative policy 

recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and the Congress to ensure that the 

promotion and protection of religious freedom and other human rights are an integral part of U.S. 

foreign policy. Over the course of the four years that it has been in existence, the Commission’s 

recommendations have had a significant impact with respect to specific countries, issues, and 

international organizations, several examples of which are summarized below.

Immediately after the events of September 11, 2001, the Commission urged the U.S. 

government to promote religious freedom as an integral part of the war on terrorism. Its 

recommendations on Afghanistan and the worldwide effort to fight terrorism have played an 

important role in shaping U.S. policy. The Commission:

• pressed for the incorporation of specific provisions on human rights, including 

religious freedom, in the final version of the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act 

(P.L.107-327), signed into law December 4, 2002. The Act included provisions 

urging the President to use his diplomatic resources to promote the expansion of the 

International Security Assistance Force beyond Kabul, as well as authorize assistance 

programs to promote religious freedom in school curricula, include guarantees for 

religious freedom in the drafting of the constitution, strengthen a civil society that

respects religious freedom, train the military, police, and legal personnel on human 

rights, and promote women and girls in the areas of human rights, including religious 

freedom. 

• successfully recommended that the Administration highlight the universal right to 

religious freedom in President Bush’s November 10, 2001 UN General Assembly 

speech, affirm that the war on terror is not an excuse for governments to violate 

religious freedom, and call for an interim Afghan government that represents all 

Afghan people.

• was one of the first and remains one of the most vocal groups in calling for continued 

attention to religious freedom both in Afghanistan and in light of the worldwide 

campaign against terrorism after September 11, 2001. 

The Commission has had an impact on a number of significant policies with regard to 

China. The Commission:

• recommended to President Bush that he condition a state visit to China on an 

opportunity to make a major speech on religious freedom and other human rights that 

would be televised live and uncensored to the Chinese people. This speech was 

delivered on February 21, 2002.

• successfully urged President Bush to raise religious freedom issues with Chinese 
4

President Jiang Zemin at an October 2002 meeting in Crawford, Texas, at which 

President Bush reportedly shared his views on the importance of freeing prisoners of 

conscience and giving fair treatment to people of faith.

• pressed the U.S. government to urge the Chinese government, in accordance with its 

international commitments, to recognize as refugees North Koreans who have fled 

North Korea and to cooperate fully with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. 

The Senate introduced and unanimously passed a resolution (S. Con. Res. 114) that 

included provisions reflecting these recommendations.

• convinced the Administration to work vigorously for the resumption of a high-level 

human rights dialogue with the Chinese government. The dialogue resumed in 

October 2001 and included a meeting with the Commission.

With respect to France:

• Commissioners undertook two missions there in 2002 where it met with high-ranking 

government officials, heads of religious communities, leading academics, and other 

experts; and the Commission delivered a speech to an audience of French policy 

experts. At the end of 2002, the French government announced significant policy 

changes regarding religious minorities and anti-Semitism.

With respect to North Korea, the Commission:

• urged the U.S. government to use multilateral diplomacy to advance the protection of 

human rights in North Korea, including sponsoring a resolution at the United Nations 

condemning religious freedom and other related human rights violations in North 

Korea. In March 2003, the House passed a resolution (H. Res. 109) citing USCIRF 

findings and urging the Secretary of State to introduce and promote passage of a 

resolution addressing human rights abuses in North Korea at the 59th Session of the 

UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The United States and the European 

Union co-sponsored a resolution on North Korea at that meeting, which was 

approved.

• successfully urged the Secretary of State to add North Korea to its list of Countries of 

Particular Concern in the fall of 2001.

The Commission’s work has been instrumental in developments in Pakistan. The 

Commission:

• played a major role in highlighting to U.S. and Pakistani government officials the undemocratic nature of the Pakistani separate-electorate system for religious minorities. 

In 2002, the Pakistan government abolished the separate electorates.

• called for action against militant religious extremist groups and religious schools that 

promote violence. This issue came to the forefront of U.S. policy only after the 

events of September 11, 2001, and the United States responded by urging the 
5

Pakistani government to curtail the repressive activities of extremist groups and 

schools, and authorized funding for education reform in Pakistan in the Fiscal Year 

2002 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (P.L.107-115).

The Commission has significantly influenced and guided the debate on U.S. foreign 

policy on Sudan. The Commission:

• was one of the first to call for a Special Envoy for Sudan – named by President Bush 

in September 2001 – and recommended three of the four benchmarks the envoy 

delivered to the government of Sudan.

• was instrumental in raising awareness of the fact that a mammoth stock offering by a 

Chinese company – the largest investor in Sudan’s oil industry – was about to be 

offered. This played a part in the restructuring of the offering and, thus, a decrease in 

its proceeds.

• helped ensure that desperately needed humanitarian assistance go to the worst hit 

areas of Sudan, including the Nuba Mountains, by persuading the United States to 

increase aid outside of the UN’s Operation Lifeline Sudan program that is influenced 

by the government of Sudan.

• persuaded Congress in regard to the Sudan Peace Act to require the Administration to 

take steps to deny the Sudanese government access to oil revenues in the absence of a 

good faith performance of its commitments in peace negotiations.

• successfully encouraged the Administration to increase non-lethal assistance to 

opposition-controlled areas in Sudan, including, through USAID’s Sudan Transitional 

Assistance for Rehabilitation (STAR) program, assistance in the development of civil 

society in southern Sudan.

In March 2002, the Commission released a report on Turkmenistan. The Commission:

• urged the U.S. government to raise the issue of religious freedom violations in 

Turkmenistan before UN human rights bodies. The United States co-sponsored a 

resolution on Turkmenistan that was adopted at the 59th Session of the UN Human 

Rights Commission in Geneva.

In May 2002, the Commission released a report on Uzbekistan. The Commission:

• successfully recommended that assistance to Uzbekistan, with the exception of 

assistance to improve humanitarian conditions and advance human rights, be made 

contingent upon the government’s efforts to improve conditions of religious freedom 

there. The U.S. Congress included in the Fiscal Year 2002 Supplemental 

Appropriations Act provisions conditioning assistance to Uzbekistan on the 

government’s substantial and continued progress toward meeting its commitments to 

protect human rights, including religious freedom, as agreed to under the Declaration 

of Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Framework between the United States and 
6

Uzbekistan. The Fiscal Year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act (P.L.108-7) 

conditioned assistance to Uzbekistan on the same criteria.

With regard to U.S. policy toward Vietnam, the Commission:

• successfully advised the U.S. House of Representatives to ratify the U.S.-Vietnam 

Bilateral Trade Agreement only after it passed legislation calling for the Vietnamese 

government to make substantial improvements in the protection of religious freedom 

– sending a signal to the Vietnamese government of America’s commitment to human 

rights. The House overwhelmingly passed the Vietnam Human Rights Act prior to 

the Bilateral Trade Agreement vote.

In the spring of 2002, the Commission drew specific attention to and spoke out against 

the rise in anti-Semitic violence taking place in France and Belgium. 

• Congress introduced and unanimously passed Senate and House resolutions 

concerning the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. The Senate version cited USCIRF 

findings and urged the Commission to continue documenting the issue.

With respect to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the 

Commission, as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Human Dimension Implementation 

Meeting in Warsaw, Poland, in 2002: 

• successfully urged members of that body to hold meetings specifically focused on 

religious freedom concerns, including anti-Semitism.

D. Commission Activities During the 2002-2003 Reporting Cycle 

Throughout its fourth reporting period, the Commission undertook a wide range of 

activities in support of its effort to promote religious freedom as an important part of U.S. 

foreign policy. A summary of these activities follows.

1. Reporting and Policy Recommendations 

a. Third annual report

In May 2002, the Commission held a press conference at the National Press Club to 

release its third annual report, which included policy recommendations on China, the Democratic 

People’s Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Commission 

met with both National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell 

to discuss the Commission’s recommendations at that time. 

Several thousand copies of the Commission’s third annual report and individual country 

reports were distributed broadly to Administration and congressional offices, NGOs, the media, 

and the public. In addition, more readers worldwide viewed them on the Commission’s Web 

site, which received more than 93,000 hits in 2002.
7

b. Countries of particular concern

In September 2002, the Commission sent a letter to Secretary Powell recommending 

countries for designation as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) – egregious religious 

freedom violators subject to U.S. action under IRFA. The previous year, the Secretary of State 

designated as CPCs Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, and Sudan, and added North Korea from the 

Commission’s recommendations. In its September 2002 letter, the Commission recommended 

that each of these countries remain listed and that India, Laos, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, 

Turkmenistan, and Vietnam be added.2 The Commission met with Deputy Secretary of State 

Richard Armitage in October to discuss its CPC recommendations.

In March 2003, the Secretary of State designated as CPCs the same countries that were 

designated in 2001. The Commission was deeply disappointed that Secretary Powell did not 

designate India, Laos, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. (The particularly 

severe violations of religious freedom that warrant CPC designation for each of the twelve 

countries that the Commission designated as CPC’s are discussed in Chapter II of this report.) 

Following the March 2003 CPC designations, the Commission urged the State Department to 

continue to assess religious freedom violations in these countries and make CPC designations 

throughout the year. The Commission also stated that it was looking for the Administration to 

designate policy measures it will take to improve the situation in the six countries that the 

Secretary did designate as CPCs. 

c. “Watch List” countries 

Concerned about the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or 

tolerated by the governments of Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan, the Commission 

decided to place those countries on a “Watch List” because their governments have failed to take 

effective steps to halt repression and/or violence against religious believers, or, in most cases, to 

punish those responsible for severe violations of religious freedom. In so doing, the Commission 

stated that it would continue to consider whether the countries on this Watch List meet the 

statutory criteria for designation as CPCs. 

The continued failure on the part of governments to address effectively these violations 

would be a critical component of those decisions. The Commission also urged the State 

Department to monitor closely religious freedom in these countries and to respond vigorously to 

further violations that may merit CPC designation.3 

d. IRFA and the State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious 

Freedom

In October 2002, Commission Chair Felice Gaer testified before the House 

Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the House International 

Relations Committee on the recently released State Department 2002 Annual Report on 

International Religious Freedom. Commissioner Gaer offered a critique of the report and of the 

policies developed and actions taken by the State Department in response to the violations 

contained in the report on more than a dozen countries. She also outlined the Commission’s 
8

findings, urging the Secretary of State to designate India, Laos, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, 

Turkmenistan, and Vietnam as CPCs.

e. Individual reports

During the current reporting cycle, the Commission issued individual reports that include 

policy recommendations on Afghanistan (June 2002 and May 2003), Laos (March 2003), and 

Belarus, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam (May 2003).

2. Outreach

a. Public hearings 

In June 2002, the Commission held a hearing on Recent Communal Violence in Gujarat, 

India, and the U.S. Response. In January 2003, the Commission, in cooperation with The 

George Washington University Law School, convened a forum entitled Reconstructing 

Afghanistan: Freedom in Crisis? Each event is discussed in more detail below.

b. Media and public appearances

The Commission’s outreach activities are focused on its various constituencies in the 

Congress, the Administration, non-governmental and private voluntary organizations, religious 

communities, academia, and the media.

In carrying out its research and advisory functions, the Commission consults regularly 

with individuals who have direct knowledge of discrimination and religious freedom violations. 

These include representatives of religious communities, current and former U.S. government 

officials, embassy officials, foreign policy experts, academics, and human rights professionals. 

In addition, the Commission conducts hearings such as those mentioned above, gives 

Congressional testimony, and addresses audiences in the United States and overseas.

The Commission testified at a hearing on Defining the Next Step on the Path to Peace in 

Sudan before the House Committee on International Relations, a hearing on North Korea before 

the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee, and briefings on anti-Semitism 

and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia: The Role of Women before the Congressional Human Rights 

Caucus. In addition, as it does annually, the Commission provided testimony on the State 

Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. The Commission also 

addressed the French Center on the United States in Paris, France, delivering a speech entitled 

“U.S. Policy to Promote International Religious Freedom: France and the U.S. Commission on 

International Religious Freedom.”

Media outreach has included op-eds by Commissioners and interviews with major U.S. 

and international news organizations. Commissioners have appeared on ABC World News 

Tonight, CNN, BBC, USA Radio Network, PBS, and Voice of America. 
9

c. USCIRF’s Web site

The Commission maintains a Web site, www.uscirf.gov, with a wealth of information. 

The site contains all of the Commission’s annual reports and individual country reports to date, 

all prepared and oral testimony from the Commission’s hearings on Sudan, China, India, 

Pakistan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Promoting Religious Freedom During the Campaign Against 

Terrorism, North Korea, Communal Violence in Gujarat, India, and the transcript of the 

Commission’s forum on Afghanistan.

In addition, the site contains legislation in which the Commission’s work has been cited 

is available, as well as congressional testimony delivered by the Commission. For example, the 

Vietnam Human Rights Act, introduced by Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ), includes 

USCIRF findings and requires the Secretary of State to consult with the USCIRF before annually 

reporting to Congress on human rights in Vietnam. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) and 

Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) have introduced legislation authorizing nondiscriminatory 

trade relations with Russia that cites concern over religious freedom violations and would charge 

the USCIRF to annually report on whether or not Russia is meeting standards on religious 

freedom and other human rights. Copies of all congressional testimony delivered by the 

Commission can also be found on the Commission’s Web site. 

Also available are the Commission’s newsletter; its statements, letters, and press releases; 

international human rights documents; information about the Commissioners; the International 

Religious Freedom Act of 1998; and the State Department’s annual reports on international 

religious freedom and human rights. 

d. Commission staff activities

In addition to the specific activities listed elsewhere in this chapter, Commission staff has 

spoken on the work and recommendations of the Commission in several venues, including a 

conference of the European Parliament – South-East Asia: Democracy Denied, Freedom 

Suppressed, and the 2002 Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) international 

conference – Minority Religions, Social Change, and Freedom of Conscience. In addition, staff 

has made presentations at briefings held on Capitol Hill and sponsored by NGOs, such as LaoAmerican groups. 

Staff members have met with dozens of representatives of a wide range of religious 

groups and NGOs, as well as other experts from around the world. They have also met with 

numerous delegations of religious leaders, journalists, women’s leaders, and human rights 

activists concerned with religious freedom issues that were visiting the United States under the 

auspices of the State Department’s International Visitors Program, including groups from 

Afghanistan, Egypt, France, Georgia, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Mali, and Uzbekistan. 

Staff members have also hosted and participated in meetings with foreign officials, diplomats, 

and UN personnel. In addition, staff members have also had numerous meetings with Members 

of Congress and their staffs, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International 

Development, the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the U.S. 

Institute of Peace. Furthermore, staff members have briefed State Department human rights 
10

officers enroute to countries of concern to the Commission and led training sessions of Foreign 

Service Officers and Immigration and Naturalization Service personnel.

3. Training 

a. Asylum and refugee issues 

As mandated by section 603(c) of IRFA, training for immigration judges must cover the 

extent and nature of religious persecution internationally, including country-specific conditions, 

as well as the use of the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. In June 2002, the 

Commission was invited to participate in the annual training conference for all U.S. Immigration 

Judges. Commissioners Michael Young, Richard Land, and Commission staff conducted 

training workshops for more than 200 immigration judges on types and trends of religious 

freedom violations around the world, providing an overview of country-specific information on 

eighteen countries. In October 2002, Commission Chair Felice Gaer and staff participated as 

experts in a roundtable on religious-based persecution claims by persons seeking refugee status 

sponsored by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Church World Service. In 

November 2002, Commission staff conducted a training session for new staff attorneys of the 

Immigration and Naturalization Service.

b. U.S. Foreign Service Officer training

The Commission dedicated time to training U.S. Foreign Service Officers. As mandated 

by section 104 of IRFA, such training must cover the internationally-recognized right to freedom 

of religion, activities and beliefs of different religions, and the various aspects and manifestations 

of religious freedom violations. On a number of occasions throughout the year, Commission 

staff participated in training sessions on international religious freedom issues at the Foreign 

Service Institute. 

E. Synopsis of the Commission’s Work with Respect to Specific Countries and Issues

During the current reporting period, the Commission engaged in a course of activities to 

bring to the attention of policymakers violations of religious freedom and opportunities to 

advance human rights, including religious freedom, in numerous countries. The Commission has 

also addressed specific religious freedom issues that cut across particular countries or regions. 

The Commission’s work on specific countries and issues is discussed below. 

1. Afghanistan 

The Commission has dedicated a great deal of attention to monitoring and making policy 

recommendations on Afghanistan. From the start of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, the 

Commission has spoken out regarding the need for the U.S. government to promote a future 

Afghan political system that practices religious tolerance and respects the universal human rights 

of all, including members of religious minorities and women. It has raised concerns over 

mounting evidence that Afghanistan is being reconstructed as a state with oppressive crimes and 

punishments and that there are indications of a number of religious freedom and other human 

rights violations. It has also urged that the United States actively support the expansion of the 
11

ISAF beyond Kabul to provide greater protection for Afghans; unequivocally oppose human 

rights abuses; support efforts to strengthen the rule of law; promote teacher training and women 

in the reconstruction of Afghanistan; nurture a culture for democracy in Afghanistan through 

public education, broadcasting, and educational and cultural exchanges; and assign a highranking official to the embassy in Kabul to advance religious freedom and other human rights. 

The Commission released a report with these recommendations in June 2002. Commissioners 

have discussed conditions in Afghanistan, along with the U.S. response to those conditions, in 

meetings with Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, 

Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights and 

International Operations Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs 

Christina Rocca, Director of Policy Planning Ambassador Richard Haass, Coordinator for 

Afghanistan Ambassador David Johnson, and Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations Secretary 

General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of the United Nations Assistance 

Mission in Afghanistan. 

In September 2002, the Commission released a letter sent to House International 

Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, detailing the aforementioned early warning signs of 

human rights problems in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and noting its recommendations. 

The Commission shared its findings and recommendations with the Senate sponsors of the 

Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-327). As a result, several of the 

Commission’s recommendations were included in the Act. 

In 2003, the Commission has continued, publicly and actively, to raise the level of 

awareness of human rights concerns, including religious freedom, in Afghanistan and promote its 

recommendations on reconstruction efforts there. On January 29, the Commission held an 

international forum, “Reconstructing Afghanistan: Freedom in Crisis” in cooperation with The 

George Washington University Law School. The Commission brought together senior officials 

from the U.S. and interim Afghan governments, along with experts on Islamic law, law reform, 

judicial reconstruction, the conditions of women in Afghanistan, and U.S. foreign policy. 

Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, Senator Chuck Hagel, and 

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Andrew Natsios spoke at the forum. 

A distinguished 11-person delegation from Afghanistan was led by the Minister of Justice and 

included the Chairman of the Judicial Reform Commission and members of Afghanistan’s 

Human Rights Commission and Constitutional Drafting Committee. Participants in the forum 

discussed how the protection of human rights, including religious freedom, could be incorporated 

into Afghanistan’s new constitution, judicial system, and laws; how human rights protections 

could be extended throughout a highly decentralized country, much of it currently dominated by 

warlords; how tolerance can best be instilled in a society that has known enmity and war for over 

two decades; and what the United States can do to assist Afghanistan in the process of 

reconstructing its legal and judicial systems. The forum sought to raise concerns about negative 

trends in the current phase of Afghanistan’s judicial and constitutional reconstruction, and to 

encourage Afghans and the international donor community to ensure that Afghanistan’s new 

institutions, laws, and practices reflect internationally-accepted human rights standards. 

Following the forum, Commission Chair Felice Gaer and Commissioner Nina Shea conducted a 
12

briefing on developments in Afghanistan for congressional staff members of the House 

International Relations Committee. 

In February 2003, the Commission sent a letter to President Bush urging him to impress 

upon President Karzai at their upcoming meeting the need to ensure that human rights are fully 

guaranteed in Afghanistan. The Commission’s view was also expressed in an op-ed entitled 

“Remember Afghanistan,” published in the February 27, 2003, edition of The Washington Post. 

A second letter to the President in April 2003 warned that insufficient U.S. involvement in the 

constitution-drafting process may lead to a constitution that codifies repression.

The Commission has issued an individual report on Afghanistan contemporaneous with 

the release of this annual report, and Commission recommendations on Afghanistan from both 

the May 2003 and June 2002 reports are included in this annual report. (See Chapter IV.)

2. Belarus 

In January 2003, as a result of the passage of a regressive law on religion as well as 

violations of religious freedom in the country, Commission Chair Felice Gaer, Commissioner 

Bishop William Murphy, and staff traveled to Belarus, where they met with representatives of 

the government’s Committee on Religious and Nationalities Affairs, the Russian Orthodox 

Church, and several other religious groups and NGOs. 

The government of Belarus has erected a set of regulatory and bureaucratic obstacles that 

make a vast number of legitimate religious activities impossible for many religious groups. 

Members of the Hindu community who attempted to hold public events were detained and 

victimized by violent attacks about which the state has failed to take remedial measures or 

otherwise intervene. In August 2002, Belarusian officials bulldozed the Autocephalous 

Orthodox Church in Pahranichny, which was to have been consecrated the following day. Its 

priest had already been arrested several times for conducting religious services. A synagogue 

was firebombed and Jewish graves desecrated in a wave of anti-Semitic acts that the government 

has done little to combat. 

In October 2002, a newly-passed law provided government officials with more tools to 

repress and control religious activities without providing any clear mechanisms to check official 

abuses. The law requires all religious organizations to apply for re-registration within two years, 

and threatens to restrict religious freedom in Belarus still further, in violation of its obligations 

under OSCE and other applicable international human rights norms. In November 2002, 

Commissioner Nina Shea addressed growing concerns about the protection of religious freedom 

in Belarus during a presentation at a conference in Washington entitled Axis of Evil: Belarus -

the Missing Link, hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Belarus, the New Atlantic Initiative, and others. 

Also in November, Commission staff met with several Belarus opposition leaders to discuss the 

impact of the new law on religion. 

The Commission has issued an individual report on Belarus contemporaneous with the 

release of this annual report, and the Commission’s recommendations on Belarus are included in 

this annual report. (See Chapter IV.)
13

3. Belgium 

Following a March 2002 visit to Belgium by then-Commission Chair Michael Young and 

Commissioner Richard Land, the Commission has remained concerned about official initiatives 

targeting “harmful sectarian organizations” that have fueled an atmosphere of intolerance toward 

members of minority religious groups. These initiatives not only have effects in Belgium but are 

used as models by countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere where the rule of law and other 

human rights protections are much weaker than in Belgium. The Commission has also been 

troubled by an increase in anti-Semitic violence. 

In May 2002, Commissioner Land presented and discussed the Commission delegation’s 

findings at the State Department’s Europe/Eurasia Religious Freedom Roundtable. In September 

2002, the Commission’s Acting Executive Director Tad Stahnke met in Belgium with 

representatives of several minority religious groups, including the Jewish community. 

4. Burma 

The Burmese government exercises strict control over all religious activities in that 

country and has persistently discriminated against members of minority religious groups and 

restricted public religious expression, education, and the building of places of worship by those 

groups. Government restrictions and abuses appear to be most severe for non-Buddhist religions

and their followers, especially those in ethnic minority areas. Additionally, the government has 

imprisoned more than 100 Buddhist monks for advocating democracy and encouraging dialogue 

between the government and pro-democracy forces. In September 2002, the Commission wrote 

to Secretary Powell recommending that he continue to designate Burma as a CPC, which he did 

in March 2003. 

5. China 

The Commission has continued to monitor and report on the deterioration of protections 

for religious freedom in China in the current reporting year. The Chinese government commits 

numerous egregious violations against members of many of China’s religious and spiritual 

communities, including Evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur 

Muslims, and other groups, such as the Falun Gong, that the government has labeled “evil cults.” 

In addition, the Commission is concerned about the 30,000 to 300,000 North Koreans who are 

currently in China, having fled severe repression in their country. The Chinese government has 

refused to grant refugee status to these individuals and has forcibly repatriated many of them. In 

September 2002, the Commission wrote to Secretary Powell recommending that he continue to 

designate China as a CPC, which he did in March 2003. 

In a letter to Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage in August 2002, the Commission urged, 

in his meetings with Chinese officials in preparation for President Jiang Zemin’s October 2002 

meeting with President Bush in Crawford, Texas, that he ensure religious freedom, particularly 

the release of persons imprisoned on account of their religious beliefs, be a prominent agenda 

item for discussion between Presidents Bush and Jiang. Reportedly, Secretary Armitage stressed 

the absolute need for China to treat the Uighur Muslim minority with respect and dignity. The 

Commission also wrote to President Bush in October 2002 urging him to raise the issue of the 
14

Chinese government’s continued violent crackdown on the freedom of religion and belief, as 

well as the plight of North Koreans who have fled to China, with President Jiang at his 

Crawford, Texas, meeting in October. In President Bush’s remarks subsequent to this meeting, 

he stated that he shared with President Jiang “the importance of China freeing prisoners of 

conscience and giving fair treatment to peoples of faith.”

4

 

Also in accordance with a Commission recommendation, the Senate introduced and 

unanimously passed a concurrent resolution in the 107th Congress that called on China to make 

an effort to identify and protect North Korean refugees, allow them to petition for asylum, give 

the UNHCR access to North Koreans in China, and halt the repatriation of refugees seeking 

asylum.5 

For three years, the Commission has requested an official invitation to visit China. At the 

December 2002 U.S.-China bilateral human rights dialogue in Beijing, Assistant Secretary for 

Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Lorne Craner, and Ambassador-at-Large for International 

Religious Freedom, John V. Hanford III, requested and received an oral invitation for the 

Commission from the Chinese government. Discussions are underway between the 

Commission, the State Department, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry for the Commission to 

conduct a trip to China in the near future. In January 2003, Commissioners Nina Shea and Shirin 

Tahir-Kheli met with the U.S. Ambassador to China to discuss the Commission’s concerns about 

religious freedom violations in that country and the Chinese government’s invitation for the 

Commission to visit. 

The Commission held a China Religious Freedom Roundtable in March 2003. The 

Roundtable brought together in an off-the-record setting senior policymakers, China experts, and 

representatives of religious and other non-governmental organizations to share views on 

advancing religious freedom in China. Members of Congress and Administration officials 

present included: Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas; Representative Chris Smith of New 

Jersey; Representative Mike Pence of Indiana; Assistant Secretary Craner; Ambassador Hanford; 

and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Randall Schriver. The 

topics discussed at the Roundtable, the first in an on-going series, included the U.S.-China 

bilateral human rights dialogue, U.S. preparation for the 59th Session of the UN Commission on 

Human Rights, and ways that religious freedom and related human rights can be advanced within 

the framework of U.S.-China relations. 

The recommendations from the Commission’s February 2002 report on China are 

included in this annual report. (See Chapter IV.) 

6. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) 

The Commission has been a leader on shining the spotlight on the horrific human rights 

violations by the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North 

Korea) and the plight of tens of thousands of North Korean refugees in China. The DPRK 

government severely represses public and private religious activities. The Commission has 

received reports – including at a January 2002 public hearing and in visits to South Korea and 

Japan – that officials have arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes executed North Koreans 

who engage in unauthorized religious activities such as public religious expression and 
15

persuasion as well as those returning North Koreans who were found to have had contact with 

foreign Christian groups, many of which conduct humanitarian and educational activities across 

the border in China. 

For the last three years, the Commission has recommended that the DPRK be named a 

CPC. Secretary Powell adopted the Commission’s recommendation in 2001, and the DPRK 

remains on the CPC list. 

In June 2002, Commissioner Felice Gaer testified on the Commission’s policy 

recommendations regarding religious freedom violations and North Korean refugees before the 

Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration. In July, the House Policy Committee issued a 

report on religious persecution and other human rights violations in North Korea, as well as the 

condition of North Korean refugees, citing the Commission and its findings. Also in accordance 

with a Commission recommendation, both the House and the Senate passed concurrent 

resolutions in June 2002 that called on China to make an effort to identify and protect North 

Korean refugees, allow them to petition for asylum, give the UNHCR access to North Korean 

refugees in China, and halt the repatriation of refugees seeking asylum. 

In October 2002, on the eve of the visit to North Korea by Assistant Secretary of State for 

East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly, the Commission wrote President Bush urging him to 

ensure that renewed high-level discussions with officials of the DPRK advance an agenda that 

gives a prominent place to the protection of human rights, including the freedom of religion and 

belief; the provision of humanitarian assistance; the protection of North Korean refugees; and the 

reuniting of Korean Americans with their family members in the DPRK.

As recommended by the Commission, in March 2003, the U.S. delegation to the UN 

Commission on Human Rights announced that it would seek a resolution on human rights 

violations in North Korea.

The recommendations from the Commission’s April 2002 report on North Korea are 

included in this report. (See Chapter IV.)

7. Egypt 

Serious problems of discrimination against a number of religious groups remain 

widespread in Egypt. Coptic Christians face ongoing violence from Muslim extremists. For all 

Christian groups, government permission must still be sought to build or repair a church. The 

government maintains tight control over all Muslim religious institutions, including mosques and 

religious endowments. 

The Commission welcomes the March 18, 2003 acquittal of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an 

Egyptian and American citizen who has been an outspoken advocate of democracy and human 

rights, including religious freedom, in Egypt. The Commission, however, remains concerned 

about the Egyptian Sohag Criminal Court’s February 27, 2003 acquittal, for the second time, of 

92 of the 96 defendants arrested in connection with the January 2000 killings of 22 persons, 

including one Muslim and 21 Coptic Christians, in communal violence in the village of AlKosheh. The Commission urges the U.S. government to press the Egyptian authorities to ensure 
16

that those responsible for committing the acts of violence in Al-Kosheh, particularly those 

responsible for the killings, will be brought to justice through a fair trial. 

Concerned about the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or 

tolerated by the government of Egypt, the Commission decided to place that country on a 

“Watch List” because its government has failed to take effective steps to halt repression and/or 

violence against religious believers, or, in most cases, to punish those responsible for severe 

violations of religious freedom. In so doing, the Commission stated that it would continue to 

consider whether Egypt met the statutory criteria for designation as a CPC, and the continued 

failure on the part of its government to address effectively these violations would be a critical 

component of that decision. The Commission also urged the State Department to monitor 

closely religious freedom in Egypt and to respond vigorously to further violations.

8. France

Following a March 2002 visit to France by Commissioner Richard Land, the Commission 

has remained concerned in the current year about official initiatives and activities which target 

“sects” or “cults” that have fueled an atmosphere of intolerance toward members of minority 

religious groups in that country. In addition, the French initiatives have served as models for 

countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere where the rule of law and other human rights 

protections are much weaker than in France. French officials had traveled to several of these 

countries promoting its initiatives. The Commission welcomes recent changes to French policy 

in this matter and will continue to monitor the effects of these changes. 

In May 2002, Commissioner Land presented and discussed the Commission delegation’s 

findings from its visit to France at the State Department’s Europe/Eurasia Religious Freedom 

Roundtable. In June, 2002, Commissioner Leila Sadat, with the support of the U.S. Embassy in 

Paris, delivered a speech (in French) at the French Center on the United States, a part of the 

French Institute of International Relations, a leading French foreign policy think tank. Her 

speech discussed IRFA, the work of the Commission, and its concerns with respect to religious 

freedom in France. Commissioner Sadat continued to inquire about anti-Semitic violence and 

“anti-cult initiatives” in meetings with French government officials, religious leaders, and human 

rights activists. 

The Commission continues to be concerned about anti-Semitism in France, following an 

upsurge in violence and other anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2002. Commission Chair 

Felice Gaer testified on this subject before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in August 

2002. The French government appears to have taken several steps to address this problem. 

9. Georgia 

The Commission has monitored Georgia with concern, noting ongoing attacks against

religious minorities, particularly Jehovah’s Witnesses, to which the Georgian government has 

failed to respond. In December 2002, Commission Chair Felice Gaer met with a delegation from 

Georgia and elsewhere visiting the United States as part of the State Department International 

Visitor’s Program. The delegation included a member of the Georgian National Security 
17

Council, two senior representatives of the Georgian Orthodox Church, a Deputy Director of 

Tbilisi District Court, a member of the Georgian media, and a member of Georgian civil society.

10. India

The Commission has grown increasingly concerned about abuses of religious freedom in 

India, including the communal violence and killings that took place in Gujarat in 2002. After the 

killing of 58 Hindus by Muslims on a train in the town of Godhra on February 27, 2002, 

retaliatory violence in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims resulted in the deaths of at least 1,000 

Muslims, many of whom were burned alive. Several reports suggested that the government of 

Gujarat, which is dominated by the Bharatia Janata Party, and some members of the police force 

may have been implicated in planning the violence and doing little to halt the attacks against 

Muslims. These reports came from many domestic and international sources, including India’s 

own National Human Rights Commission. 

Alarmed by the religious violence and in response to the U.S. Administration’s failure 

forthrightly and publicly to condemn the killings of Muslims in Gujarat, the Commission held a 

hearing in June 2002 to learn more about the situation, highlight violations of religious freedom 

in India, and discuss how the United States, through its policy toward India, can play a role in 

helping to protect religious freedom there. In July 2002, Commission Chair Felice Gaer and 

Vice Chair Michael Young met with the Indian Ambassador to the United States. In August 

2002, the Commission sent a letter to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, urging him to 

raise religious freedom concerns with the Indian government during his trip to South Asia. 

Deputy Secretary Armitage told the Commission that he did so. The Commission also met with 

several Members of Congress to discuss the violence in Gujarat and the U.S. government’s 

response. In light of the alarming level of religious violence that occurred in that country, in 

September 2002, the Commission recommended that India be designated as a CPC. 

11. Indonesia 

The long authoritarian rule of President Suharto has left a legacy of political, economic, 

social, and religious strife in Indonesia, a majority Muslim country with a large Christian 

minority. Sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims broke out in several regions in the 

late 1990s, resulting in the deaths of thousands. The Indonesian government did little to stop the 

violence, even after a militant Islamic group exploited the conflicts and raised the level of 

fighting against the Christian population. Because of religious violence and initial government 

inaction, the Commission in 2002 placed Indonesia on its “Watch List” and urged the State 

Department to continue to monitor conditions there to consider whether it meets the statutory 

criteria for designation as a CPC. 

U.S. policy has reflected some of the Commission’s recommendations on Indonesia. In 

December 2001, USAID Deputy Administrator Frederick Schieck told the Senate Foreign 

Relations Committee that the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives is funding programs and 

organizations in Indonesia aimed at decreasing interfaith tensions. In addition, the FY 2003 

Foreign Relations Authorization Act (P.L. 107-228) expressed a Sense of the Congress reflecting 

the Commission’s recommendation that the Indonesian government should make substantial 

progress toward ending human rights violations by the armed forces, and investigate and 
18

prosecute those responsible for the violations, including officials of the armed forces and terrorist 

organizations. Also reflective of a 2002 recommendation on Indonesia, the FY 2003 Omnibus 

Appropriations Act (P.L.108-7) requires the President to certify that the Indonesian military is 

suspending, and the Indonesian government is prosecuting and punishing, members of the armed 

forces that have committed human rights violations before funds for foreign military financing 

can be given to Indonesia. 

The recommendations from the Commission’s May 2002 report on Indonesia are 

included in this annual report. (See Chapter IV.)

12. Iran 

The government of Iran engages in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of 

religious freedom, including prolonged detention and executions based primarily or entirely upon 

the religion of the victims. Minority religious groups that are not officially recognized by the 

state and those perceived to be attempting to convert Muslims suffer particular repression. In 

September 2002, the Commission wrote to Secretary Powell recommending that he continue to 

designate Iran as a CPC, which he did in March 2003. 

13. Iraq

The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein conducted a brutal campaign of murder, summary 

execution, arbitrary arrest, and protracted detention against the religious leaders and followers of 

the majority Shi’a Muslim population and attempted to undermine the identity of minority 

Christian (Chaldean and Assyrian), Yazidi, and Sabean Mandaean groups. In September 2002, 

the Commission wrote to Secretary Powell recommending that he continue to designate Iraq as a 

CPC, which he did in March 2003. In April 2003, the Commission wrote to President Bush, 

noting that some segments of the Shi’a community in Iraq have been vociferously demanding the 

implementation of Islamic law in a manner that may preclude respect for freedom of religion and 

freedom of conscience. The Commission urged President Bush to ensure that the Iraqi people 

can exercise their religious freedom in full accordance with international human rights standards 

and to promote, in all U.S. reconstruction programs, the idea of a future Iraqi political system 

that practices religious tolerance and respects universal human rights. 

14. Laos 

Lao government officials, primarily those at the provincial and local levels, continue to 

engage in particularly severe violations of religious freedom against religious believers, 

including arrest, prolonged detention and imprisonment of members of minority religions, forced 

renunciations of faith by Christians, and extensive governmental interference with and 

restrictions on all religious communities, including Baha’is, Buddhists, Evangelical Christians, 

and Roman Catholics. In July 2002, the Lao government promulgated a new decree on religious 

affairs that provides a legal basis for control of and interference with religious activities. While 

some religious detainees have reportedly been released since July 2002, others remain in 

detention. 
19

In February 2002, Commissioner Firuz Kazemzadeh and staff traveled to Laos to meet 

with Lao government officials and representatives of religious groups and non-governmental 

organizations. In September 2002, the Commission wrote to Secretary Powell to recommend the 

designation of Laos as a CPC. In March 2003, the Commission issued a report with policy 

recommendations that reflect findings from that mission. 

The Commission issued an individual report on Laos in March 2003, and the 

Commission’s recommendations on Laos are included in this annual report. (See Chapter IV.) 

15. Nigeria

Nigeria continues to suffer from outbursts of violent communal conflict along religious 

and ethnic lines, pervasive mistrust among religious and ethnic communities, and reportedly 

serious lapses in the protection of human rights generally. The expansion of the legal application 

of Sharia (Islamic law) into the criminal law of several northern Nigerian states has led to 

communal tension and violence between Muslims and Christians at the national and local levels. 

Several thousand people have been killed throughout the country since 1999 in a cycle of attacks 

and reprisals. Concerned about religious freedom violations tolerated by the government of 

Nigeria, the Commission decided to place that country on a “Watch List.” In so doing, the 

Commission stated that it would continue to consider whether Nigeria met the statutory criteria 

for designation as a CPC. The Commission also urged the State Department to monitor closely 

religious freedom in Nigeria and to respond vigorously to further violations. 

16. Pakistan

Pakistan suffers from considerable sectarian and religiously motivated violence, much of 

it committed against Shi’a Muslims by Sunni militants, but also against religious minorities such 

as Ahmadis and Christians. Over the past year, there has been an upsurge in anti-Christian 

violence, including fatal attacks directed against churches, a missionary hospital, and 

humanitarian organizations. Police protection appears ineffectual and although the Pakistani 

government did take some steps with regard to the recent attacks on Christians, no one has yet 

been successfully prosecuted for the killings. Perpetrators of attacks on minorities are seldom

brought to justice. In its September 2002 letter to Secretary Powell, the Commission 

recommended Pakistan for CPC designation. 

A number of recommendations from the Commission’s 2001 report on Pakistan were 

implemented in 2002, one of which was that the United States, in its bilateral relations with 

Pakistan, take the position that the separate electorate system for religious minorities is 

inconsistent with democratic principles. In January 2002, the Commission welcomed the 

decision of the Pakistani government to abolish the separate electorate system. In addition, as 

recommended by the Commission, an allocation of $8 million for basic education programs in 

Pakistan was included in the 2002 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, signed into law on 

January 10, 2002. 
20

17. Russia

In May 2002, Commissioner Richard Land participated in a Europe-Eurasia Religious 

Freedom Roundtable sponsored by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian 

Affairs Elizabeth Jones and Senator Gordon Smith, at which he reported on his March 2002 visit 

to Russia where he addressed an international conference on religion and human rights and also 

met with government officials, representatives of religious communities, and non-governmental 

organizations. Also in May 2002, the Commission sent a letter to President Bush urging him to 

raise religious freedom issues with President Vladimir Putin, and to meet with representatives of 

minority religious communities during his visit to Russia that month. While in Moscow, 

President Bush raised religious freedom concerns in his talks with President Putin, and spoke on 

the importance of religious freedom to a group of religious leaders. He also met with Jewish and 

Roman Catholic leaders during his visit.

In January 2003, Commissioners Felice Gaer (Chair), Bishop William Murphy, Dr. Firuz 

Kazemzedah, and Commission staff traveled to Russia to follow up on the Commission’s 

longstanding concerns and to investigate reports that the situation for religious freedom had 

deteriorated in Russia over the past year. Among the Commission’s main concerns were the 

increased number of foreign clergy expelled from Russia or denied entry visas, the continued 

prevalence of violence against Jews and Muslims in Russia, the uncertain legal situation 

affecting religious practice, and the leaked “Zorin Report,” allegedly written by Russian 

government officials, which, among other assertions, designates particular religious groups as 

threats to Russia’s national security. The delegation met with representatives of the Russian 

government’s executive and legislative branches, members of the NGO community, 

representatives of several religious groups, and the press. 

The Commission has issued an individual report on Russia contemporaneous with the 

release of this annual report, and the Commission’s recommendations on Russia are included in 

this annual report. (See Chapter IV.) 

18. Saudi Arabia 

In 2002, the Commission devoted considerable attention to Saudi Arabia. Both the 

Commission’s and State Department reports have noted that freedom of religion “does not exist” 

in Saudi Arabia. In testimony at a June 2002 Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing on 

Saudi Arabia, Commission Chair Felice Gaer outlined the level and extent of violations of 

religious freedom within Saudi Arabia, including violations of women’s equal right to religious 

freedom, and discussed several recommendations for U.S. policy. In its September 2002 letter to

Secretary Powell, the Commission recommended that Saudi Arabia be designated a CPC.

In addition to ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom inside Saudi Arabia, 

activities that are financed or supported, directly or indirectly, by the Saudi government to 

promote its interpretation of Islam, often referred to as Wahhabism, outside of Saudi Arabia have 

raised some troubling questions about that government’s role in promoting religious intolerance 

in other countries toward both Muslims and non-Muslims in other countries. In September 2002, 

the Commission held a private briefing on religious freedom concerns in Saudi Arabia. Scholars, 

religious leaders, former diplomats, and other Saudi experts discussed religious freedom 
21

conditions, global propagation of the government’s religious ideology, and U.S. policy options 

regarding Saudi Arabia. Commission staff interviewed numerous Saudi nationals and foreign 

workers who currently live or have lived in Saudi Arabia, including several foreign workers who 

had been arrested, imprisoned, deported, and reportedly beaten on account of their religious 

activities. 

The Commission has issued an individual report on Saudi Arabia contemporaneous with 

the release of this annual report, and the Commission’s recommendations on Saudi Arabia are 

included in this annual report. (See Chapter IV.)

19. Sudan

For the past three years, the Commission has described Sudan as the world’s most violent 

abuser of the right to freedom of religion and belief and has found that religion is a major factor 

in Sudan’s ongoing civil war, a conflict that has taken more than two million lives and left four 

million displaced. In September 2002, the Commission recommended that Sudan remain on the 

list of CPCs. Sudan was again designated as a CPC in March 2003.

In June 2002, then-Commission Chair Michael Young testified at a House International 

Relations Committee hearing entitled Defining the Next Step on the Path to Peace in Sudan. The 

hearing followed the release of the May 2002 report by Special Envoy for Peace in Sudan, 

Senator John Danforth, on his efforts to end the civil war. Senator Danforth’s report reflected 

the Commission’s recommendations urging participation in the peace process of a broad range of 

groups beyond the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army 

(SPLM/A), increased monitoring of the Nuba Mountains cease-fire, an international commission 

to investigate slavery, and a reported agreement on a verification mechanism to monitor 

bombardment of civilians, including humanitarian and relief operations. 

Diplomatic activity by the United States continues to reflect the Commission’s 

recommendations. According to the State Department’s Special Advisor on Sudan, Michael 

Ranneberger, the U.S. government continues to support peace talks between the government of 

Sudan, the SPLM/A, and grassroots, particularly “intra-South,” reconciliation efforts. Following 

a Commission recommendation to increase human rights monitoring and reporting on Sudan, in 

March 2002, the United States helped to establish a Joint Military Commission to monitor a 

cease-fire agreement in the Nuba Mountains. Also in line with a Commission recommendation 

urging efforts to investigate reports of war crimes and other human rights abuses, the U.S.-led 

international group of “eminent persons” investigated and reported on slavery in Sudan. The 

Sudan Peace Act, which became law in October 2002, also included language requiring the 

Secretary of State to collect information about incidents which may constitute crimes against 

humanity, genocide, war crimes, and other violations of international humanitarian law by all 

parties to the conflict in Sudan, including slavery, rape, and aerial bombardment of civilian 

targets, and to report regularly to Congress. The United States also helped to create the Civilian 

Protection Monitoring Team to monitor and investigate alleged abuses against civilians, such as 

aerial bombardment. In February 2003, the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team’s mandate was 

extended to include verification of the ceasefire agreed upon by the government of Sudan and the 

SPLM/A in October 2002. 
22

In addition, a number of the Commission’s recommendations on Sudan were enacted 

through legislation in the 107th Congress. Namely, the Sudan Peace Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-245), 

signed by the President on October 21, 2002, reflected many of the Commission’s 

recommendations from its 2001 and 2002 Sudan reports. The Act stated that the President 

should continue to increase the use of non-Operation Lifeline Sudan agencies in the distribution 

of relief supplies in southern Sudan; the United States should use all means available to help end 

the war in Sudan, including the use of economic and diplomatic tools multilaterally to compel 

the government of Sudan to enter into a good faith peace agreement; the creation of a viable 

democratic civil authority outside of government control; and support of people-to-people 

reconciliation mechanisms in areas outside government control. The Act also expressed the 

Sense of Congress that the President, acting through the United Nations, should seek to take 

appropriate measures to end slavery and aerial bombardment of civilians by the government of 

Sudan. In the Act, Congress found that the Sudanese government has committed acts of 

genocide. Also in accordance with a Commission recommendation, the FY 2003 Omnibus 

Appropriations Act (P.L.108-7) continued to authorize non-lethal, non-food assistance to the 

opposition National Democratic Alliance to protect civilians from attacks, slave raids, and aerial 

bombardment.

In April 2003, the Commission wrote Secretary Powell to urge that the United States 

oppose any efforts at the 59th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights to abandon 

ongoing scrutiny of continuing serious violations of human rights in Sudan. In a second letter to 

Secretary Powell in the same month, the Commission urged that the Administration’s upcoming 

report to Congress required by the Sudan Peace Act frankly address violations of the Sudanese 

government’s ceasefire violations, as well as raising several other concerns.

The recommendations on Sudan included in the Commission’s April 2003 Sudan Peace 

Act letter are included in this annual report, along with the Commission’s recommendations from 

its April 2002 report on Sudan. (See Chapter IV.) 

20. Turkmenistan 

The Commission has found that conditions for religious freedom in Turkmenistan are 

extremely poor. Only two religions, Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodoxy, are officially 

recognized and even those are highly restricted by the state. Other religions are effectively 

prohibited from operating freely. Thus, in its September 2002 letter to Secretary Powell, the 

Commission recommended for the third consecutive year that Turkmenistan be designated a 

CPC. The Senate and House have introduced resolutions (S. J. Res. 3 and H. Con. Res. 32) in 

the 108th Congress on human rights in Central Asia that urge the President and the Secretary of 

State to follow the Commission’s recommendation to designate Turkmenistan as a CPC and 

include other provisions reflecting the Commission’s March 2002 recommendations on 

Turkmenistan. Following a Commission recommendation, the United States co-sponsored a 

resolution regarding the situation on human rights in Turkmenistan at the 59th Session of the UN 

Commission on Human Rights, which was adopted.

The recommendations from the Commission’s March 2002 report on Turkmenistan are 

included in this annual report. (See Chapter IV). 
23

21. Uzbekistan 

The Commission has found that conditions for religious freedom are very poor in 

Uzbekistan. In addition to a highly restrictive law on religion that severely limits the ability of 

minority religions to function, the Uzbek government in recent years has been harshly cracking 

down on Muslim individuals, groups, and mosques that do not conform to government 

prescribed ideas on how the Islamic faith should be practiced and expressed. As a result, 

thousands of people have been arrested, many of whom have been tortured in detention. 

Concerned about religious freedom violations engaged in by the government of Uzbekistan, the 

Commission decided to place that country on a “Watch List.” In so doing, the Commission 

stated that it would continue to consider whether Uzbekistan met the statutory criteria for 

designation as a CPC. The Commission also urged the State Department to monitor closely 

religious freedom in Uzbekistan and to respond vigorously to further violations there that may 

merit CPC designation. 

In accordance with a Commission recommendation first made in November 2001, the 

Congress has conditioned assistance to Uzbekistan in the FY 2002 Supplemental Appropriations 

Act (P.L. 107-206) on that government’s substantial and continued progress toward meeting its 

commitments on human rights, including religious freedom, as agreed to under the Declaration 

of Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Framework between the United States and Uzbekistan 

in March 2002. Assistance to Uzbekistan was also conditioned under the same criteria in the FY 

2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act (P.L. 108-7). The recently introduced resolutions in the 

Senate and House on Central Asia described above also state that the President and the Secretary 

of State should follow the Commission’s recommendation to place Uzbekistan on a “Watch 

List,” and make clear that it risks CPC designation if religious freedom and other human rights 

conditions do not improve there. The resolutions include other Commission recommendations as 

well. 

The recommendations from the Commission’s May 2002 report on Uzbekistan are 

included in this annual report. (See Chapter IV.) 

22. Vietnam 

In Vietnam, key religious dissidents remain imprisoned or under house arrest, and the 

government has intensified its campaign against religious minorities in the northwestern 

provinces and the Central Highlands, including forcing individuals to renounce their faith. In 

February 2002, Commissioner Firuz Kazemzadeh and Commission staff traveled to Vietnam, 

where they met with Vietnamese government officials and representatives of religious 

organizations. The visit enabled the Commission to assess firsthand the presence of particularly 

severe violations of religious freedom in that country, and contributed to the Commission’s 

recommendation in September 2002 that Vietnam be designated a CPC. Despite the recognition 

of a recent deterioration or otherwise lack of progress in the protection of religious freedom in 

Vietnam in a January 2003 report to Congress on the status of the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral human 

rights dialogue, the Secretary of State did not designate Vietnam as a CPC.6 

In a letter to Secretary Powell in July 2002, the Commission included a number of policy 

recommendations on Vietnam and urged him to raise religious freedom issues with the 
24

Vietnamese at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum later that month. In 

November 2002, Commissioners met with the Vietnamese delegation to the 2002 U.S.-Vietnam 

bilateral human rights dialogue to discuss the Commission’s concerns regarding ongoing 

religious freedom violations in Vietnam. In May 2002, Commission staff met with officials of 

the Vietnamese Religious Affairs Committee and leaders of Vietnamese religious groups during 

their trip to Washington, D.C. 

In September 2001, Congressman Christopher Smith introduced the Vietnam Human 

Rights Act (H.R. 2833), which was passed in the House prior to a vote on the ratification of the 

U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement. The Senate, however, did not act on the legislation. 

In April 2003, Congressman Christopher Smith introduced an updated version of the bill (H.R. 

1587), which, like the previous bill, extensively cites the Commission’s findings regarding 

violations of religious freedom in Vietnam. Among other actions, the Act requires that the 

Secretary of State shall seek to consult with the Commission as appropriate. 

The Commission has issued a report on Vietnam contemporaneous with the release of 

this annual report, and the Commission’s recommendations on Vietnam are included in this 

report. (See Chapter IV.) 

23. Anti-Semitism

Alarmed by the upsurge in anti-Semitic violence in Belgium and France in the first half 

of 2002, the Commission issued a statement in April 2002 deploring the attacks and expressing 

hope that the French government would follow through on its statements that it would track 

down the perpetrators and hold them accountable. The Commission also urged the U.S. 

government to follow this issue carefully and urge French authorities to treat these incidents with 

the seriousness they deserve. Following the Commission’s statement, the 107th Congress 

introduced and unanimously passed Senate Resolution 253 and House Resolution 393, which 

cited the Commission’s statement and, in the Senate resolution, expressed the Sense of the 

Senate that the Commission “should continue to document and report on this phenomenon in 

Europe and worldwide.” In August 2002, Commission Chair Felice Gaer testified before the 

Congressional Human Rights Caucus (CHRC) as part of a briefing on anti-Semitism in Western 

Europe. In September 2002, the Commission’s then-Acting Executive Director participated on 

the U.S. delegation to the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of the Organization for 

Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Warsaw, Poland, and worked with the U.S. 

delegation to include concerns regarding anti-Semitism in the U.S. intervention on freedom of 

religion as well as to submit a series of recommendations on anti-Semitism based on August 

2002 Commission testimony before the CHRC. While in Warsaw, and during a subsequent trip 

to Belgium, Commission staff met with religious leaders and human rights advocates regarding 

anti-Semitism in those countries. 

24. European Union

In September 2002, the then-Acting Executive Director of the Commission gave a 

presentation on IRFA, the work of the Commission, and religious freedom concerns regarding 

Burma, Laos, and Vietnam at a conference sponsored by Forum Asia Democracy at the 
25

European Parliament in Brussels. The presentation generated further interest among members of 

the European Parliament and their staff in adopting legislation such as IRFA and the 

establishment of an independent commission like the USCIRF to promote international religious 

freedom. 

25. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

In September 2002, a representative of the Commission was invited to participate on the 

U.S. delegation to the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) of the OSCE. 

During the meeting, the head of the U.S. delegation delivered a comprehensive intervention on 

violations of religious freedom in OSCE participating states. The Commission had early input in 

the statement and collaborated with the head of the U.S. delegation and State Department 

officials on the final version. Specifically, the statement addressed religious freedom violations 

in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Belarus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, 

initiatives targeting so-called “cults” in Western Europe, and restrictive registration legislation in 

Austria, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. The Commission’s representative also worked with 

the U.S. delegation to include concerns regarding anti-Semitism in the U.S. intervention on 

freedom of religion as well as to submit a series of recommendations on anti-Semitism based on 

August 2002 Commission testimony before the CHRC. 

26. United Nations Commission on Human Rights 

In April 2003, Commission Chair Felice Gaer met with Mr. Abdelfattah Amor, the UN 

Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief to discuss the Commission’s findings and 

recommendations on several countries of mutual interest. 

In its 2002 reports on North Korea and Turkmenistan, the Commission recommended 

that the U.S. government should work within the UN system, notably at the Commission on 

Human Rights, to initiate or support resolutions on violations of religious freedom and other 

human rights in those countries. During the 59th session of the UN Commission on Human 

Rights, held in March and April 2003, the United States successfully sought the adoption of a 

resolution regarding North Korea and co-sponsored a resolution on Turkmenistan. Resolutions 

on both countries were adopted, although they failed to establish Special Rapporteurs to 

investigate and report on the situations in those countries, as recommended by the Commission. 

 

1

 The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 established the U.S. Commission on 

International Religious Freedom under 22 U.S.C. § 6401 et seq. (P.L. 105-292, as amended by 

P.L. 106-55 and P.L. 107-228). 

2

 Commissioners Gaer and Young dissented from the decision to recommend that India be 

designated as a CPC. Commissioners Sadat and Tahir-Kheli dissented from the decision not to 

recommend that Uzbekistan be designated a CPC.
26

 

3

 For the Commission’s recommendations on these “Watch List” countries, see USCIRF reports 

on Egypt (addendum to May 2001 Annual Report, May 14, 2001); Indonesia (May 2001 Annual 

Report, Chapter IV, May 2002); Nigeria (May 2001 Annual Report, Chapter VII); and 

Uzbekistan (May 2002). 

4

 Press Conference of Presidents Bush and Jiang, October 25, 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ 

news/releases/2002/10/20021025.html, accessed April 14, 2003).

5

 S.Con.Res. 114 passed the Senate on June 19, 2002.

6

 See Report to the Congress on the Government of Vietnam’s progress toward improved human 

rights for the period of August 2001 – December 2002, forwarded by the State Department to the 

House International Relations Committee, January 8, 2003. 
27

II. COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN

The designation of countries of particular concern and the implementation of meaningful 

policies in response to such designations are among the most important human rights acts taken 

by any U.S. administration. Under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), a 

“country of particular concern” (CPC) is a country the government of which has either engaged 

in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom, defined as violations that are 

“systematic, ongoing, and egregious.”1 IRFA sets forth that the policy of the United States is to 

oppose particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

As envisioned in IRFA, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom 

reviewed evidence regarding particularly severe violations of religious freedom by countries 

whose governments have engaged in or tolerated such systematic, ongoing, and egregious 

violations. As a result of its review, the Commission wrote to the Secretary of State Colin L. 

Powell in September 2002 recommending that he designate the following 12 countries as CPCs: 

Burma (Myanmar), Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), India, Iran, Iraq, Laos, 

Pakistan, People's Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. 

In reaching these findings and recommendations, the Commission reviewed violations of 

religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by diverse governments, gathering information from 

victims, religious groups, human rights and other private organizations, the U.S. government, 

and others. The Commission also examined the State Department's Annual Report on 

International Religious Freedom and its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

In 1999 and again in 2000, the Secretary of State designated as CPCs Burma, China, Iran, 

Iraq, and Sudan; North Korea was added to this group in 2001. The Commission recommended 

that each of these designations as CPCs be maintained. The governments of these countries have 

continued to commit particularly severe violations of religious freedom as defined in IRFA and 

have not taken substantial and verifiable steps to halt such violations. 

In addition to the six countries previously designated as CPCs, the Commission found 

that the governments of India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, and Laos have 

engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom, and recommended 

that they be designated as CPCs this year.2

The following are summaries of religious freedom conditions in each of the twelve 

countries that the Commission recommended be designated as CPCs. 

Burma 

The Burmese government continues systematically to violate the religious freedom of the 

people of Burma. The government persists in exercising strict control over all religious activities 

and imposing severe restrictions on certain religious practices. Members of the Burmese military 

have reportedly killed members of religious minorities or instigated violence by the Buddhist 

majority against them. The plight of religious minorities in Burma is made worse by the 

widespread social tensions – encouraged by the regime – between the Buddhist majority and the 

Christian and Muslim minorities there. During much of 2001, the escalating tension between the 
28

Buddhist and Muslim communities in Burma resulted in several outbreaks of violence involving 

members of the Buddhist community who attacked shops, restaurants, and homes owned by 

Muslims. During one particular outbreak, police and soldiers reportedly stood by and did not 

attempt to halt the violence against the Muslims until they began to fight back, prompting the 

soldiers to begin attacking the Buddhists in retaliation. Other severe violations of religious 

freedom have included forcible conscription of religious minorities as military porters and death 

for those who refuse.

The majority Buddhist religion is not protected from government repression. Throughout 

the 1990s, the government imprisoned more than 100 Buddhist monks for advocating democracy 

and encouraging dialogue between the government and the pro-democracy forces. Many 

members of the Buddhist clergy remain in prison, although a precise number is not available. 

Members of minority religious groups face severe abuses to their religious freedom, especially 

those in the ethnic minority areas. In some of these ethnic minority localities, the military 

reportedly has forcibly conscripted members of religious minorities to become military porters. 

Christians have been forced to engage in the destruction of churches and graveyards for the 

purpose of clearing sites for military camps. Those who refuse have been killed. Christians, as 

well as Muslims and Buddhists, reportedly were also forced to donate “labor” to clean and 

maintain Buddhist monasteries. In addition, local officials have separated Christian children 

from their parents, with the children receiving instruction in Buddhism without their parents’ 

knowledge or consent.

The government of Burma has also persistently discriminated against members of 

minority religious groups. Non-Buddhists are discriminated against at the upper level of the 

public sector. Christian and Islamic groups continue to report difficulties in obtaining 

permission to build new churches and mosques. These groups also have had difficulties 

importing religious literature since the 1960s.

The government has prohibited Christian public religious expression and persuasion 

among ethnic minorities and has enlisted the cooperation of pro-government Buddhist monks to 

convert ethnic minorities to Theravada Buddhism. In at least one instance, Christian clerics were 

beaten to discourage the aforementioned religious persuasion.

China 

The Chinese government remains a particularly severe violator of religious freedom. 

Persons continue to be confined, tortured, imprisoned, and subject to other forms of ill treatment 

on account of their religion or belief. Groups subject to such repressive acts include Protestant 

Christians, Roman Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, and others, such as members 

of Falun Gong, that the government has labeled “evil cults.” In fact, in the past year, official 

respect for religious freedom in China has diminished. Chinese government officials have 

continued to claim the right to control, monitor, and restrain religious practice in that country, 

purportedly to protect public safety, order, health, and so forth. As part of China’s crackdown on 

religious and spiritual believers, individuals have been charged with, or detained under suspicion 

of, offenses that essentially penalize them for manifesting freedoms of religion or belief, speech, 

association, or assembly. In addition, several prominent religious leaders have been detained, 

often on reportedly dubious criminal charges, such as rape and other sexual violence, or financial 
29

crimes. The crackdown against religious believers was authorized at the highest levels of the 

government, according to reportedly official documents obtained by human rights nongovernmental organizations.

In December 2001, for the first time since the adoption of the 1999 “evil cult” law, a 

Protestant Christian pastor was sentenced to death. Pastor Gong Shengliang of the underground 

“South China Church” was sentenced to death for founding an “evil cult”; he was also sentenced 

on the reportedly questionable charges of assault and sexual violence. More than 200 members 

of the South China Church were arrested at the same time as Pastor Gong. In July 2002, three 

priests affiliated with the underground Roman Catholic Church were reportedly sentenced to 

three years in a labor camp after having been convicted of engaging in “cult” activities. In 

February 2002, the Vatican released the names of 33 bishops and priests it claimed to be in 

detention or under strict police surveillance.

Since October 2001, the political crackdown has intensified in the province of Xinjiang, 

where dozens of Muslim clerics and students were reportedly detained or arrested for “illegal” 

religious activities. It was also reported that in early November 2001, police closed down 13 

“illegal religious centers” and arrested more than 50 people worshiping there. In December 

2001, nine Muslims were arrested for “illegal preaching.” In March 2002, authorities reportedly 

arrested scores of Muslims for “separatism” and illegal religious activities.

The Chinese government retains tight control over religious activity and places of 

worship in Tibet. Hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns remain in prison and are 

reportedly subject to torture and other extreme forms of punishment, while others have been 

executed without due process. Tibetan monks and nuns are required to undergo “patriotic 

education,” and monks are forced to renounce their spiritual leaders, the Dalai Lama and the 

Dalai Lama-recognized Panchen Lama. The Chinese government has denied repeated requests, 

including from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for access to the 12-year-old boy 

whom the Dalai Lama recognizes as the 11th Panchen Lama. Government officials have stated 

that he is being “held for his own safety,” while at the same time insisting that another boy is the 

true Panchen Lama. On a positive note, on March 31, 2002, the Chinese government released 

Tanag Jigme Zangpo, the longest-serving Tibetan political prisoner (nearly 40 years), which 

followed the release of five other Tibetan political prisoners. In January 2003, the Chinese 

government executed Lobsang Dondrup, a Tibetan man, for his alleged involvement in an April 

2002 bombing incident, despite reassurances given the previous month to U.S. officials attending 

the bilateral human rights dialogue that his case, as well as that of a Tibetan Buddhist monk also 

sentenced to death, would be reviewed. 

The Chinese government has also continued its brutal crackdown against the Falun Gong 

movement and its followers. According to Falun Gong practitioners in the United States, in the 

last three years, over 100,000 practitioners have been sent to labor camps without trial, over 

1,000 have been tortured in mental hospitals, and from that group, 430 have been killed as a 

result of police brutality. The Chinese government’s crackdown against Falun Gong has 

apparently extended beyond its own borders. Many elected local U.S. officials also stated that 

they had received warnings from Chinese diplomatic personnel in the United States to withdraw 

their support of Falun Gong and its practitioners. On August 9, 2002, the Cambodian 

government, under pressure from the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia, deported two Chinese 
30

practitioners who had been designated as refugees by the UN High Commission for Refugees. In 

2003, the Chinese government sentenced Charles Li, a U.S. citizen and Falun Gong practitioner, 

to three years in prison for alleged interference with Chinese television broadcasts. 

India*

Despite India’s democratic traditions, religious minorities in India have periodically been 

subject to severe violence, including mass killings, in what is called “communal violence.” 

Those responsible for the violence are rarely ever held to account. It has become increasingly 

clear that an increase in such violence has coincided with the rise in political influence of groups 

associated with the Sangh Parivar, a collection of Hindu extremist nationalist organizations that 

view non-Hindus as foreign to India and hence deserving of attack. With the rise in power of the 

Sangh Parivar’s political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the current ruling party in the 

national government coalition, the climate of immunity for the perpetrators of attacks on 

minorities appears to have strengthened.

Since 1998, there have been hundreds of attacks on Christian leaders, 

worshippers, and churches throughout India. These attacks have included killings, torture, rape 

and harassment of church staff, destruction of church property, disruption of church events, and 

attempts to force renunciation of Christianity and reconversion back to Hinduism. As recently as 

January 2003, armed members of a Hindu extremist group attacked an American missionary and 

seven others with swords.

At the end of February 2002, in the town of Godhra, a mob of Muslims set fire to a train 

resulting in the death of 58 Hindus. Within days, hundreds of Muslims were killed across 

Gujarat by Hindu mobs. In addition, hundreds of mosques and Muslim-owned businesses and 

other kinds of infrastructure were looted or destroyed. More than 100,000 fled their homes. 

Many Muslims were burned to death; others were stabbed or shot. Other atrocities were

__________________

*In the Commission’s September 2002 letter to Secretary Powell regarding CPC 

recommendations, Commissioners Gaer and Young stated: "Although we are appalled by the 

violence against Muslims that took place in Gujarat this year, we respectfully dissent from the 

decision to recommend that India be named a CPC. India is a respected democracy with a 

judiciary, which is independent, albeit slow-moving and frequently unresponsive, and can work 

to hold the perpetrators responsible; many vigorous, independent non-governmental human 

rights organizations that have investigated and published extensive reports about the 

government's handling of the situation; and a free press that has widely reported on and strongly 

criticized the situation on the ground in Gujarat. Moreover, the worst levels of violence were 

contained in a short time period relative to other similar outbreaks in the past and were confined 

to the state of Gujarat, not spreading to other states, largely because of the actions of Indian 

officials. Thus we do not agree that in the case of India as a whole, it can be said that 

'systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom' have been 'engaged in or 

tolerated' by the Indian government to an extent to warrant CPC status."
31

committed against the victims, including the rape of Muslim women and girls; many were 

mutilated or burnt to death. India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), an official 

body, found evidence in the killings of premeditation by members of Hindu extremist groups; 

complicity by Gujarat state government officials; and police inaction in the midst of attacks on 

Muslims. Official reports issued in June by the Gujarat Police Administration reveal that the 

Gujarati government failed to take even basic steps to halt the upsurge in violence against 

Muslims and that orders were given to police not to interfere with the Hindu mobs. The NHRC 

also noted “widespread reports and allegations of well-organized persons, armed with mobile 

telephones and addresses, singling out certain homes and properties for death and destruction in 

certain districts—sometimes within view of police stations and personnel,” suggesting the 

attacks may have been planned in advance. Christians were also victims in Gujarat, and many 

churches were destroyed. There have also been instances of retaliatory violence against Hindus.

Although the BJP-led central government may not be directly responsible for instigating 

the violence against religious minorities, it is clear that the government is not doing all that it 

could to pursue the perpetrators of the attacks and to counteract the prevailing climate of hostility 

against these minority groups. Though the severe violence in Gujarat provided the national 

government with adequate grounds—under the Constitution and existing laws to counteract 

communal violence—to invoke central rule in the state, the BJP government did not do so, 

despite many requests and the fact that the killing of Muslims continued (on a lesser scale) for 

many weeks. Some positive steps were taken by the federal government, particularly in the 

dispatching to Gujarat of a senior police official in May, after which time the violence largely 

ceased. However, many thousands remain displaced, without homes, employment, or 

businesses to return to. In reportedly retaliatory violence, Muslim terrorist gunmen 

opened fire at a Hindu temple in September, killing 32 people. In December 2002 

elections in Gujarat, the BJP was soundly returned to power, though many observers 

accused it of capitalizing on the religious violence in the state. Even after one year, few 

Hindus have been arrested and held to account for the deaths of at least 1,000 

Muslims; most of those initially arrested have been released without charge. Officials 

have focused largely on prosecuting the perpetrators of the attack on the train at 

Godhra. 

In March 2003, the Gujarat government passed a bill against religious 

conversions. The bill, which is modeled on similar laws in the states of Tamil Nadu and 

Orissa, was hastily brought to a vote almost immediately after an attack on Hindus by 

Muslim extremists in the disputed state of Kashmir. Under the terms of the bill, 

government officials must assess the legality of conversions and the District Magistrate 

must grant prior permission. Where prior permission is not secured, individuals are 

subject to punishment. Ostensibly designed to prevent “forced” religious conversions, 

the bill is reportedly targeted against conversions of Hindus to Christianity and Islam, 

and as such, it inhibits the ability of persons in Gujarat to exercise their internationally 

recognized right to adopt a religion free from coercion. 

Iran 

The government of Iran engages in or tolerates systematic, ongoing, and egregious 
32

violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention and executions based primarily or 

entirely upon the religion of the victims. Iranian Sunni leaders have alleged widespread abuses 

and restrictions on their religious practice, including detentions and torture of Sunni clerics and 

bans on Sunni teachings in public schools and Sunni religious literature, even in predominantly 

Sunni areas. Sunni and Sufi Muslims also report widespread official discrimination. Minority 

religious groups that are not officially recognized by the state and those perceived to be 

attempting to convert Muslims suffer particular repression. Civil and human rights apply on the 

basis of one’s religious affiliation, and only to those groups officially recognized by the 

government as legitimate.

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran proclaims Islam to be the official

religion of the country, particularly the doctrine of the Twelver Jaafari School, and stipulates that 

all laws and regulations, including the Constitution itself, be based on Islamic criteria. The Head 

of State, Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, 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 Majles for adherence to Islamic and constitutional principles. The 

Constitution provides the Council of Guardians the power to screen and disqualify candidates for 

elective offices based on an ill-defined set of requirements, including candidates' ideological 

beliefs. In the past year, dozens of prominent liberal Islamic activists and dissidents have been 

sentenced by the Revolutionary Court to up to 10 years in prison, ostensibly on charges of 

seeking to overthrow the Islamic system in Iran; others have been arrested and detained for 

blasphemy and criticizing the nature of the Islamic regime. In November 2002, reformist 

professor Hashem Aghajari was sentenced to death for blasphemy; the death sentence has been 

overturned, but the remainder of his sentence, including 74 lashes and eight years internal exile, 

is under review. According to the January 2002 report of the UN’s Special Representative on 

Iran, “the accepted norms of fair trial are frequently ignored,” and “many of the punishments are 

gross violations of human rights norms, including in particular the use of stoning.”

The primacy of Islam and Islamic laws and institutions also adversely affects the rights 

and status of non-Muslims. While all religious minorities suffer, particularly severe violations 

are principally directed towards the 300,000 to 350,000 followers of the Baha’i faith in Iran. 

Baha’is are often viewed as “heretics,” and may face repression on the grounds of “apostasy.” 

Government authorities have killed more than 200 Baha’i leaders in Iran since 1979, and more 

than 10,000 have been dismissed from government and university jobs. Baha’is may not 

establish houses of worship, schools, or any independent religious associations. In addition, 

Baha’is are denied government jobs and pensions as well as the right to inherit property, and 

their marriages and divorces are not recognized. Their cemeteries, holy places, and community 

properties are often seized and some are destroyed. Members of the Baha’i faith are not allowed 

to attend university. While Iran was under scrutiny by the UN in 2000 and 2001, the State 

Department reported some improvements in the status of Baha’is, such as the lifting of the ban 

on Baha’i children attending public schools, the ability of Baha’is to obtain ration booklets, and 

the removal of the requirement to list religious affiliation on marriage license applications. 

However, since the UN Commission on Human Rights ended formal monitoring of the human 

rights situation in the country in the spring of 2002, restrictions on the Baha’i community have 

intensified. As of April 2003, credible sources report that five Baha’is are in prison on account 
33

of their religious activities, including a Baha’i who had been imprisoned from June 1999 to May 

2000 and held in solitary confinement and beaten, and who was imprisoned again in March 2003 

for “taking part in Baha’i activities.” 

The Constitution of Iran formally recognizes Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians as 

protected religious minorities who have autonomy over their own matters of personal status (e.g. 

marriage, divorce, and inheritance) and who may worship freely. However, members of these 

groups are subject to legal and other forms of official discrimination. For example, 

discrimination against non-Muslims is prevalent in education, government, the armed services, 

and other aspects of life. Over the past 13 years, at least eight evangelical Christians have been 

killed at the hands of government authorities and between 15-23 are reported missing or 

“disappeared.” According to the UN Special Representative’s report, some are said to have been 

convicted of apostasy. Jews have been singled out on the basis of their “ties to Israel,” whether 

real or perceived. The July 2000 conviction of 10 Jews on widely disputed charges of espionage 

in secret revolutionary (closed) courts that did not afford minimal due process guarantees raised 

concerns in the international community about the future of the Iranian Jewish community. All 

have since been released after having served reduced sentences or being pardoned, although in 

some cases the releases may be conditional. Non-Muslims may not engage in public religious 

expression and persuasion among Muslims and face restrictions on publishing religious material 

in Persian.

The government’s monopoly on and enforcement of the official interpretation of Islam, 

as well as other abuses of the right to freedom of religion, negatively affect the fundamental 

rights of women in Iran, including their right to freedom of movement, association, religion, and 

freedom from coercion.

Iraq

For decades, Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq had conducted a brutal campaign of 

murder, summary execution, arbitrary arrest, and protracted detention against the religious 

leaders and followers of the majority Shi’a Muslim population. The government had also sought 

to undermine the identity of minority Christian (Chaldean and Assyrian), Yazidi, and Sabean 

Mandaean groups. The regime also completely repressed the Baha'i community, and all Baha'i 

activity was punishable by death. Although Shi'a Muslims are the largest religious group, Sunni 

Muslims have historically dominated economic and political life. Shi'a Muslims faced summary 

execution, arbitrary arrest, long prison sentences, harassment, destruction and desecration of 

property, and decimation of leadership. Sunni Muslim Kurds and Turkmen also suffered harshly 

at the hands of the Saddam Hussein regime. Christians also faced repression, forced relocation, 

and denial of political rights. The Constitution does not provide recognition for Assyrians, 

Chaldeans, Yazidis, or Baha’is. 

Whether the regime’s motivation was political or religious, government repression 

devastated Shi’ism within Iraq. According to the State Department’s religious freedom report, 

the Iraqi regime “systematically killed senior Shi’a clerics, desecrated Shi’a mosques and holy 

sites, interfered with Shi’a religious education, and prevented Shi’a adherents from performing 

their religious rites.” There was considerable government control over and interference with 

Shi’a mosques and religious observances. Traditional Shi’a practices such as the distinctive 
34

Shi’a call to prayer and ritual food preparations during the holy month of Muharram were 

banned in several Shi’a districts. Iraqi security forces interfered with the performance of 

religious pilgrimages, both to the Shi’a holy cities of southern Iraq and for those Shi’a Muslims 

wishing to travel to Mecca for the Hajj. Moreover, as religious scholarship in Shi’a Islam is 

passed from one generation of clerics to another, Iraq’s policy of eliminating senior Shi’a clerics 

threatened the very future of Shi’ism in Iraq. 

Historically, Iraqi Christians have generally enjoyed freedom of worship. However, in 

early 2002, the Iraqi government reportedly passed a law placing all Christian clergy and 

churches under the control of the Ministry of Islamic Property. In addition, the issue of religious 

freedom for Christians in Iraq is complicated by the fact that lines between ethnic and religious 

identification are often blurred. Assyrians, for example, regard themselves as ethnically distinct 

from the majority Arab Iraqis, though the regime does not recognize them as such. Chaldeans, 

however, are generally more integrated into Iraqi society than Assyrians and have at times even 

been favored by the current regime. Local churches often deny the existence of religious 

persecution, though Christians reported increasing vulnerability in the face of growing antiWestern sentiment and fear that their communities could become scapegoats due to their 

churches’ perceived association with the West. There have been occasional reports of Muslim 

Kurds, themselves victims of harsh repression at the hands of the Iraqi government for political 

and ethnic reasons, attacking Assyrian Christians in northern Iraq. Other religious communities 

have varied experiences. The Yazidis, whose unique religion contains elements of paganism, 

Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam, have historically been subjected to persecution due to 

the prevalent view, among both Christians and Muslims, that they are “Satan worshippers” and 

hence, heretical. 

As of the writing of this report the situation in Iraq is in flux following U.S.-led military 

action that brought an end to the Saddam Hussein regime. Since the fall of the regime, Shi’a 

Muslims have begun to enjoy religious freedom for the first time in more than two decades. In 

April 2003, hundreds of thousands of Shi’a Muslims participated in an important religious 

pilgrimage into the holy city of Karbala. At the same time, however, some segments of the Shi’a 

community have been vociferously demanding the implementation of Islamic law in a manner 

that reportedly threatens to preclude respect for freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or 

belief for others in contravention of commitments to human rights and individual freedoms. 

Laos 

Lao government officials continue to engage in particularly severe violations of religious 

freedom against religious believers. Government officials in Laos continue to arrest, detain (at 

times for months), and imprison members of minority religions on account of their faith. In some 

instances, officials forced Christians to renounce their faith.

According to the Department of State, Lao officials, primarily those at the provincial and 

local levels, continue to arrest and detain individuals participating in religious activities, 

especially adherents to Christianity, on charges that these individuals are engaging in acts that 

either “create social turmoil” or are against the state. Since January 2001, more than 84 

Christians have been arrested and detained. In July 2002, 38 people remained in prison on 

account of their religious activities, though recent reports indicate that most have since been 
35

released. The State Department has reported that in some cases, prisoners were “handcuffed, 

detained in leg chains and stocks, and subjected to psychological pressures.” Some of these 

individuals were serving long prison terms, including a person in Oudomxay Province who may 

still be serving a 15-year sentence for public religious expression and persuasion. In December 

2002, government officials in Savannakhet Province arrested and detained over 20 Christians for 

“unlawful assembly” when they gathered for Christmas services. In April 2003, local officials in 

the same province arrested two Christian leaders on account of their religious activities and 

destroyed a church building. 

Coerced renunciation campaigns continue in a number of provinces. A reliable source 

informed the Commission that coerced renunciations occurred in nearly every Lao province in 

2001. The State Department reported that district officials had instructed Christians, especially 

those of the Khmu and Hmong ethnic groups, to sign a document renouncing their faith or face 

harsh penalties that include arrest, denial of educational opportunities for their children, and 

restrictions on access to government services. In addition, Christians have reportedly been 

forced from their homes by local officials for refusing to renounce their faith.

These particularly severe violations of religious freedom are being committed against a 

backdrop of extensive government interference with and restrictions on all religious 

communities. Since 1999, more than 85 Protestant Christian churches have been closed, many 

of which remained closed as of December 2002. Moreover, the Catholic Bishop of Luang 

Prabang has not been allowed to travel to five of the six provinces in his diocese. The 

government limits Baha’i religious activities to the four recognized Baha’i centers, which are 

located in or near major cities, resulting in the fact that Baha’is in the remote areas have not been 

able to practice their faith. Notwithstanding official support for Buddhism, its clergy remains 

under strict government control and surveillance.

A Commission delegation visited Laos in February 2002 and noted a number of new 

developments. Specifically, because of international pressure, the Lao government has begun to 

take steps that, if continued, could lead to improved protection of religious freedom, including a 

new decree that would establish a legal basis for religious activities and the equality of all 

religions. However, an initial examination of the religion law indicates that the law may in fact 

place new restrictions on religious freedom. It remains to be seen, therefore, if the 

implementation of the new decree, promulgated in July 2002, will significantly reduce severe 

religious freedom violations. 

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) 

Religious freedom remains essentially non-existent in North Korea, where the 

government has a policy of actively discriminating against religious believers. The North 

Korean state severely represses public and private religious activities. The Commission has 

received reports that officials have arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes executed North 

Korean citizens who were found to have ties with overseas Christian evangelical groups 

operating across the border in China, as well as those who engaged in unauthorized religious 

activities such as public religious expression and persuasion. Although access to updated 

information about North Korea remains limited, by all accounts, including according to 

testimony delivered at the Commission’s hearing on North Korea in January 2002, there has not 
36

been any improvement in the conditions for religious freedom in the past year.

In recent years, the government has formed several religious organizations that it controls 

for the purpose of severely restricting religious activities in the country. For example, the 

Korean Buddhist Federation prohibits Buddhist monks from worshiping at North Korean 

temples. Most of the remaining temples that have escaped government destruction since the 

Korean War are regarded as cultural relics rather than religious sites. Similarly, the Korean 

Christian Federation restricts Christian activities. Following the reported wholesale destruction 

of over 1,500 churches during Kim Il Sung's reign (1948-1994), two Protestant churches and a 

Roman Catholic church, without a priest, opened in Pyongyang in 1988, even though the absence 

of a priest for Roman Catholics means that Mass cannot be celebrated and most sacraments 

cannot be performed. Several foreign residents have reported that they regularly attend services 

at these churches and that it is clear that whatever public religious activity exists, such as 

services at these churches, is staged for their benefit.

Persons found carrying Bibles in public or distributing religious literature, or engaging in 

unauthorized religious activities such as public religious expression and persuasion are arrested 

and imprisoned. There continue to be reports of torture and execution of religious believers. 

Although the practice of imprisoning religious believers is apparently widespread, the State 

Department has been unable to document fully the number of religious detainees or prisoners. 

According to a press report, an estimated 6,000 Christians are incarcerated in "Prison No. 15" 

located in the northern part of the country. The Commission learned from testimony at its 

January 2002 hearing that prisoners held on the basis of their religious beliefs are treated worse 

than other inmates. For example, religious prisoners, especially Christians, are reportedly given 

the most dangerous tasks while in prison. In addition, they are subject to constant abuse from 

prison officials in an effort to force them to renounce their faith. When they refuse, these 

religious prisoners are often beaten and sometimes tortured to death.

Officials have stratified North Korean society on the basis of family background and 

perceived loyalty to the regime into 51 specific categories. Religious adherents are by definition 

relegated to a lower category, receiving fewer privileges and opportunities, such as education 

and employment, than others. Persons in lower categories have reportedly been denied food aid. 

Thousands of North Koreans have fled to China in recent years. Refugees who are either 

forcibly repatriated or captured after having voluntarily returned to the DPRK are accused of 

treason; those found to have had contacts with South Koreans or Christian missionaries are 

subjected to severe punishment, including the death penalty.

Pakistan 

Pakistan suffers from considerable sectarian and religiously-motivated violence, much of 

it committed against Shi’a by Sunni militants, but also against religious minorities such as 

Ahmadis and Christians. Since the beginning of coalition military action in Afghanistan

following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there has been an upsurge in anti-Christian 

violence, including fatal attacks directed against churches, a missionary hospital, and 

humanitarian organizations. Leaders of a coalition of Islamic political groups, Muttahida Majlise-Amal, have also portrayed U.S. military action in Iraq as part of an alleged U.S. attack on 

Islam. Spokesmen for Pakistan’s non-Muslim religious communities have expressed fear that 
37

retribution would be sought against Christians and others who are perceived as having some 

affinity with the United States and have urged the Pakistani government to take precautionary 

measures. Police protection appears ineffectual and, although the Pakistani government did take 

some steps with regard to the attacks on Christians, no one has yet been successfully prosecuted 

for the killings. Perpetrators of attacks on minorities are seldom brought to justice.

Successive governments have seriously violated religious freedom in Pakistan. 

Discriminatory religious legislation has helped to create an atmosphere of religious intolerance 

and eroded the social and legal status of non-Muslims. Government officials provide fewer 

protections to non-Muslims than to members of the majority Sunni Muslim community. Belated 

efforts to curb extremism by reforming Pakistan’s thousands of Islamic religious schools appear 

to have had little effect thus far. Despite the proposed madrassa reform law, too many of 

Pakistan’s Islamic religious schools continue to provide ideological training and motivation to 

those who take part in violence targeting religious minorities in Pakistan and abroad. American 

journalist Daniel Pearl was forced to “confess” his religion as Jewish before being beheaded on a 

training video by Islamic extremists.

The Constitution of Pakistan declares members of the Ahmadi religious community to be 

“non- Muslims” despite their insistence to the contrary. Ahmadis are prevented by law from 

engaging in the full practice of their faith. Barred by law from “posing” as Muslims, Ahmadis 

may not call their places of worship "mosques," worship in non-Ahmadi mosques or public 

prayer rooms that are otherwise open to all Muslims, perform the Muslim call to prayer, use the 

traditional Islamic greeting in public, publicly quote from the Quran, or display the basic 

affirmation of the Muslim faith. These acts are punishable by imprisonment of up to three years. 

It is illegal for Ahmadis to preach in public, to seek converts, or to produce, publish, and 

disseminate their religious materials. These acts are also punishable by imprisonment of up to 

three years. Ahmadis have been arrested and imprisoned for all of the above acts, and they are 

reportedly subject to ill treatment from prison authorities and fellow prisoners. Ahmadis who 

refuse to disavow their claim to being Muslims are effectively disenfranchised. There is no 

indication that the Musharraf government intends, or has even seriously considered, changes to 

the anti-Ahmadi laws.

Prescribed penalties for blasphemy include death for whoever “defiles the sacred name of 

the Holy Prophet Muhammad” and life imprisonment for whoever “willfully defiles, damages, or 

desecrates a copy of the holy Quran.” Blasphemy allegations, often false, result in lengthy 

detention of and sometimes violence against Christians, Ahmadis, and other religious minority 

members, as well as Muslims on account of their religious beliefs. The negative impact of the 

blasphemy laws is further compounded by the lack of due process and evidentiary standards that 

are involved in these proceedings. In addition, during blasphemy trials, Islamic militants often 

pack the courtroom and make public threats about the consequences of an acquittal. Defense 

attorneys in blasphemy cases have been the targets of violence. One judge who ruled in favor of 

the defendants in a high-profile blasphemy case was subsequently assassinated. Although no one 

has yet been executed by the state under the blasphemy laws, some persons have been sentenced 

to death. Several accused under the blasphemy laws have been attacked, even killed, by 

vigilantes, including while in police custody; those who escape official punishment or vigilante 

attack are forced to flee the country. Others have died in police custody under allegedly 
38

suspicious circumstances. Following an abortive attempt in 2000 at introducing procedural 

reforms, the Musharraf government has made no further effort to reform, much less repeal, the 

blasphemy laws. In a positive development, however, in August of 2002, the Supreme Court of 

Pakistan threw out the conviction of Ayub Masih, the first Pakistani Christian sentenced to death 

in a blasphemy case. His conviction was overturned on grounds that the accusations against him 

were false; however, the provisions of law under which he was charged remain unchanged.

Saudi Arabia 

The Commission’s March 2001 visit to Saudi Arabia confirmed the State Department’s 

conclusion in its most recent religious freedom report that freedom of religion “does not exist” in 

that country. The ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom by the Saudi 

government include torture and cruel and degrading treatment or punishment imposed by both 

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 wide jurisdiction of the religious police (mutawaa), 

whose powers are vaguely defined and exercised in ways that violate the religious freedom of 

others. The Commission also is concerned about credible reports that Saudis are funding, 

directly and indirectly, efforts to propagate globally, including in the United States, a religious 

ideology that promotes hate, intolerance, and other human rights violations, in some cases 

violence, toward members of other religious groups, both Muslim and non-Muslims. 

The government of Saudi Arabia vigorously enforces its prohibition against all forms of 

public religious expression other than that of those who follow the government’s interpretation 

and presentation of the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam. This is despite the fact that there are 

large communities of non-Muslims and Muslims from a variety of doctrinal schools of Islam 

residing in Saudi Arabia. The government tightly controls the religious activity it permits—

through controls 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 religious views of both Saudi and non-Saudi Muslims that do not conform to official 

positions. Shi’a (including Ismaili) clerics and religious scholars have been detained and 

imprisoned on account of their religious views. Numerous Christian foreign workers and Shi’a 

Muslims continue to be detained, imprisoned, tortured, and deported.

Restrictions on public religious practice, for both Saudis and non-Saudis, are enforced in 

large part by the mutawaa, public enforcers of religious behavior. The mutawaa have been 

involved in raids on worship services, including those in private homes. They have also 

harassed, detained, and even meted out extrajudicial punishments to individuals deemed to stray 

from “appropriate” dress and/or behavior, including any outward displays of religiosity, such as 

wearing religious symbols.

Although the government has publicly taken the position that it permits non-Muslims to 

worship in private, the guidelines as to what constitutes “private” worship are vague. Persons 

worshipping privately have been harassed, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and deported by the 

authorities, and forced to go to great lengths to conceal private religious activity from those 

authorities. Even diplomatic personnel from Western countries face difficulties in their religious 
39

practice; these difficulties are compounded for foreign contract workers that have no diplomatic 

standing and little or no access to private religious services conducted at diplomatic facilities. 

Moreover, the government does not allow clergy to enter the country in order to perform private 

religious services for foreigners legally residing in Saudi Arabia.

A series of arrests of Christian foreign contract workers in Jeddah in 2001 and 2002

further called into question official Saudi policy on private worship. Between June and 

September 2001, 14 Christians were arrested for worshipping privately, and all were deported by 

the end of March 2002. In April and May 2002, more than 30 Christian foreign workers were 

detained in raids on religious worship services. By September, most had been deported. In 

addition, the government’s monopoly on the interpretation of Islam and other abuses of the right 

to freedom of religion adversely affect the fundamental rights of women in Saudi Arabia, 

including their right to freedom of speech, movement, association, and religion, freedom from 

coercion, their access to education, and their full equality before the law.

Sudan 

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has identified Sudan as the 

world's most violent abuser of the right to freedom of religion and belief. In the Commission's 

view, the Sudanese government has committed genocidal atrocities against civilian populations 

in the South and in the Nuba Mountains. In the Sudan Peace Act of 2002, Congress found that 

the Sudanese government has committed acts of genocide. 

Religious conflict is a major factor in Sudan’s ongoing and prolonged civil war. In the 

context of the civil war, government and allied forces continue to commit egregious human 

rights abuses, such as forced starvation as part of the denial of international humanitarian 

assistance, abduction and enslavement of women and children, the forcible displacement of 

civilian populations (e.g., from oil-producing regions), and aerial assaults and bombardment of 

civilians, including church property, and of humanitarian facilities. Sites bombed have included 

clearly identifiable hospitals, schools, churches, markets, and relief organization compounds. 

Rather than random acts, many of these abuses appear to be the result of deliberate government 

policies. The need for accountability for these crimes is not diminished by the current peace 

process, including the references to freedom of religion made in the Machakos Protocol.

Current and previous governments in Khartoum have attempted forcibly to convert nonMuslims to Islam and to impose Sharia on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. According to the 

State Department’s 2002 Country Report on Human Rights Practices, “fears of Arabization and 

Islamization and the imposition of Islamic law (Sharia) fueled support for the civil war 

throughout the country.” In turn, Islamic sentiment has been used to arouse greater popular 

support for the war effort, termed a “jihad” by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and other senior 

government officials.

The government of Sudan severely and systematically continues to violate the religious 

freedom of Christians and followers of traditional African religions, as well as of Muslims who 

are associated with opposition groups or who dissent from the government’s interpretation of 

Islam. Proselytizing of non-Muslims by Muslims is allowed in government-controlled areas, but 

public religious expression and persuasion of Muslims by non-Muslims is forbidden. 
40

Conversion from Islam is regarded as apostasy, a crime punishable by death. Suspected converts 

have reportedly been tortured by the security forces.

Religious groups must be registered by the government to operate legally. Unregistered 

groups cannot build places of worship or meet in public. Approval can be difficult to obtain, and 

even registered groups face difficulties. Although permits are regularly granted to build 

mosques, permission to build churches is routinely denied. For over 30 years, the government 

has denied permission to construct Roman Catholic churches.

Some children from non-Muslim families captured and sold into slavery by progovernment militias reportedly have been forced to convert to Islam. There are similar reports 

that some in government-controlled camps for internally displaced persons, as well as prison 

inmates, Popular Defense Force trainees, and children in camps for vagrant minors, have been 

coerced into converting to Islam. The government also allegedly has tolerated the use of 

humanitarian assistance for religious purposes. The Commission has received reports from 

credible sources – Anglican and Catholic bishops in Sudan – that UN-provided humanitarian aid 

to the country's displaced and needy population is being distributed on the condition that the 

recipients convert to Islam. In government-controlled areas, children who have been abandoned 

or whose parentage is unknown are considered by the government to be Muslims and may not be 

adopted by non-Muslims.

Turkmenistan 

Turkmenistan is among the most totalitarian states in the world today and engages in 

particularly severe violations of religious freedom. It has been ruled since 1985 by former 

Communist Party First Secretary and now-President Saparmurat Niyazov, who, after the country 

gained independence, systematically began to assume complete control through an aggressive 

cult of personality. Niyazov’s all-pervasive authoritarian rule has effectively prevented any form 

of opposition from operating within the country. Religious freedom is severely proscribed in 

Turkmenistan and there is no evidence that the situation has improved in the past year. In fact, 

the overall human rights situation has deteriorated significantly since November 2002, when, 

after an alleged assassination attempt, Niyazov began arresting hundreds of relatives and 

associates of leading opposition figures. Many have been sentenced to as many as 25 years in 

prison after what have been characterized as Stalinist-type show trials.

President Niyazov has promoted a state-controlled version of Islam as part of Turkmen 

identity, and his monopoly of power and absolute control over Turkmen society renders 

independent religious activity, either Christian or Muslim, a potential threat to that control. 

Since independence, religious groups have been required to register with the government in order 

to engage in religious activities. A 1997 version of the religion law effectively banned all 

religious groups but the Sunni Muslim Board and the Russian Orthodox Church, though religious 

worship, instruction, or education outside of the officially approved structures even for these two 

religions is not allowed. Indeed, anyone acting outside the rigid state structure would be 

considered in opposition and would be treated as harshly as all other political opposition figures. 

All but one madrassa, or Islamic school, have been closed down by Niyazov. Imams have been 

instructed by the government to repeat an oath of loyalty to the “fatherland” and the President 

after each daily prayer. Niyazov has strengthened his personality cult with the publication of his 
41

three-volume work, Ruhnama, containing his “spiritual thoughts,” which is required reading for 

all schoolchildren. Opposition on religious grounds to the reverence demanded by the Turkmen 

leader is considered a grave affront to his power.

The 1997 version of the religion law made it all but impossible for religious minorities to 

register and function legally. Turkmen security forces routinely interrogate and intimidate 

believers, especially those attempting to fulfill the registration requirement. Members of 

unregistered religious communities – including Baha’is, Baptists, Hare Krishnas, Jehovah’s 

Witnesses, Muslims operating independently of the Sunni Muslim Board, Pentecostals, and 

Seventh-day Adventists – have reportedly been arrested, detained, with allegations of torture and 

other ill-treatment, imprisoned, deported, harassed, fined, and have had their services disrupted, 

congregations dispersed, religious literature confiscated, and places of worship destroyed. In 

May 2002, a group of Christians in Turkmenistan were forced to renounce their faith publicly, 

swearing an oath on a copy of Ruhnama. Baptist leaders who do not have Turkmen citizenship,

regardless of their legal status in Turkmenistan, are routinely deported to Russia or Ukraine, 

together with their families and congregants. Security officials regularly break up religious 

meetings in private homes, perform searches of homes without warrants, confiscate religious 

literature, and detain and threaten congregants with criminal prosecution and deportation. Even 

family members of detained religious leaders have been subjected to harassment and internal 

exile. 

Vietnam 

The Commission’s February 2002 fact-finding visit to Vietnam enabled it to assess the 

presence of particularly severe violations of religious freedom in that country. Since 2001, the 

religious freedom conditions in Vietnam have deteriorated. Key religious dissidents remain 

imprisoned or under house arrest, and the government has continued its campaign of forcing 

religious minorities in the northwestern provinces and the Central Highlands to renounce their 

faith. The heightened crackdown on religious freedom was reportedly sanctioned at the highest 

levels of the Vietnamese government, according to documents obtained by human rights nongovernmental organizations.

Religious groups outside Vietnam have indentified approximately 100 religious adherents 

who remain in prison or under some form of detention, including house arrest. Eighteen Hoa 

Hao Buddhists are reportedly either in prison or under house arrest. The overseas spokesperson 

for the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) claims that there are at least 20 UBCVaffiliated monks and lay leaders who are either under house arrest or in re-education camps or 

prisons. Twenty Hmong Protestants apparently remain in detention. Dozens of Montagnard 

Christians in the Central Highlands have been detained in relation to the government crackdown 

in 2001. Finally, there are at least 10 Catholic priests and lay adherents who are still imprisoned. 

Some religious and human rights groups claim that there may be thousands of religious prisoners 

in Vietnam who are unaccounted for. 

The most prominent prisoners or detainees include the Venerable Thich Quang Do of the 

UBCV; Mr. Le Quang Liem, a Hao Hao Buddhist leader of the unofficial Hoa Hao Buddhist 
42

organization; and Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, who was detained after he submitted 

testimony to the Commission last year. In January 2003, Fr. Ly’s niece and two nephews were 

sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for providing information about his imprisonment to 

Vietnamese-American journalists in California. In addition, the Most Venerable Thich Huyen 

Quang, the UBCV Supreme Patriarch, has been placed under de facto house arrest without 

charge for 20 years. In April 2003, the Vietnamese Prime Minister met with the Supreme 

Patriarch after the latter had undergone medical treatment in Hanoi. Although the UBCV 

welcomed the meeting, it expressed concern that the government remains unwilling to release the 

Supreme Patriarch and Venerable Thich Quang Do from house arrest. In most cases, the 

individuals involved have been charged with crimes not related to religion, including, for 

example, “slandering the government,” “disrupting the unity of the people,” and “causing public 

disorder.”

At the same time, Vietnamese government officials continue to arrest and detain 

individuals for engaging in “illegal religious activities.” Unofficial house church Protestants and 

ethnic minority Protestants are two groups most subject to this type of harassment. In 2001, a 

Mennonite pastor of an unofficial Protestant fellowship in Ho Chi Minh City and his wife were 

arrested, detained, and beaten for publicizing government violations of religious liberty and for 

engaging in “unapproved” religious activities. They have since been released and were able to 

meet with the Commission delegation in February 2002. Montagnard Protestants in the Central 

Highlands have been detained or imprisoned for engaging in religious activities that are not 

permitted by government authorities. Government suppression has, by all accounts, intensified 

after a February 2001 protest by the Central Highlanders. 

In addition to arrests and detentions, government officials in the Central Highlands and in 

the northwestern provinces, where many Hmong Protestants live, have continued to force ethnic 

minority Christians to renounce their faith. In many cases, these renunciation campaigns 

involved forcing the religious adherents to drink the blood of animals and to sign pledges, as 

well as other forms of harassment, to renounce their beliefs. For example, in August 2002, a 

Hmong Protestant in Lai Chau province reportedly died after being beaten several times by 

Vietnamese officials who attempted to force him to renounce his faith. In December 2002, 

officials in the same province reportedly used noxious gas to attack Hmong Christians during a 

house church worship service. Persons who were found to have provided religious training and 

literature to ethnic minorities have in the past been arrested and imprisoned. For example, a 

pastor of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam in the north (Hanoi) claimed that he had been jailed 

and fined for the unauthorized photocopying and distribution of Bibles and hymnals to Hmongs 

in the Hmong language. Because of the persecution they face, approximately 1,000 Montagnard 

Protestants were granted asylum in the United States in the past year. The government of 

Vietnam also places restrictions on the practices of Roman Catholics. It imposes limits on the 

number of candidates permitted to study for the priesthood and the number of qualified men 

allowed to be ordained. In addition, the government controls the appointment and assignments 

of Catholic clergy, determines their place of assignment, and limits their activities exclusively to 

that town or village. The government also plays an active role in the selection of the bishops, 

vetoing papal appointments of which it disapproves.
43

 

1

 IRFA § 402 (b)(1)(A), 22 U.S.C. § 6442 (b)(1)(A).

2

 In the Commission’s September 2002 letter to Secretary Powell regarding CPC 

recommendations, Commissioners Sadat and Tahir-Kheli stated: "We respectfully dissent from 

the Commission's decision not to recommend that Uzbekistan be designated a country of 

particular concern, as, in our view, the violations of religious freedom in that country are 

particularly serious, and have been systematic, egregious, and ongoing."
44
45

III. THE INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT AND THE STATE 

DEPARTMENT’S ANNUAL REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM –

2002

This chapter is the Commission’s fourth annual assessment of the State Department’s 

Annual Report on International Religious Freedom (Annual Report) and other aspects of the 

implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA).1 IRFA sets out 

several mechanisms to advance international religious freedom.2 This chapter addresses two of 

those mechanisms, the Annual Report and the designation of “countries of particular concern” 

(CPCs) for particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

A. The State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom

The Annual Report on International Religious Freedom is unique. It is the only 

government report on religious freedom conditions worldwide. Beyond that, however, Congress 

also asked the State Department to describe in this report, on a country-by-country basis, U.S. 

policies in support of religious freedom as well as what the U.S. government is doing to promote 

religious freedom. This reporting on policy is critical because Congress through IRFA sought to 

ensure that advancing international religious freedom was an integral part of this nation’s foreign 

policy agenda. It required the Administration to report to Congress and to the public on its 

ongoing efforts to do so.

While the Annual Report contains a wealth of information on conditions of religious 

freedom, it could be substantially improved as a tool for developing and implementing policy. In 

order to do this, as discussed below, the Annual Report should specify, for each foreign country 

in which religious freedom violations occur:

– the U.S. government’s goals and objectives to promote respect for religious freedom in 

that country, along with the relative priority of these objectives;

– U.S. policies that have been adopted and are being implemented to advance religious 

freedom;

– U.S. concerns that have been raised with foreign governments, as well as the response 

of those foreign governments;

– the results, or lack thereof, of specific actions taken by the U.S. government; and

– foreign aid, public diplomacy, and other programs sponsored by the U.S. government to 

promote religious freedom.

The State Department released the 2002 Annual Report on October 7, 2002. Like the 

three previous reports, it reflects an enormous amount of effort by U.S. Embassy staff around the 

world, under the direction and leadership of the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious 

Freedom and with the assistance of the Office of International Religious Freedom, as well as 

others in the Department, who have labored to produce this extensive and impressive global 

assessment. The Commission commends this effort and those engaged in it.
46

The release of the Annual Report helps raise the profile of advancing religious freedom 

as a U.S. foreign policy goal. The report stimulates congressional review of violations of 

international religious freedom as well as U.S. policies to promote religious freedom. The report 

attracts the attention of the media, both in the United States and abroad. It also attracts the 

attention of foreign governments, including those where religious freedom is suppressed. It is an 

essential resource for individuals and organizations that advocate respect for religious freedom.

The Annual Report is acknowledged also to be an important tool for the U.S. government 

to develop policies and strategies to advance religious freedom. In releasing the 2002 Annual 

Report, Secretary Powell said: “This report will serve as a basis for discussions with other 

nations on how best we can work together to end violations of this fundamental human right and 

how to advance religious liberty around the globe.”

B. The State Department Should Expand and Strengthen Reporting on U.S. Policies and 

Actions to Advance Religious Freedom

IRFA requires that the U.S. government take steps to promote religious freedom and to 

respond to religious freedom violations in all countries where such violations occur. 

The Annual Report is the place where Congress specified that those actions be described, 

along with the specific policies that they are intended to further. Far less attention has been paid 

by the State Department to this requirement than to the reporting on religious freedom 

conditions. A better balance is needed. Underreporting on policies undermines the report’s 

usefulness as a policy tool. The Commission has raised this serious issue for several years and is 

highlighting it at the this time in the hope that the Department will take steps to strengthen this 

aspect of the Annual Report. 

As in previous years, the 2002 Annual Report reflects, in the “U.S. Government Policy” 

section of each country’s report, that U.S. government officials have raised concerns over 

religious freedom violations in many countries. U.S. Embassy personnel often led these efforts 

by raising various issues with appropriate host government officials. Embassy officials have also 

met with religious leaders and others concerned with religious freedom and related human rights 

issues, and monitored legal proceedings. Members of Congress have traveled to several 

countries in order to express concerns regarding the situation of religious freedom. In addition, 

senior State Department officials, including the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious 

Freedom, as well as members of his staff, have visited significant countries where religious 

freedom concerns loom large, and have discussed these issues with government representatives 

and others in those countries. 

While these efforts are welcome and their notation significant, the Annual Report does 

not reflect that they are being conducted in any coordinated way designed to implement 

particular policies or to achieve specific goals. The Executive Summary and most of the 

individual country reports in the Annual Report contain what are essentially lists of isolated 

actions the State Department or others in the U.S. government have taken. While this type of 

report is informative, important pieces are missing.
47

The Annual Report does not contain a good description of the policies that the State 

Department has adopted and is implementing to oppose religious freedom violations and to 

promote religious freedom - on a worldwide, regional, or individual country basis. For example, 

the report does not explain how religious freedom is advanced in particular countries through 

U.S. policies on foreign aid, public diplomacy, and participation in multilateral organizations, 

such as the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and international 

financial institutions. Each of these policy areas is specifically mentioned in IRFA as a potential 

mechanism to promote religious freedom.3

Moreover, in IRFA, Congress stressed that U.S. missions in violator countries should 

develop a strategy to promote respect for religious freedom, as part of their annual program 

planning.4 Yet, it is not apparent from the lists of actions presented in the report that the State 

department has conducted its activities with respect to religious freedom in a coordinated and 

deliberate fashion, or used all of the available policy tools to advance religious freedom in 

countries where violations occur. 

Of the 33 countries mentioned in the Executive Summary of the Annual Report, only the 

reports on China, Egypt, Indonesia, and Vietnam attempt any kind of systematic explanation of 

U.S. policies and how the actions taken by the U.S. government during the reporting period 

further those policies. This type of explanation is notably absent in the reports on India, Laos, 

Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan, countries with whom the United States 

has diplomatic relations and is engaged on various levels with their governments, and about 

which the Commission has recommended designation for CPC status, or has placed on its Watch 

List. In the cases of Sudan and Laos, for example, the Commission is aware that there have been 

a fair amount of activities by the U.S. government directed at religious freedom concerns. The 

Commission is perplexed as to why these activities are not presented in the report in terms of 

U.S. policy goals.

To address these deficiencies, the Annual Report should specify, for each foreign country 

in which religious freedom violations occur:

– the U.S. government’s objectives to advance religious freedom;

– the priority of those objectives;

– the religious freedom concerns that have been raised with the foreign government;

– the response of that government to the United States raising these concerns, including 

any specific actions taken; 

– the results, or lack thereof, of any actions taken by the U.S. government, such as the

outcomes of meetings with foreign government officials; and 

– actions taken pursuant to IRFA in response to the designation of a country as a “country 

of particular concern” or in response to a finding that a foreign government has engaged 

in or tolerated a violation of religious freedom.5
48

IRFA encourages the U.S. government to take positive steps to promote religious 

freedom.6 This aspect of the law is less well-known, and judging from the information presented 

in the Annual Report, appears to be little used. For example, IRFA articulates a policy for the 

United States “to make a priority of promoting and developing legal protections and cultural 

respect for religious freedom in the provision of foreign assistance.”7 To that end, Congress 

recommended that in countries where religious freedom violations occur, U.S. missions allocate 

funds to programs “deemed to assist in the promotion of the right to religious freedom.”8

The Annual Report should include a description of foreign aid, public diplomacy, and 

other programs sponsored by the U.S. government that seek to promote respect for religious 

freedom or other related human rights, as well as religious tolerance. Some information of this 

type is scattered throughout the Annual Report, particularly in the reports on Indonesia and 

Egypt. However, the reports on several relevant countries that receive substantial funding 

allocations under the democracy and governance programs of the U.S. Agency for International 

Development, such as Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine, contain very little of this type of 

information, giving the reader the impression that religious freedom concerns have not been 

integrated into the mission’s program planning. Where appropriate, activities designed to 

promote rule of law, competent law enforcement, and accountability for religious freedom and 

related human rights violations should be a significant component of U.S. efforts to promote 

religious freedom, and they should also be described in the Annual Report, together with any 

evaluation of their impact.9

C. The State Department Should Further Improve Reporting on Religious Freedom 

Violations

Over the past three years, the Commission has made a number of recommendations to 

improve the reporting of religious freedom conditions, and we are pleased that over time, several 

of these recommendations have been adopted by the State Department.

Many of the reports provide a rich array of information on religious freedom conditions, 

notably including the reports on China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Russia. Other reports are 

less complete in their presentation of facts. Several fail to highlight the most important issues 

and types of violations from the mass of specific information that is provided. Others lack 

necessary context and critical analysis, and exhibit a hesitancy to reach conclusions. In some 

cases, this hesitancy points to a weakening of criticism. These problems undercut the report’s 

effectiveness as a tool for developing policy.

Some of the countries and issues that are not up to the typically high standard of factual 

reporting are discussed below. 

Afghanistan

The report on Afghanistan concentrates to a large extent on events under the Taliban era. 

Troubling post-Taliban developments such as the re-emergence under various guises of the 

Taliban era’s Department to Prevent Vice and Promote Virtue, are absent. The report only 

briefly mentions the extraordinary episode in which the current Chief Justice accused a sitting 

Minister of the government of blasphemy, without regard either to legal procedure or to a legal 
49

basis. The Department attributes this accusation to a “political dispute between 

fundamentalist...and modernist factions...” and to the Chief Justice’s interpretation of Sharia. 

This event, and others that raise similar issues, merit much greater focused attention in the report. 

The status of religious freedom in post-Taliban Afghanistan is not merely about a regime change, 

but about how the new governing authority and its leaders are moving to restore tolerance and 

respect for international human rights norms, including religious freedom, and how they will 

treat all citizens – women and men – who seek to exercise those freedoms. Particularly at this 

time in history, the U.S. government should be looking closely at these issues, and informing the 

American people about how our presence is – or is not – changing the status of all freedoms in 

that country, for all Afghans. In this regard, the Commission has recommended that the 

President or Secretary of State appoint without delay a high-level official to advance human 

rights in Afghanistan as part of the reconstruction and recovery effort in that country.10

Saudi Arabia

The report on Saudi Arabia, although it presents in detail severe violations of religious 

freedom, including prolonged detention, imprisonment, and impermissible corporal punishments 

does not discuss intolerance against Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities embedded in 

the education system or allegations that the Saudi government has played a role in training 

religious militants, both inside Saudi Arabia and abroad. 

India

The reports on some countries hesitate to state conclusions, relying instead on the reports 

or allegations of others, who are usually unnamed.11 The report on India, for example, states 

that: “Human rights groups and others have suggested that the authorities in Gujarat have not 

responded adequately to acts of violence against religious minorities....” The report does not 

provide the U.S. government’s assessment of this important assertion.

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan 

Past criticism of the governments of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan has been muted in this 

year’s report. Unlike last year, the Executive Summary entry on Uzbekistan this year fails to 

mention ongoing detention, imprisonment, or torture of detainees, including Muslims. The full 

country chapter on Uzbekistan does provide details of these and other issues. In addition, the 

Department concludes that several are positive, although it remains to be seen if these 

developments reflect any genuine change in the country. Reports of the practice of torture and 

ill-treatment by law enforcement personnel have been so “particularly numerous, ongoing and 

consistent” – in the words of the UN Committee against Torture, a treaty body – as to suggest 

that it is widespread and tolerated at the highest levels of government.

The report on Turkmenistan points to “a widespread internal investigation” of human 

rights violations as proof of a positive development. Turkmenistan is clearly a highly repressive 

authoritarian state run by the whim of its dictator, President Saparmurat Niyazov’s, and it is 

dubious that this so-called investigation will have positive effects on the protection of human 

rights in that country. A recent wave of arrests and convictions targeting President Niyazov’s 

political opponents bears this out.
50

Anti-Semitism

The Annual Report continues to provide some information on anti-Semitism, including 

physical assaults on Jews and firebombing and vandalism against Jewish synagogues, schools, 

cemeteries, and other institutions. The Commission reiterates its recommendation that State 

Department officials should report accurately and comprehensively on anti-Semitic acts, going 

beyond host government information which often overlooks religion-related underpinnings.

France

The report on France illustrates several of the problems noted above. This year’s report 

dropped without explanation the conclusion stated last year that: “new legislation has the 

potential to restrict religious freedom,” and the report takes no position on a series of government 

initiatives targeting so-called “cults.” The report does state that some religious groups in France 

“continued to be concerned about the possible impact of legislation” and have alleged instances 

of intolerance on account of being identified as a harmful “sect,” but the report does not describe 

what those concerns or allegations are or provide an assessment of them. This year’s report also 

dropped any mention of the concerns raised by the Council of Europe regarding French 

legislation. Although there is a brief mention of overseas travel by French officials in support of 

their anti-cult initiatives, no details are given, and there is no assessment of the impact of that 

travel on the respect for religious freedom in other countries.

Other

Some of the conclusions that are reached in the 2002 report are questionable in the 

Commission’s view, such as the Department’s determinations that there have been improvements 

in respect for religious freedom in Vietnam and Egypt, and that conditions have remained the 

same in China and in Russia. The Annual Report does note, rightly, a deterioration of conditions 

in both Georgia and Belarus. 

Several reports do not contain relevant information on the work of international and 

regional human rights mechanisms, including conclusions and recommendations by international 

human rights treaty bodies, such as the UN Human Rights Committee, which assesses 

compliance in implementing the protections of the International Covenant on Civil and Political 

Rights and UN investigative mechanisms, such as the Special Rapporteurs of the UN 

Commission on Human Rights. For example, the reports on Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, 

Uzbekistan, and Vietnam fail to make mention of reports or conclusions of UN bodies issued 

during the relevant time period.

D. The State Department Should Designate as “Countries of Particular Concern” Those 

Countries that Meet the Statutory Criteria

The designation of “countries of particular concern” under IRFA and the implementation 

of meaningful policies in response to such designations are among the most important human 

rights acts taken by any U.S. administration. A “country of particular concern” (CPC) is defined 

by law as a country the government of which has either engaged in or tolerated particularly 

severe violations of religious freedom, defined as violations that are “systematic, ongoing, and 

egregious.”12 
51

The designation of CPCs brings into the spotlight those countries where the most 

egregious violations take place and the practice of one’s faith is systematically repressed. The 

designation also guides important decisions in U.S. relations with these countries, particularly in 

the areas of foreign assistance, including security assistance, and positions that the United States 

should advocate in international financial institutions.13 

Unfortunately, the State Department has failed to designate several countries that meet 

the IRFA criteria. Consistent with the recommendation of the Commission, in March 2003 the 

Secretary of State renewed the CPC designations of Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and 

Sudan. The 2002 Annual Report, along with the Commission’s own inquiry, reveals violations 

so severe in several additional countries as to require CPC designation. These countries are 

India, Laos, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. The Commission is 

disappointed that, despite the information in the Annual Report and the Commission’s own 

recommendations, these countries were not designated.14 The specific conditions that support 

CPC designation are discussed in Chapter II of this report. 

Each State Department annual report for the past four years has stated that religious 

freedom simply “does not exist” in Saudi Arabia. Yet neither the current nor the previous 

Administration has named Saudi Arabia as a CPC.

Over the past three years, the State Department has asserted several reasons for not 

designating Saudi Arabia as a CPC. In September 2000, then Ambassador-at-Large for 

International Religious Freedom Robert Seiple, during an American Embassy TV network 

program, inexplicably stated that the State Department had “decided that there was not religious 

persecution in Saudi Arabia.” Ambassador Seiple went on to say that “if there had been 

[religious persecution] we would have been obliged by the legislation to designate the country as 

a ‘country of particular concern’ and look at a various list of sanctions that could be applied.”15 

In October 2001, following the release of the State Department’s 2001 Annual Report on 

International Religious Freedom, Department Spokesman Richard Boucher affirmed that 

because the religious freedom situation had not changed in Saudi Arabia that year, the decision 

on CPC designation “has not changed.” 

In October 2002, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom 

John V. Hanford III suggested that designating Saudi Arabia as a CPC would be something that 

the State Department would “have to consider very seriously.”16 Despite considerable debate on 

the issue and this Commission’s recommendation, in March 2003, the Secretary of State failed to 

designate Saudi Arabia.17 Shortly after the announcement, when asked why, State Department 

Spokesman Boucher said: “There is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia. It’s a country that, 

based on the guidelines in the law, came very close to the threshold of being listed. However, it 

was the recommendation of all the experts involved in the government that we continue the same 

listings as last year and that we look for ways of working with the Saudi Government to try to 

take advantage of any opportunities there might be to improve the state of religious freedom in 

Saudi Arabia.”18 

The Department’s statement unfortunately ignores the recommendation of this 

Commission, which IRFA requires to be taken into account. This statement is all the more 

remarkable in that in its report to Congress on the March 2003 CPC designations, the State 
52

Department notes that the CPC decisions were based on, among other things, the 

recommendations of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. 

To be specific: IRFA states that CPC designation review “shall take into account any 

findings or recommendations by the Commission with respect to the foreign country.”19 In 

making its recommendation, the Commission noted that Shi’a – including Ismaili – clerics and 

religious scholars, as well as Christian foreign workers, have been detained, imprisoned, and 

tortured for their religious views and practices. The Saudi government vigorously enforces 

prohibitions against all forms of public religious expression other than its favored 

interpretation.20 

Moreover, CPC designation does not preclude the U.S. government from pursuing the 

most effective ways to improve religious freedom in Saudi Arabia. In fact, that is a requirement 

following CPC designation, as the Administration determines what actions to take in response.

In the Commission’s view, serious violations of religious freedom put four other 

countries, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan, close to the line of meriting CPC 

designation. In some cases, these violations have resulted directly from government policies or 

actions. Moreover, the governments of these countries have not taken effective steps to halt 

repression of or violence against religious believers, nor, in most cases, to punish those 

responsible for these acts. For these reasons, the Commission has placed these countries on a 

“Watch List.”

The Commission has urged the State Department to monitor closely religious freedom in 

these four countries and to respond vigorously to further violations there that may merit CPC 

designation at any time during the year. Throughout the course of its interaction with these 

countries, the Commission also recommended that the U.S. government press the governments 

of these countries to take steps to prevent further violations and to ensure accountability for those 

responsible for past violations.

E. The State Department Should Take Actions Under IRFA as a Result of CPC 

Designation

Despite the availability of a range of policy tools, the State Department continues to take 

no additional action under IRFA with respect to those countries the Secretary names as CPCs, 

explicitly relying instead on pre-existing sanctions to meet IRFA’s requirement to oppose 

particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

IRFA directs the President to promote religious freedom in a designated CPC by taking 

one or more of certain actions specified in §405, unless the President determines that pre-existing 

sanctions, regardless of their origin, are satisfactory, or otherwise waives the requirement.21 If a 

CPC designee is already subject to ongoing, multiple, broad-based sanctions “imposed in 

significant part in response to human rights abuses,” then one or more of these pre-existing 

sanctions can be designated as meeting the requirements of IRFA.22

For every CPC country, the Secretary of State, as the President’s designee, has invoked 

the pre-existing sanctions exclusion from otherwise taking action pursuant to IRFA.23 As 
53

permitted by Section 402 (c)(5) of IRFA, the Secretary has determined that the following preexisting sanctions satisfied the IRFA requirements:

Burma 22 CFR 126.1: prohibition on exports or other transfers of defense 

articles and defense services pursuant to §§ 2, 38 and 42 of the Arms 

Export Control Act.

China Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991, P.L. 

101-246: restriction of exports of crime control and detection 

instruments and equipment. 

Iran Arms Export Control Act, §40: restrictions on United States security 

assistance.

Iraq Arms Export Control Act, §40: restrictions on United States security 

assistance.

North Korea Trade Act of 1974, §§402 and 409 (the Jackson-Vanik Amendment): 

restrictions on normal trade relations and other trade benefits.

Sudan International Financial Institutions Act, §1621: use of the voice and 

vote of the United States to oppose any loan or other use of the funds of 

the International Financial Institutions to or for Sudan.

While the reliance on pre-existing sanctions may be technically correct under the statute, 

it is indefensible as a matter of policy. Moreover, the State Department has never submitted to 

the Congress the required evaluation of the effectiveness of the prior actions against CPCs.24

The State Department should use the full range of available policy tools to take additional 

action pursuant to IRFA with respect to those countries the Secretary names as CPCs. Reliance 

on pre-existing sanctions provides little incentive for CPC governments to reduce or end severe 

violations of religious freedom. The failure to take additional action under IRFA, when coupled 

with the lack of reporting discussed above on particular policies, objectives, and strategies to 

promote religious freedom, suggests that nothing further can, or will, be done by the U.S. 

government to advance religious freedom in CPC countries under IRFA. This is not the case in 

several CPC countries where the Commission has made specific recommendations. The 

insufficient use of many of the tools of IRFA also may suggest that the kind of rigorous 

diplomacy that Congress hoped to see in opposition to particularly severe violations of religious 

freedom is lacking.

The Commission has recommended that in order to protect freedom of thought, 

conscience, religion, and belief, the Chinese government must take effective steps in four critical 

areas: ending its crackdown on religious adherents; reforming the legal framework pertaining to 

religious activities; affirming the universality of religious freedom; and fostering a culture of 

respect for human rights. U.S. policy should encourage such steps and effectively respond to 

whether or not such steps are indeed taken. In the Commission’s view, the Chinese government 

has not taken significant steps in these areas. The Commission is disappointed that the United 

States chose not to introduce a resolution condemning the Chinese government’s violations of 

religious freedom and other human rights at the 2003 session of the UN Commission on Human 

Rights. One of the reasons cited by the State Department Spokesman for not sponsoring a 

resolution on China was that the Chinese government had extended an invitation to the U.S. 

Commission on International Religious Freedom.25 For several years, the Commission has 
54

sought an invitation from the Chinese government to visit the country, and looks forward to the 

type of cooperation from the Chinese government that would make for a successful visit. 

Although invitations to bodies like the Commission are welcome steps, they do not 

demonstrate changes in China’s human rights practices that justify the United States not 

introducing a resolution at the UN Commission on Human Rights.

F. Other IRFA issues

The Commission has reported for several years on its inability to gain access to State 

Department cables to and from embassies. The Commission is pleased that, unlike in previous 

years, it has been able to review relevant cables for several countries. The Commission hopes 

that in the coming year any remaining problems in access to cables can be overcome. 

Ambassador Hanford and his staff have been particularly helpful in ensuring greater access to 

State Department cables.

The Commission continues to believe that for the State Department to meet its 

obligations under IRFA and to ensure that the promotion of religious freedom remains a foreignpolicy priority, adequate staff must be devoted to these and closely intertwined tasks. The 

Commission continues to urge the State Department to review its staffing of religious freedom 

issues in U.S. Embassies and in its regional and functional bureaus, particularly in the Office of 

International Religious Freedom, and to increase staffing adequately to perform the important 

task of promoting international religious freedom.26 

G. Commission Recommendations 

I. The State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom

A. The State Department Should Expand and Strengthen Reporting on U.S. 

Policies and Actions to Advance Religious Freedom

1. The Annual Report should describe the policies that the U.S. government 

has adopted and is implementing to oppose religious freedom violations, as 

well as to promote religious freedom, on a worldwide, regional, and 

individual country basis, including policies regarding foreign aid, public 

diplomacy, multilateral organizations, and international financial 

institutions.

2. The Annual Report should specify, for each foreign country in which 

religious freedom violations occur:

– the U.S. government’s objectives to advance religious freedom and the 

priority of those objectives;

– U.S. policies that have been adopted and are being implemented to advance 

religious freedom;

– the religious freedom concerns that the U.S. government has raised with 
55

the foreign government, and the response of that government, including any 

specific actions taken; and

– the results, or lack thereof, of the actions taken by the U.S. government, 

such as the outcomes of meetings with foreign government officials. 

3. The Department should describe in the Annual Report the specific actions 

taken pursuant to IRFA in response to the designation of a country as a 

“country of particular concern” or in response to a finding that a foreign 

government has engaged in or tolerated a violation of religious freedom.

4. The Annual Report should include a description of foreign aid, public 

diplomacy, and other programs sponsored by the U.S. government that seek 

to promote respect for religious freedom or other related human rights, as 

well as religious tolerance. 

5. Where appropriate, activities designed to promote rule of law, competent 

law enforcement, and accountability for religious freedom and related 

human rights violations should be a significant component of U.S. efforts to 

promote religious freedom, and they should be described in the Annual 

Report.

B. The State Department Should Further Improve Reporting on Religious 

Freedom Violations

6. The Annual Report should highlight the most important issues and types 

of religious freedom violations from the mass of specific information that is 

provided.

7. State Department officials should report accurately and comprehensively 

on anti-Semitic acts, going beyond host government information which often 

overlooks the religion-related underpinnings for such acts.

8. The Annual Report should include relevant information on the work of 

international and regional human rights mechanisms.

II. “Countries of Particular Concern” and “Watch List” Countries

9. The State Department should use the full range of available policy tools to 

take additional action pursuant to IRFA with respect to those countries the 

Secretary names as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs). Although it 

may be technically permissible to rely on pre-existing sanctions to oppose 

particularly severe violations of religious freedom, such reliance provides 

little incentive for CPC governments to reduce or end those violations.

10. The Secretary of State should designate as CPCs those countries 

recommended by the Commission: India, Laos, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, 

Turkmenistan, and Vietnam.
56

11. The State Department should submit to Congress the required 

evaluation of actions taken under IRFA with respect to countries designated 

as CPCs. 

12. The State Department should monitor closely religious freedom in those 

countries that the Commission has placed on its “Watch List” – Egypt, 

Indonesia, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan – and respond vigorously to further 

violations there that may merit CPC designation at any time during the year. 

The U.S. government should press the governments of these countries to take 

steps to prevent further violations and to ensure accountability for those 

responsible for past violations.

III. The State Department Should Provide Adequate Staffing to Advance 

International Religious Freedom 

13. State Department should review its staffing of religious freedom issues in 

U.S. Embassies and in its regional and functional bureaus, particularly in the 

Office of International Religious Freedom, and increase staffing adequately 

to perform the important task of promoting international religious freedom.

IV. Previous Commission Recommendations

In its May 2002 Annual Report, the Commission made several recommendations 

on IRFA and its implementation that are still pertinent and are reprinted below:

14. The United States should not compromise its commitment to promoting 

human rights – including religious freedom – during the campaign against 

terrorism, and should not “trade-off” that commitment for the cooperation 

of foreign governments in that campaign. The U.S. government must ensure 

that steps to improve relations with cooperating countries that have major 

problems protecting religious freedom and other human rights (e.g., China, 

Russia, Pakistan, Sudan, and Uzbekistan) do not undermine America’s 

human rights message to the governments of these countries. It should 

carefully monitor whether these steps are impeding progress on 

improvements in protecting human rights.

15. The State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious 

Freedom should pay close attention to the interrelationship between fighting 

terrorism and protecting religious freedom, especially in those countries 

cooperating with the United States in the campaign against terrorism. In 

addition to clearly articulating U.S. policies and their implementation in 

cooperating countries, the State Department should carefully scrutinize 

claims that religious freedom restrictions are justified in order to combat 

terrorism, take actions commensurate with those findings, and identify such 

actions in the Annual Report. 
57

16. In the Annual Report, the State Department should cite appropriate key 

findings and recommendations by the Commission, for example, its 

determinations that certain countries merit designation by the Secretary of 

State as CPCs and other findings such as that religion is a major factor in the 

ongoing civil war in Sudan.

17. Information on holding violators of human rights accountable for their 

actions – whether government officials or private persons – should be 

routinely reported in the Annual Report, both in the sections describing the 

violations and in the sections on “Legal/Policy Framework.” The latter 

sections should describe the laws and policies that govern the punishment of 

religious freedom violators and mechanisms of redress for victims, or the 

lack thereof. Such information is critical in assessing a government’s ability 

and willingness to protect religious freedom.

18. The State Department should identify foreign government agencies and 

individual officials responsible for particularly severe violations of religious 

freedom in CPCs or other countries. The Department should continue to 

report to the Congress on its progress in countries where responsible parties 

truly cannot yet be identified. Once identified, the Department should 

disseminate “watch lists” and background information to consular and 

immigration offices and immigration judges so that they can deny 

responsible parties benefits under U.S. immigration laws.

 

1

 Since its inception, the Commission has testified before both the House and the Senate on the 

Annual Report on International Religious Freedom (Annual Report) and other aspects of the 

implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), most recently in 

October 2002 when Commission Chair Felice Gaer testified before a House Subcommittee on 

International Operations and Human Rights hearing entitled “An Evaluation of the International 

Religious Freedom Report.”

2

 These mechanisms include the creation in the State Department of an Office of International 

Religious Freedom headed by the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom; an 

annual report by the State Department on the conditions of religious freedom and U.S. policies 

and actions to promote religious freedom in each foreign country; a requirement that the 

President publicly designate those countries that are egregious violators of religious freedom and 

generally take action to oppose all violations of religious freedom; and the creation of the U.S. 

Commission on International Religious Freedom, which makes independent recommendations to 

the President, the Secretary of State, and the Congress as to how the United States can further 

advance international religious freedom.
58

 

Congress directed that these mechanisms be used to advance the specific policies articulated in 

IRFA. These policies include:

– to condemn and oppose violations of religious freedom (IRFA § 401(a)(1)(A)(i), 22 

U.S.C. §6441(a)(1)(A)(i));

– to promote, and to assist other governments in the promotion of, the fundamental right 

to freedom of religion as articulated in international instruments such as the Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political 

Rights (IRFA § 2(b)(1), 22 U.S.C. §6401(b)(1)); and

– standing for liberty and standing with the persecuted, to use and implement appropriate 

tools in the United States foreign policy apparatus . . . to promote respect for religious 

freedom by all governments and peoples (IRFA § 2(b)(5), 22 U.S.C. 6401(b)(5)).

3 With respect to foreign aid, see IRFA §§ 2(b)(2), 22 U.S.C. §6401(b)(2) (security and 

development assistance) and 501(a)(2) (foreign assistance under the Foreign Assistance Act of 

1961). With respect to public diplomacy, see IRFA §§ 106, 22 U.S.C. §6416) (programming and 

other allocation of funds by U.S. missions abroad), 502 (amending Section 303(a) of the United 

States International Broadcasting Act of 1994, 22 U.S.C. 6202(a)), and 503 (amending Section 

102(b) of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961, 22 U.S.C. §2452(b)). 

With respect to participation in international organizations, see IRFA §§ 2(b)(4), 

22 U.S.C. §6401(b)(4) (working with foreign governments to develop multilateral documents 

and initiatives), 2(b)(5), 22 U.S.C. §6401(b)(5) (international financial institutions), 101(c)(3), 

22 U.S.C. §6411(c)(3) (regarding the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 

Europe), 403(b)(2), 22 U.S.C. §6443(b)(2) (consultations in multilateral fora) and 422, 

22 U.S.C. §6460 (amending Section 701 the International Financial Institutions Act, 22 U.S.C. 

§262d). 

4

IRFA § 106, 22 U.S.C. § 6415.

5

 This is required by IRFA. See IRFA § 102(b)(1)(C), 22 U.S.C. § 6412(b)(1)(C); 

IRFA § 102(b)(1)(F)(i), 22 U.S.C. § 6412(b)(1)(F)(i).

6

 See IRFA § 106, 22 U.S.C. § 6415. In addition, section 116(e) of the Foreign Assistance Act 

of 1961, 22 U.S.C. § 2151n(e), as amended by IRFA § 501, encourages that not less than $3 

million in foreign assistance funds be allocated for programs and activities to “encourage or 

promote increased adherence to civil and political rights, including the right to free religious 

belief and practice”.

7

 IRFA § 501(a)(2).

8

 IRFA § 106, 22 U.S.C. § 6415.

9

 The Commission has made recommendations to this effect in reports on Afghanistan in June 

2002 and May 2003, Laos in March 2003, Indonesia and Uzbekistan in May 2002, China in 
59

 

February 2002, Turkmenistan in March 2002 and in its May 2001 Annual Report chapters on 

India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

10 See the Commission’s June 2002 and May 2003 reports on Afghanistan, as well as the 

recommendations on Afghanistan included in Chapter IV of this report.

11 The reports on Russia and Indonesia stand out as models of reports that state specific 

conclusions regarding conditions of religious freedom.

12 IRFA § 402(b)(1)(A), 22 U.S.C. § 6442(b)(1)(A).

13 IRFA § 402(c)(1)(A), 22 U.S.C. § 6442(c)(1)(A).

14 IRFA § 402(b)(1)(B), 22 U.S.C. § 6442(b)(1)(B). Review for designation of CPCs “shall be 

based upon information contained in the latest [State Department] Country Reports on Human 

Rights Practices, the [State Department] Annual Report [on International Religious Freedom], 

and on any other evidence available and shall take into account any findings or recommendations 

by the [U.S.] Commission [on International Religious Freedom] with respect to the foreign 

country.” 

15 “Dialogue,” American Embassy TV Network, U.S. Department of State, Office of Broadcast 

Services, September 12, 2000 (transcript of interview of then Ambassador-at-Large for 

International Religious Freedom Robert Seiple found at http://www.usembassy.it/file2000_09/ 

alia/a009130b.htm, accessed April 1, 2003).

16 On-the-Record Briefing: Release of the 2002 Annual Report on International Religious 

Freedom, John V. Hanford III, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, 

Washington, D.C., October 7, 2002. (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/ spbr/14201.htm, accessed 

April 1, 2003).

17 See, e.g., Letter from Sen. John McCain of Arizona to Secretary of State Colin Powell, 

December 17, 2002 (urging Secretary Powell to designate Saudi Arabia as a CPC); Peter Slevin, 

“U.S. Considers Citing Saudi Arabia for Intolerance,” Washington Post, January 18, 2003, p. 

A17 (citing Sen. McCain, Representatives Lantos of California and Wolf of Virginia, as well as 

Human Rights Watch, as supporting designating Saudi Arabia as a CPC); Michael Isikoff, 

“Saudis: No ‘Particular Concern’,” Newsweek, March 10, 2003 (stating that after a “contentious 

internal battle” within the Department of State, Saudi Arabia was not going to be designated as a 

CPC); Agency France-Presse “U.S. Rebukes Saudi Arabia for lack of religious freedom,” March 

11, 2003; Editorial, “No Particular Concern,” Washington Post, March 17, 2003 (stating that 

leaving Saudi Arabia off the CPC list is “a particular affront to fact and logic”; and stating that 

“[t]o the extent the [U.S.] government contrives ways to keep American allies off its list, the 

designation process is a political joke”).

18 Richard Boucher, Spokesman, U.S. Department of State, Daily Press Briefing, Washington, 

DC, March 10, 2003 (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2003/18512.htm, accessed April 1, 

2003).
60

 

19 IRFA § 402(b)(1)(B), 22 U.S.C. § 6442(b)(1)(B).

20 Letter from the Commission to Secretary of State Colin Powell regarding recommendations 

for countries of particular concern, September 30, 2002 

(http://www.uscirf.gov/crptPages/cpcLetter2002.php3, accessed April 1, 2003).

21 IRFA §§ 402(c)(4) and (5), and §407, 22 U.S.C. §§ 6442(c)(4) and (5), and §6447, 

respectively. The actions specified in § 405 include the suspension of U.S. development 

assistance or security assistance under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; restrictions on the 

activities of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Overseas Private Investment 

Corporation, or the Trade and Development Agency with respect to the foreign government 

involved (and certain related entities); U.S. opposition to loans by international financial 

institutions primarily benefiting the foreign government; the restriction of certain licenses for 

exports to the foreign government; prohibitions on certain transactions of U.S. financial 

institutions; and prohibitions on U.S. government procurement activities. IRFA §§ 402(c)(1)(A) 

and 405(a)(9)-(15), 22 U.S.C. §§ 6442(c)(1)(A) and 6445(a)(9)-(15), respectively. The President 

may also substitute any other action he or she considers commensurate in effect to others listed if 

he or she feels it would further U.S. policy. IRFA §§ 405(b), 22 U.S.C. § 6445(b). The 

authority to make these decisions has been delegated by the President to the Secretary of State. 

According to § 407, sanctions may be waived if the President determines “(1) the respective 

foreign government has ceased the violations giving rise to the Presidential action; (2) the 

exercise of such waiver authority would further the purposes of this Act; or (3) the important 

national interest of the United States requires the exercise of such waiver authority.”

22 See IRFA § 402(c)(5), 22 U.S.C §6442(c)(5). 

23 The five countries named as CPCs in 1999 were already subject to ongoing, multiple, broadbased sanctions. These positions were reiterated in the State Department’s report to Congress 

designating CPCs in September 2000. The Secretary concluded that because the abovementioned sanctions were still in effect, no further action was necessary. See IRFA §§ 402(c)(4) 

and 409, 22 U.S.C. §§ 6442(c)(4) and 6449, respectively (providing that the President is not 

required to take action with respect to a CPC designee if he has done so in a previous year and 

any such actions are still in effect; under IRFA, sanctions remain in place for the shorter of either 

two years or if the foreign government in question has “ceased or taken substantial and verifiable 

steps to cease” the violations). 

In October 2001, North Korea was designated as a CPC for the first time; the five others 

were redesignated. The State Department never filed a report with the Congress on the actions 

that the Secretary had determined met the requirements of IRFA with respect to those countries 

named as CPCs in 2001. Unlike previous years, the Secretary did not designate CPCs in the Fall 

of 2002, waiting instead until March 2003. In the report filed with Congress on the CPCs 

designated in March 2003, the State Department designated sections 402 and 409 of the Trade 

Act of 1974 (i.e. the Jackson-Vanik Amendment) as the existing sanction against North Korea 

that met the requirements of IRFA. The Secretary also continued to rely on the pre-existing 

sanctions exclusion for all of the other CPC designees.
61

 

24 See IRFA §§ 402(c)(4)(C) and 404(a)(4), 22 U.S.C. §§ 6442(c)(4)(C) and 6444(a)(4), 

respectively.

25 Richard Boucher, Spokesman, U.S. Department of State, Daily Press Briefing, Washington, 

DC, April 11, 2003 (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2003/19576.htm, accessed April 11, 

2003).

26 See IRFA § 101(d), 22 U.S.C. § 6411(d).
62
63

IV. COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS

The Commission has issued seven individual country reports during the current 

reporting cycle, May 1, 2002 through May 1, 2003; two reports on Afghanistan, and one 

each on Belarus, Laos, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. The recommendations 

contained in each of those reports are reprinted in Section A below. Also included in 

Section A are the recommendations contained in the Commission’s April 17, 2003 letter 

to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

The Commission issued seven individual country reports during the previous 

reporting cycle, May 15, 2001 through May 1, 2002: China, Indonesia, North Korea, 

Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The recommendations contained in each of those 

reports are reprinted in Section B below. The Commission believes that the 

recommendations made during its 2001-02 reporting cycle are still pertinent. 

The complete text of all of the Commission’s reports can be found on the 

Commission’s Web site at www.uscirf.gov. Reports may also be obtained by contacting 

the Commission’s offices.

A. Recommendations From the Commission’s 2002-2003 Reporting Cycle

1. AFGHANISTAN (May 2003)

Afghanistan is in the midst of an historic transition, one in which the United 

States has played, and continues to play, a crucial role. The U.S. government, the United 

Nations, and a number of other donors are heavily engaged in Afghanistan’s 

reconstruction. Recognizing that precedents are being set and foundations laid now for 

Afghanistan’s development over the next several decades, the U.S. Commission on 

International Religious Freedom is seriously concerned about U.S. polices in Afghanistan 

and their impact on Afghanistan’s future. 

There are indications that Afghanistan is being reconstructed as a state in which 

an extreme interpretation of Sharia would be enforced by a government which the United 

States supports and with which the United States is closely identified. The Commission 

believes that respect for human rights, including freedom of religion and belief, are 

essential to the security, recovery, and reconstruction of Afghanistan. A future 

Afghanistan that respects human rights will become a more stable, responsible member 

of the international community and will be less likely to become a haven for terrorists or 

the cause for renewed regional instability and conflict. The Commission strongly 

supports U.S. engagement in Afghanistan and is concerned that U.S. public and 

Congressional support for Afghanistan’s reconstruction will be eroded by the 

establishment of an Afghan state in which universal human rights, including freedom of 

religion and belief and the rights of women and minorities, are not respected or protected 

in law and practice.

In June 2002, the Commission issued a report containing policy recommendations 

on Afghanistan. In January 2003, the Commission, in cooperation with the George 

Washington University Law School, sponsored a forum entitled “Reconstructing 
64

Afghanistan: Freedom in Crisis.” The following recommendations build upon the earlier 

report, the forum, and the Commission’s extensive consultations and careful deliberations 

on U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

Recommendations

I. Security: Afghans must be protected so that they can exercise their 

human rights 

1. The U.S. government should enhance its efforts to enable the 

Transitional Administration to exercise its authority throughout the 

country. The United States should actively support expanding the 

international security presence beyond Kabul.

2. In accordance with U.S. legislation, the U.S. government should 

actively oppose human rights abuses (including torture, arbitrary arrest, 

extrajudicial killings, and politically-motivated disappearances) by Afghan 

authorities at any level, particularly by local commanders who have 

received or are receiving U.S. military support and advice in the campaign 

against terrorism. 

2.a. U.S. assistance to Afghan military, security, or law 

enforcement agencies should be conditioned on demonstrated 

respect for human rights in accordance with existing law.

2.b. Afghanistan’s military and security forces should be screened 

to exclude known human-rights violators.

2.c. Known human-rights violators should be barred by law from 

appointive or elective office, as well as from leadership positions

in political parties.

3. The U.S. government should continue to incorporate human rights 

training as an integral part of its assistance in establishing the Afghan 

national army and Afghanistan’s national and provincial police forces.

4. The U.S. government should assist the Transitional Administration and 

the Human Rights Commission in establishing effective mechanisms for 

accountability for past human rights abuses and for promoting long-term 

reconciliation. 

5. Crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other violations of 

international humanitarian law should be investigated and prosecuted.
65

II. Legal Reform: Institutions should be established to respect, protect, 

and ensure rights 

A. Primacy of the Constitution: The U.S. government must ensure that 

human rights are fully guaranteed in Afghanistan’s new constitution.

6. The U.S. government should work closely with the Transitional 

Administration and the Constitutional, Judicial Reform, and Human 

Rights Commissions to ensure that guarantees of freedom and universal 

human rights, including freedom of religion and belief and the rights of 

women and members of religious minorities, are fully ensured in 

Afghanistan’s new constitution and implemented throughout 

Afghanistan’s legal and judicial systems.

B. Judicial Reform

7. In order to establish the rule of law, which is essential for the 

protection of human rights, including religious freedom, the U.S. 

government should continue to provide material, training, technical 

assistance, and other support to the Transitional Administration and 

specifically to the Judicial Reform Commission to re-build the domestic 

justice system in accordance with international standards. 

8. To ensure that rights are fully protected, the U.S. government should 

urge the adoption of the highest possible judicial standards. Therefore: 

8.a. Selection of judges should be based on merit and should be in 

accordance with established law. Appointments of judges who 

lack required qualifications or that do not comply with legallyestablished procedures should be invalidated, including that of the 

current Chief Justice and of any others appointed ultra vires. 

8.b. Courts, such as the National Security Courts, that do not have 

an established basis in law should be abolished. Any judgments 

rendered by such courts should be reviewed to ensure their 

conformity with international human rights standards. No new 

courts should be established without the review of the Judicial 

Reform Commission or as provided in the Constitution.

8.c. Courts should be permitted to act only on matters brought 

before them according to established legal procedures. Judgments 

must not be inconsistent with the constitution and with 

international human rights standards.

8.d. All judges and prosecutors should be trained in civil law and 

international human rights standards. 
66

8.e. The legal system should ensure that all Afghans have equal 

access to courts established by law. 

8.f. Women should be actively recruited and appointed to the 

judiciary in all courts at all levels.

C. Rights to be Guaranteed 

9. The U.S. government should endeavor to ensure that Afghanistan’s 

new constitution is consistent with international human rights standards. 

The constitution should therefore guarantee that:

9.a. Afghanistan is committed to the principles of representative 

government and the rule of law, including specific reference to 

Afghanistan’s adherence to the provisions of the Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights and compliance with the 

international human rights conventions to which Afghanistan is a 

party.

9.b. All persons, including women and members of religious or 

ethnic minorities, have equal rights and are entitled without 

discrimination to the equal protection of the law. 

9.c. All persons are ensured freedom of religion in full accordance 

with international standards.

9.d. No law or official government action may violate international 

principles of human rights.

9.e. Non-Muslims are not to be subject to Sharia.

9.f. Punishments such as flogging, amputation of limbs, and death 

by stoning are banned.

D. Rights to Religious Freedom

10. To promote religious freedom and tolerance, the U.S. government 

should urge the Transitional Administration and its successors to:

10.a. abolish the religious police and similar organizations, and 

protect all persons against coercion in matters of religious belief 

and practice by Afghan government agencies or by local 

authorities, 

10.b. ensure that accusations of apostasy do not give rise to civil or 

criminal liability; exclude the use of accusations of blasphemy, 

apostasy, “offending Islam,” or similar accusations to stifle public 

debate or the right to freedom of expression;
67

10.c. allow all religious groups to conduct their activities freely 

without interference or burdensome regulation by the state, 

including religious instruction, the selection and training of 

religious leaders, the content of sermons, and the publication of 

religious literature, subject only to restrictions provided for in 

international conventions to which Afghanistan is a party; 

10.d. ensure that all religious groups are free to build, repair, and 

operate houses of worship and other institutions, subject only to 

such land-use regulations as are applicable to all, regardless of 

religion, and 

10.e. repeal legislative and other measures that discriminate against 

women and non-Muslims. 

E. Assistance to the Human Rights Commission

11. The U.S. government should continue to assist Afghanistan’s Human 

Rights Commission in discharging its responsibilities under the Bonn 

Agreement to monitor and investigate violations of human rights.

III. Education about Rights: The Afghan people should be educated in 

human rights principles

12. The U.S. government should actively support those elements in 

Afghan society that favor adherence to international human rights 

standards, democratic values, the rule of law, pluralism, and tolerance.

13. The U.S. government should continue and expand programs to better 

inform Afghans regarding Afghanistan’s international obligations in the 

field of human rights, including freedom of religion and belief. These 

efforts should include:

13.a. technical and financial assistance to Afghanistan’s Human 

Rights Commission in its efforts to educate the Afghan people 

regarding human rights;

13.b. educational and cultural exchanges, including of scholars and 

legal experts; 

13.c. use of broadcast and print media to discuss human rights 

issues and to disseminate local language translations of the basic 

documents and conventions that establish international human 

rights standards; and

13.d. inclusion in all school curricula, in school textbooks, and in 

teacher training of the concepts of tolerance and respect for human 

rights, including religious freedom, and conversely, exclusion from 
68

all textbooks of language or images that promote enmity, 

intolerance, hatred, or violence toward any group of persons based 

on faith, gender, ethnicity, or nationality.

14. The U.S. government should support Afghanistan’s public education 

system in order to improve the availability and quality of education for all 

Afghans.

IV. The Recovery and Reconstruction Process: The United States 

should appoint a high-ranking official to ensure that U.S. assistance 

actively promotes human rights 

15. As previously recommended, the U.S. government should appoint a 

high-ranking official to the American diplomatic mission in Afghanistan 

to advance human rights, including freedom of religion, particularly in 

connection with reconstruction and recovery programs and the 

establishment of the new constitution, judiciary, and legal system.

16. The U.S. government should fully fund programming envisaged in the 

Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002 to strengthen civil society 

organizations that promote human rights, including freedom of religion; 

support the development and expansion of democratic and market-based 

institutions, including independent media; and support the expanded 

participation of women and members of all ethnic groups in government at 

all levels.

2. AFGHANISTAN (June 2002 Report)

1. The U.S. government should actively support expanding the 

international security presence beyond Kabul. There is an urgent need to 

expand security in order to safeguard the process of political 

reconstruction in the country. Moreover, security is essential to protect 

religious freedom and other human rights for all Afghans both in the near 

term and into the future.

2. The U.S. government should be unequivocal in its opposition to 

ongoing human rights abuses in Afghanistan, using its influence not only 

with the national government but with local commanders, many of whom 

have received or are still receiving U.S. military support and advice.

3. U.S. assistance, particularly to the Afghan military and to law 

enforcement agencies, should be contingent upon compliance with human 

rights conditions included in current U.S. legislation, such as those in the 

Leahy Amendment and the Foreign Assistance Act.
69

U.S. recovery and reconstruction assistance to Afghan regional authorities 

should also be in accordance with relevant United Nations Security 

Council resolutions (e.g., Resolution 1401).

4. The U.S. government should strongly support efforts to establish and/or 

strengthen adherence to the rule of law and protection of religious freedom 

and other human rights in Afghanistan. Special attention should be paid 

to:

4.a. drafting a new constitution and new laws that guarantee international 

norms on freedom of religion and other human rights;

4.b. organizing effective law enforcement and criminal justice systems 

that respect and protect fundamental human rights;

4.c. creating effective indigenous institutions for monitoring, 

investigating, and obtaining redress for human rights abuses; in this 

regard, care should be taken to ensure that Afghanistan’s new national 

human rights commission meets international standards for such bodies; 

and 

4.d. establishing a mechanism for accountability, with a view to bringing 

perpetrators of past and current human rights abuses to justice and 

promoting truth-telling and long-term reconciliation.

5. The U.S. government should promptly assign to our Embassy in Kabul 

and station in Afghanistan now a person whose sole responsibility is 

carrying out a mandate to promote religious freedom and other human 

rights, including by coordinating U.S. participation in relevant 

international initiatives.

This individual should also be tasked with monitoring and reporting 

publicly on human rights and religious freedom conditions, including 

compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1401 

guidelines that recovery and reconstruction assistance “ought to be 

provided. . .where local authorities contribute to the maintenance of a 

secure environment and demonstrate respect for human rights.”

6. The assignment of such an individual does not diminish the obligation 

of other U.S. mission personnel to promote human rights and to monitor 

compliance with international human rights standards.

7. The U.S. government should undertake and support efforts to nurture 

and develop a culture of democracy in Afghanistan. Special attention 

should be paid to:
70

7.a. public education and literacy programs for all Afghans, to be 

provided regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, age, or other status, and

including specific support for women teachers;

7.b. radio and other avenues of broadcasting and sharing information to 

provide objective news and other information to the Afghan people; and

7.c. educational and cultural exchanges, including specific support for 

women professionals, to introduce Afghans to the workings and benefits 

of free societies in which religious freedom and other human rights are 

respected.

8. In each of these areas, specific emphasis should be placed on 

encouraging religious tolerance and the protection of the equal right of all 

to religious freedom and other human rights.

3. BELARUS

Belarus has a highly authoritarian government that does not respect the human 

rights of its citizens. The regime under President Aleksandr Lukashenko has been widely 

accused of serious human rights abuses, including involvement in the “disappearances” 

of several opposition figures as well as the imprisonment of journalists and other controls 

on the media. The freedoms of speech, assembly, and association are heavily restricted, 

and the government has repressed the few institutions of civil society that had emerged 

after the country gained independence in 1991.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is seriously concerned 

about the status of religious freedom in Belarus. Since coming to power in 1994, 

Lukashenko has constructed a set of regulatory and bureaucratic obstacles that make 

legitimate religious activities impossible for many religious communities. Some minority 

religious groups have experienced violent attacks against their persons and property, and 

religious leaders have faced arrest, heavy fines, and other forms of harassment. In 

October 2002, Lukashenko signed new legislation on religion that further threatens to 

restrict religious freedom in Belarus. Although the law purports to codify protections for 

religious freedom, in fact, it provides government officials with tools to repress and 

control religious activities without providing any clear mechanisms to check abuses by 

these officials. The law, which has been called the most repressive religion law in 

Europe, also outlaws all unregistered religious activity, requires government censorship 

of religious literature, and restricts education to only a handful of religious communities.

The Commission traveled to Belarus in January 2003 and met with Belarusian 

government officials, representatives of religious groups and non-governmental 

organization, and human rights and other activists to investigate firsthand religious 

freedom conditions and to express Commission concern to government authorities about 

the worsening situation. In addition to its visit to Belarus, the Commission has examined 

the situation in that country by means of private briefings with scholars, former diplomats 
71

and other experts, and meetings with delegations from Belarus. The Commission has 

also met with former government leaders from Belarus, and representatives of several 

opposition groups and members of persecuted religious minorities. 

Recommendations

1. The U.S. government should use every measure of diplomacy to 

advance the protection of human rights, including religious freedom, in 

Belarus. This should include:

1.a. enhanced monitoring and public reporting of religious 

freedom in Belarus during the upcoming year, especially in light of 

the OSCE’s new weakened monitoring mandate.

1.b. urging the Belarusian government to restore genuine 

democracy and to respect human rights, including religious 

freedom, in Belarus, by taking immediate steps to end repression, 

including:

-- repeal of the highly repressive religion law;

-- an end to the practice of denying registration to religious groups 

and then erecting obstacles to religious practice because of that 

unregistered status;

-- the right to conduct religious education and distribute religious 

material;

-- a halt to the attacks on the persons and property of minority 

religious groups carried out by government authorities;

-- a greater effort on the part of government officials to find and 

hold to account perpetrators of attacks on the persons and property 

of members of religious minorities; and

-- free access of domestic and international human rights groups 

and others to sites of religious violence or destruction of houses of 

worship.

1.c. forcefully speaking out about religious freedom and other 

human rights violations inside Belarus and in international fora, 

stressing the need genuinely to implement human rights 

protections, including the four OSCE benchmarks.

2. The U.S. government should continue to make a particular effort 

forcefully to oppose the recently enacted religion law in Belarus. The U.S. 
72

government should press the Belarusian government on the issue of 

registration, and should make clear that failure to register or re-register 

minority religious groups will result in continued U.S. sanctions against 

the Belarus government.

3. The Congress should adopt the Belarus Democracy Act. The activities 

to promote democracy outlined in the Act should include programs that 

explicitly promote religious freedom and religious tolerance. The U.S. 

government should also continue to support, publicly and privately, 

persons and groups engaged in the struggle against repression in Belarus, 

including the group of religious and opposition activists who make up the 

Freedom of Religion Initiative, which published the “White Book.”

4. The U.S. government should urge the Belarus government to ensure 

that no religious community—whether the Russian Orthodox Church or 

any other—is given a status that may result in or be used to justify the 

impairment of the rights of, or discrimination against, members of other 

religious groups.

5. Because of the special relationship between Russia and Belarus, the 

U.S. government should consistently raise religious freedom and other 

human rights concerns in Belarus with Russian government officials, 

making clear that the human rights situation in Belarus is unacceptable 

and that the Russian government has some responsibility to use its 

influence to press for democratic change with respect to human rights, 

including religious freedom, in Belarus.

4. LAOS

Since the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party assumed power in 1975, there has 

been extensive government interference with and restrictions on all religious 

communities. In more recent years, the government has focused its repression on 

religions that are relatively new to Laos, including Protestant Christianity. During this 

time period, the government of Laos has engaged in particularly severe violations of 

religious freedom as defined in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA). 

These include the arrest, prolonged detention, and imprisonment of members of religious 

minorities on account of their religious activities. In addition, Lao officials have forced 

Christians to renounce their faith. At the same time, dozens of churches have been 

closed. Given the seriousness of religious freedom violations in Laos, the U.S. 

Commission on International Religious Freedom, in both 2000 and 2001, recommended 

that Laos be designated as a “country of particular concern” (CPC), pursuant to IRFA. In 

February 2002, the Commission sent a delegation to Laos on a fact-finding mission. 
73

In July 2002, the Lao government promulgated a new decree on religious affairs 

that provides a legal basis for control of and interference with religious activities by 

government officials. Although some religious detainees have reportedly been released 

after July 2002, others remain in detention. In the light of these circumstances, in 2002, 

the Commission once again recommended that Laos be designated as a CPC.

Since September 11, 2001, Southeast Asia has become an increasingly important 

arena in the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. Laos’ importance to U.S. interests has 

also increased by virtue of its status as a member of the Association of Southeast Asian 

Nations and its support for the international counter-terrorism effort. Meanwhile, the 

government of Laos has continued to engage in serious violations of religious freedom 

and related human rights. Yet, Laos has not received much attention from U.S. foreign 

policymakers, including the Congress. 

Laos is at an important crossroad, and U.S. attention to Laos at this time may 

advance protections for religious freedom and promote U.S. interests. Indeed, while 

some Lao officials have advocated Vietnam and China as models for Laos’ future, others 

have expressed a desire to modernize the country by learning from the experiences of the 

United States and other developed nations in the West. The United States has a unique 

opportunity to engage the government and people of Laos in a process of reform that 

would end the suppression of religious freedom and other related human rights, and 

relatively small measures of attention and assistance could accomplish a great deal. 

Recommendations

1. The President should designate Laos as a country of particular concern, 

in accordance with provisions of the International Religious Freedom Act 

of 1998. 

2. The U.S. government should make clear to the government of Laos that 

the cessation of practices which abuse religious freedom is essential to an 

improvement in and an expansion of U.S.-Laos relations. In this context, 

the U.S. government should urge Lao officials to: 

2.a. halt the arrest and detention of persons on account of their 

manifestation of religion or belief;

2.b. release from imprisonment or detention persons who are so 

restricted on account of their manifestation of religion or belief; 

2.c. end abusive practices such as the ill treatment in prisons and 

other places of confinement against such persons;

2.d. cease practices that coerce individuals to renounce any

religion or belief, including detention, imprisonment, or forcible 
74

displacement from one’s home for the failure to renounce one’s 

faith;

2.e. cease the arbitrary closing of churches, schools, and other 

religious facilities; 

2.f. refrain from implementing those elements of the recent prime 

ministerial decree on religious activities that are inconsistent with 

international human rights law and to revise the decree to bring it 

into conformity with international standards; 

2.g. respect and fully implement the freedoms of individuals and 

organizations to engage in religious activities in accordance with 

their own beliefs or doctines and free from government 

interfernence; 

2.h. provide access to religious persons (including those 

imprisoned or detained) in all parts of Laos by foreign diplomats, 

humanitarian organizations, and international human rights and 

religious organizations; and 

2.i. ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 

and invite the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or 

Belief and other relevant rapporteurs to visit the country. 

3. The U.S. government should initiate a bilateral human rights dialogue 

with the government of Laos that would establish measurable goals and 

practical steps, such as the actions listed in Recommendation 2, to 

eliminate violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief. This 

dialogue should also address the broader range of human rights concerns 

in Laos, many of which are related to religious freedom violations, such as 

torture and other forms of ill-treatment, unlawful arrest or detention, 

absence of due process, and violations of the rights of freedom of 

expression, association, and peaceful assembly.

4. The U.S. government should provide assistance to advance human 

rights in Laos if the Lao government demonstrates a genuine commitment 

to implement legal and other reforms to end violations of religious 

freedom and associated human rights in Laos. In this regard, the State 

Department should undertake an assessment of human rights needs in 

Laos in order to identify specific areas where the United States could 

provide support and assistance for establishing human rights protections, 

particularly through support for nongovernmental organizations and 

initiatives. A concrete plan based on this assessment should be developed 

and implemented. The areas that should be addressed in this assessment 

include, but are not limited to, technical assistance in the drafting and 

implementation of laws and regulations; provision of information on 
75

human rights to the people of Laos; exchange programs designed to 

encourage the creation of institutions of civil society that protect human 

rights; third-party human rights training programs for Lao officials; and 

education to combat intolerance.

5. RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Since its founding in 1999, the U.S. Commission on International Religious 

Freedom has monitored and reported on the status of religious freedom in the Russian 

Federation. Russia has consistently drawn the attention of the Commission not because 

of the severity of the religious freedom violations there, but because of the fragility of 

human rights, including freedom of religion and belief, in the Russian Federation. 

Significant progress on the protection of human rights, including religious freedom, has 

been made in Russia in the last dozen years since the end of the Soviet Union. Despite 

that improvement, however, restrictions on the universal human right to freedom of 

religion and belief continued in post-Soviet Russia. For example, federal laws governing 

freedom of association and religion contained language that effectively would have 

prevented many religious groups from registering and thus practicing freely. Regional 

governments frequently passed ordinances that resulted in discrimination against 

minority religious groups, and religious violence was widespread. At the same time, the 

Russian Orthodox Church began to seek preferential treatment from the state in a way 

that called into question the extent to which religious freedom would be guaranteed for 

all. 

In the past year, events have occurred that have raised further questions about 

Russia’s continued commitment to democratic reform and the protection of religious 

freedom. These events include: a recent conspicuous increase in the number of clergy 

and other religious workers denied visas or residency permits, even in cases of previous 

long-term residency in Russia; indications that one particular denomination, the Russian 

Orthodox Church, is more explicitly gaining influence as the favored church, resulting in 

various discriminatory practices against other religious groups; evidence of government 

meddling in the internal affairs of certain religious communities; the continued 

occurrence of anti-Semitic attacks; a recent increase in violence against Muslims; the 

persistent uncertainties in the legal situation, due in part to the seemingly vague 

procedures for amending the 1997 religion law and the tabling or passage of other laws 

related to religious practice; and the leaking in December 2002 of a troubling report 

attributed to numerous government officials that specifically lists four religions or 

religious groupings—Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, militant Islam, and new 

“foreign” sects—as threats to Russia’s national security. 

Most if not all of the religious freedom concerns the Commission has raised in the 

past, and those that have emerged more recently, appear to be directly related to the 

increasing influence of authoritarian strains within the Russian government. Thus, 

Russia’s progress toward democracy and the protection of human rights remains tenuous, 

for the country continues to be in danger of surrendering to, or becoming engulfed by, 
76

undemocratic forces, which believe that the state should control the development of 

religion and religious groups in Russia. 

The Commission undertook a mission to Russia in January 2003. The primary 

purpose of that mission was to establish contacts with key Russian government officials, 

religious leaders, and human rights organizations that are engaged with religious freedom 

issues; to explore the degree to which the continuing (and emergent) religious freedom 

restrictions represent official policy, and whether they reflect the weakening of 

democratic protections; and to explain to our Russian interlocutors and other audiences 

the Commission’s work to promote religious freedom as enshrined in international 

human rights documents, and the significance of the American commitment to this vital 

freedom. In addition to its seven-day visit in January 2003, the Commission has 

examined the situation in Russia throughout the past year. In March 2002, a Commission 

member participated in a conference entitled “Religions, Politics, and Human Rights,” 

and the Commission delegation met briefly with Russian government officials, religious 

leaders, and representatives of numerous Russian non-governmental organizations 

(NGOs). In May 2002, the Commission co-hosted with the Department of State and 

members of Congress a Europe-Eurasia Religious Freedom Roundtable, at which 

representatives of numerous religious groups presented information on religious freedom 

conditions in various parts of Europe and Eurasia, including Russia. Throughout the past 

year, the Commission received private briefings from academic and other experts on 

Russia, met with key American officials, and interviewed representatives of religious 

groups from inside the country. 

Recommendations

I. Raise Concern about the Growing Influence of Undemocratic Forces 

on Russian Government Policies

1. Recognizing the Russian government’s duty to protect its citizens from 

terrorist acts and violence, the U.S. government should make clear its 

concern to the Russian government that efforts to combat terrorism should 

not be used as an unrestrained justification to restrict the rights, including 

religious freedom, of members of Russia's religious minorities.

2. Though welcoming the assurances from Russian government officials 

that the so-called “Zorin report” does not reflect government policy, the 

U.S. government should continue to press the Russian government to 

ensure that the views expressed in the leaked report are not adopted as 

Russian government policy.

II. Oppose Attempts to Rollback Religious Freedom

3. While recognizing the historic role of the Russian Orthodox Church in 

Russian society, the U.S. government should urge the Russian government 

to ensure that any special role for the Orthodox Church or any other 
77

religious community does not result in violations of the rights of or 

discrimination against members of other religious groups.

4.a. The U.S. government should continue to urge the Russian 

government to cease the practice of unfairly denying entry visas or 

residency permits to foreign clergy and other religious workers and 

thereby to uphold the freedom of all religious communities to organize 

themselves according to their own tenets. 

4.b. The U.S. government should also encourage the Russian government 

to cease other forms of interference in the internal affairs of religious 

communities. 

5. The U.S. Government should urge the government of Russia to monitor 

the actions of regional and local officials who interfere with the right to 

freedom of religion or belief, and to take steps to bring local laws and 

regulations on religious activities into conformity with the Russian 

Constitution and international human rights standards.

III. Protect Religious Minorities in Russia Against Violent Attacks and 

Intolerance

6. The U.S. government should persistently urge the Russian government 

to take all appropriate steps to prevent and punish acts of anti-Semitism, 

including to condemn anti-Semitic acts, to pursue and prosecute the 

perpetrators of violent incidents of anti-Semitism, and, while vigorously 

protecting freedom of expression, to counteract anti-Semitic rhetoric and 

other organized anti-Semitic activities.

7.a. The U.S. government should make clear its concern to the Russian 

government that hostile rhetoric against Muslims and the Islamic faith is 

fueling an atmosphere in which perpetrators believe they can attack 

Muslim or Muslim-appearing persons with impunity. While vigorously 

protecting freedom of expression, firm words and actions from the 

government of Russia are required to counteract this belief.

7.b. The U.S. government should also ensure that the humanitarian and 

human rights crisis in Chechnya remains a key issue in its bilateral 

relations with Russia. 

7.c. The U.S. government should urge the Russian government to end, 

and prosecute acts of, torture, arbitrary detention, rape, and other abuses 

by members of the military in Chechnya and to accept a site visit to 

Chechnya from the UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture, Extrajudicial 

Executions, and Violence Against Women.
78

IV. Continue U.S. Vigilance on the Progress of Democratic Reform and 

Protections for Human Rights in Russia

8. If the Jackson-Vanik amendment is repealed with respect to Russia, the 

U.S. Congress should make certain that some other mechanism is in place 

to monitor the status of religious freedom and other human rights in 

Russia and report to Congress. In addition, the Smith Amendment should 

be reinstated by the Congress and maintained as U.S. law.

9. The U.S. government should raise religious freedom and other human 

rights violations in multilateral fora, including the Organization for 

Security and Cooperation in Europe and the UN. The U.S. government 

should also continue, on a bilateral basis, to encourage the government of 

Russia to agree to the request of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom 

of Religion or Belief to visit Russia.

V. Support Those Who Advance Democracy, Religious Freedom, and 

Other Human Rights in Russia

10. The U.S. government should use every possible means to engage and 

support the genuine democrats in the Russian government at the federal 

and local levels. The U.S. government should also ensure that U.S. aid 

programs are not being used to support the activities in Russia of 

authoritarian-minded officials.

11. The U.S. government should advance human rights, including 

religious freedom, in Russia by continuing to provide assistance, as 

appropriate, to non-governmental organizations, public interest groups,

journalists, and academic institutions, and expand programs aimed at 

encouraging religious tolerance and supporting international standards on 

freedom of religion and other human rights. The U.S. government should 

also continue to promote exchanges between Russian judges, lawyers, and 

legal rights organizations with their counterparts in the United States.

6. SAUDI ARABIA

According to the State Department, freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi 

Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a uniquely repressive case where the government forcefully and 

almost completely limits the public practice or expression of religion to one 

interpretation: a narrow and puritanical version of Islam based on the Wahhabi doctrine. 

Consequently, those Saudis and foreign contract workers who do not adhere to the Saudi 

government’s interpretation of Islam are subject to severe religious freedom violations. 

Among the most serious abuses and forms of discrimination are: 

-- Virtually complete prohibitions on establishing non-Wahhabi places of 

worship, the public expression of non-Wahhabi religion, the wearing of non-
79

prescribed religious dress and symbols, and the presence of identifiable clerics of 

any religion other than the government’s interpretation of Islam;

-- The harassment, detention, arrest, torture, and subsequent deportation by 

government authorities of Christian foreign workers for worshipping in private –

many are forced to go to great lengths to conceal private religious practice in 

order to avoid these abuses;

-- The detention, imprisonment, and, in some cases, torture of Shi’a clerics and 

religious scholars for their religious views, which differ from those of the 

government;

-- The interpretation and enforcement of religious law in Saudi Arabia, which

affects every aspect of women’s lives and results in serious violations of their 

human rights; and

-- The offensive and discriminatory language found in Saudi governmentsponsored school textbooks, sermons in mosques, and articles and commentary in 

the media about Jews, Christians, and non-Wahhabi streams of Islam.

Despite occasional disagreements over regional issues and a growing public 

debate on the direction of U.S.-Saudi relations following the attacks of September 11, 

2001, official U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia remain close. The Commission, however, 

shares the State Department’s view that freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi 

Arabia and notes that advancing human rights, including religious freedom, has not been 

a public feature of the bilateral relationship. Indeed, some have argued that the U.S. 

government has refrained from criticizing human rights practices in Saudi Arabia, and 

has even gone so far as to restrict the rights of Americans to do so. 

The Commission believes that U.S. efforts to encourage Saudi Arabia to comply 

with its international commitments to protect religious freedom should be strengthened 

significantly and made more transparent instead of being relegated to private discussions. 

As with other countries where serious human rights violations exist, the U.S. government 

should more frequently identify these problems and publicly acknowledge that they are 

significant issues in the bilateral relationship.

Recommendations

I. Advocate Effective Guarantees of Religious Freedom and Necessary 

Action to Implement Those Guarantees

A core goal of U.S. engagement with Saudi Arabia should be the protection and 

implementation of the universal right to freedom of religion for all Saudi nationals and 

foreign residents. At a minimum, this should include guarantees and the implementation, 

in a constitution and through other mechanisms, of the following components of that right 

as specified in international instruments:
80

-- the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief, including the guarantee that 

no one shall be subject to coercion which would impair that freedom;

-- the freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or 

private, to manifest a religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, and 

teaching;

-- equal protection of the law and the equal right of men and women to the 

enjoyment of their human rights, including religious freedom; and

-- the rights and duties of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure 

the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their 

convictions, as provided in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN 

Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination 

Based on Religion or Belief, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

1. The U.S. government should urge the Saudi Arabian government to 

take steps toward the implementation of the rights stated above. Initial 

measures that could immediately be implemented include the following:

1.a. genuinely safeguard the freedom to worship privately, as 

affirmed by Saudi government officials, of non-Muslims and of 

those Muslims who do not follow the government's version of 

Islam. As requested by the relevant communities, this should 

include immediate permission for clergy to enter the country and 

perform private religious services;

1.b. permit non-Wahhabi places of worship, such as churches, to 

function openly in special compounds or zones for foreigners or in 

unadorned buildings designated for this purpose; 

1.c. allow foreign clerics openly to wear religious garb and foreign 

nationals to possess religious literature and openly wear or carry 

non-Muslim religious symbols;

1.d. entrust enforcement of the law to regular professionals in law 

enforcement agencies subject to judicial review and appropriate 

human rights norms, and dissolve the Committee for the 

Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (mutawaa); 

1.e. establish a mechanism to review cases of persons detained 

under suspicion of or charged with religious, political, or security 

offenses and release those who have been imprisoned solely 

because of their religious beliefs or practices, such as those 

charged with apostasy, blasphemy, criticizing the government, and 

sorcery, as well as any others who have been unjustly detained or 

sentenced;
81

1.f. end state prosecution of apostasy, blasphemy, criticizing the 

government, and sorcery;

1.g. permit the establishment of independent nongovernmental 

organizations to advance human rights and to promote tolerance, 

and create an independent human rights commission for those 

same purposes; and

1.h. ratify and fully comply with international human rights 

instruments and cooperate with UN human rights mechanisms; in 

particular, ratify and implement the protections of the International 

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

2. The U.S. government should urge the Saudi government (a) to exclude 

from all textbooks any language or images that promote enmity, 

intolerance, hatred, or violence toward any group of persons based on 

faith, gender, ethnicity, or nationality; and (b) to include in all school 

curricula, in school textbooks, and in teacher training the concepts of 

tolerance and respect for human rights, including religious freedom. 

Textbooks should be reviewed in light of the standards for education set 

out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

II. Address Global Propagation

3. The U.S. government should undertake a study to determine whether 

the Saudis are directly or indirectly funding efforts to propagate globally, 

including in the United States, a religious ideology that explicitly 

promotes hate, intolerance, and other human rights violations, and in some 

cases violence, toward members of other religious groups, both Muslim 

and non-Muslim. Congress should authorize and fund such a study. 

Findings of this study should be reported to Congress within six months 

after funds are appropriated. 

In conjunction with the above study, the U.S. government should request 

the Saudi government to provide an accounting of what kinds of Saudi 

support go to which religious schools, mosques, centers of learning, and 

other religious organizations globally. A list of such places in the United 

States should be specifically requested.

4. In its bilateral engagement with Saudi Arabia, the U.S. government 

should urge the Saudi government to cease any funding of efforts to 

propagate outside of Saudi Arabia any religious ideology that explicitly 

promotes hate, intolerance, and other human rights violations, including 

violence.
82

III. Use U.S. Leverage to Encourage and Implement Reform

5. In its bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia and in multilateral settings, 

the U.S. government, both in public and in private, should raise concerns 

about violations of freedom of religion and related human rights. 

Congress should hold biannual hearings at which the State Department 

reports on what issues have been raised and what actions have been taken 

in light of the Saudi government’s response. 

6. The U.S. government should designate Saudi Arabia a “country of 

particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 

(IRFA).

7. The U.S. government should expand its efforts to support initiatives to 

advance human rights, including freedom of religion and belief, in Saudi 

Arabia through its (a) human rights assistance; (b) cultural, academic, 

visitor and other exchanges; (c) international broadcasting; and (d) other 

public diplomacy programs. 

Since very few initiatives to date have been aimed specifically at Saudi 

Arabia in these areas, the U.S. government should develop a country plan 

identifying and implementing activities concerning Saudi Arabia and 

report to Congress on the objectives and details of the plan. In particular:

7.a. the State Department should ensure that existing or proposed 

democracy, human rights, and other related programs directed 

toward the Middle East in general, such as the Middle East 

Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and the Middle East Democracy 

Fund (MEDF), include components specifically for Saudi Arabia; 

and

7.b. the U.S. government should take steps to overcome obstacles 

to broadcasting Radio Sawa throughout Saudi Arabia; Congress 

should ask the State Department to report on its progress in doing 

so. 

IV. Change U.S. Government and Business Practices

8. The U.S. government should ensure that any existing restrictions on 

religious practice of U.S. military and diplomatic personnel be lifted 

permanently and that American citizens visiting or residing in Saudi 

Arabia have full access to embassy and consular services under current 

U.S. law, particularly any American citizens seeking refuge or assistance.

9. The U.S. government should investigate reports that some U.S. 

companies doing business in Saudi Arabia engage in practices that 

constitute or facilitate discrimination or violations of religious freedom or 

other human rights. A public report of the investigation’s findings should 
83

be submitted to Congress and updated every year thereafter. If such 

practices are found, the U.S. government should take steps to encourage 

reform of discriminatory practices. 

7. SUDAN

While our nation’s and the world’s attention are understandably focused on Iraq 

and the global war against terrorism, this Commission believes strongly that the United 

States must not lose sight of the goal of bringing justice and peace to the people of Sudan. 

To the Administration’s great credit, President Bush has made bringing peace to Sudan 

one of the highest U.S. priorities in Africa. Much has been accomplished since the 

designation in January 2001 of Senator John Danforth as the President’s Special Envoy 

for Peace in Sudan. Much remains to be done. 

In particular, the Commission is concerned that the Sudanese government has not 

been held accountable for significant violations of agreements it has made with the Sudan 

People’s Liberation Movement as part of ongoing peace negotiations. The February 

2003 report by the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT) clearly states that the 

Sudanese government violated these agreements on numerous occasions by launching 

lethal attacks on civilian targets. While the United States publicly condemned these 

attacks, the Commission is concerned that the government of Sudan has not been held 

accountable for these actions and will conclude that it can violate its agreements with 

relative impunity while continuing to negotiate in peace talks. Indeed, reports from the 

CPMT indicate that the Sudanese government may be using this period during the ceasefire to rearm and build-up garrison towns in the south from which it could launch 

devastating offensives should the peace talks end in failure. 

Sudan is a religiously pluralistic country with a majority comprised of Sunni 

Muslims but also with a large segment of Christians and practitioners of traditional 

African beliefs. The National Islamic Front’s imposition of Sharia law in Khartoum and 

throughout Sudan has been one of the major causes of Africa’s longest running and most 

deadly conflict. Religious freedom has been a major issue in Sudan’s civil war.

Recommendations

 In a letter of April 17, 2003 to the Secretary of State, the Commission 

recommended that the U.S. government should:

1. Oppose the application of Sharia law to non-Muslims wherever they 

may reside in the country.

2. Insist that the capital of a reunited north and south Sudan, most likely 

Khartoum, be a place where people of all faiths can worship freely and 

where the laws are reflective and respectful of all religions and legal 

traditions in Sudan. National institutions such as the military, law 
84

enforcement, the highest level of the judiciary, and others should be 

secular institutions.

3. Hold the government of Sudan accountable for significant violations of 

agreements it has made with the Sudan People’s Liberation 

Movement/Army (SPLM/A) as part of the ongoing peace negotiations. 

The reporting required by the Sudan Peace Act should frankly address 

these violations and clearly state consequences for non-compliance that 

will result from any violations that might occur in the future.

4. Demand a significant reduction of Sudanese government forces and military 

equipment in southern Sudan, while ensuring that the SPLM/A does not take 

advantage of such a reduction should it occur.

5. Ensure that adequate funding is supplied to the Civilian Protection Monitoring 

Team (CPMT). The Administration and Congress should work together to ensure 

that the CPMT is robust and fully capable of accomplishing its mission 

throughout Sudan.

6. Insist that the concerns of the peoples in the contested areas of the Nuba 

Mountains, Abyei, and Southern Blue Nile be fairly and comprehensively 

resolved in the context of peace negotiations. Moreover, the United States should 

support the repatriation and reintegration, as soon as possible, of civilians 

displaced over the years from these areas.

7. Disperse quickly funding for humanitarian purposes that will be supportive of 

the peace process and immediately release funding to build civil society and to 

promote economic development in southern Sudan.

8. Continue to keep in place existing sanctions on Sudan and refrain from 

upgrading diplomatic relations with the government in Khartoum.

9. Prevail upon the government of Sudan to provide needed humanitarian access 

to international relief organizations and increase U.S. humanitarian assistance 

delivered outside the Operation Lifeline Sudan system.

10. Build upon the work of the International Eminent Persons Group (IEPG) to 

combat and end the terrible practice of abduction and enslavement by 

government-sponsored militias. For example, the U.S. government should 

implement an IEPG recommendation that the U.S. and concerned European 

governments “establish a permanent mechanism to monitor the effort of the 

Sudanese parties to address the issues of slavery, abduction and forced servitude.” 
85

8. VIETNAM

Since Congress passed the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement in September 

2001, the already poor religious freedom conditions in Vietnam have deteriorated. Key 

religious dissidents have been imprisoned; others remain in detention or under house 

arrest. In addition, the government has intensified its crackdown on religious minorities 

in the northwestern provinces and the Central Highlands. Violations associated with this 

crackdown include church closings, detention of religious leaders, and efforts to force the 

renunciation of faith, as well as a recent alleged noxious gas attack on a religious service. 

The increased repression of religious freedom has been reportedly sanctioned at the 

highest levels of the Vietnamese government, according to documents obtained by 

individuals and human rights organizations. 

The Commission issued its last report on Vietnam in May 2001. Since the BTA 

was approved in September 2001, the Commission has continued to speak out on the 

deteriorating status of religious freedom in Vietnam. A Commission delegation visited 

Vietnam in February 2002. While the delegation observed that individuals in the major 

cities seem able to worship without government obstruction, it was also clear that the 

government continued to exercise strict control over all religious groups, restricting their 

freedom to train and select their leaders, to distribute religious literature, and to engage in 

educational, social, and charitable activities. On the basis of the findings of the 

delegation, as well as other information, in September 2002 the Commission 

recommended that Vietnam be designated by the Secretary of State as a “country of 

particular concern” (CPC) for religious freedom violations under the International 

Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

Despite the fact that the Secretary did not include Vietnam in the Administration’s 

2003 CPC designations, the State Department has begun to voice publicly its concern 

about Vietnam’s human rights conditions in key areas, including religious freedom, and 

the failure of the Vietnamese government to respond to U.S. concerns. Clearly, the 

current approach of the U.S. government to advance religious freedom in Vietnam has 

failed to yield concrete results. The United States is not alone in this respect, as the 

government of Vietnam has also failed to respond to concerns raised by the European 

Parliament, and other Western governments. Therefore, the Commission recommends 

that the U.S. government intensify its leverage to hold the government of Vietnam to its 

international obligations to protect human rights, including religious freedom.

Recommendations

I. Advocate Specific Steps to Advance Religious Freedom and Reform 

the Legal Framework

1. The U.S. government should make clear to the government of Vietnam 

that ending violations of religious freedom is essential to the continued 

expansion of U.S.-Vietnam relations. In this context, the U.S. government 

should urge the Vietnamese government to:
86

1.a. halt the arrest, detention, imprisonment, and intimidating 

surveillance of persons on account of their manifestation of 

religion or belief, including members of ethnic minorities in the 

Central Highlands and the northwestern provinces; release 

individuals who are currently so restricted; 

1.b. cease practices that coerce individuals to renounce any 

religion or belief, such as detention, imprisonment, ill treatment, or 

destruction of residential and religious buildings;

1.c. cease bans on religious gatherings in ethnic minority areas, 

and permit religious groups to gather for observances of significant 

religious holidays as determined by those groups, subject only to 

such limitations as provided in international law;

1.d. guarantee the freedom to engage in religious activities 

(including the freedom for religious groups to govern themselves 

and select their leaders, worship publicly, express and advocate 

religious beliefs, distribute religious literature, and conduct 

educational, charitable, and humanitarian activities) outside the 

government and state-controlled religious organizations, and 

eliminate controls on the activities of officially registered 

organizations; 

1.e. return confiscated religious properties and cease undue 

interference with the construction of new religious buildings and 

the repair of existing ones;

1.f. permit domestic Vietnamese religious organizations and 

individuals to interact freely with foreign organizations and 

individuals;

1.g. cease the arbitrary detention of members of ethnic minorities 

who have returned to Vietnam from Cambodia;

1.h. repeal the administrative detention decree that allows for 

detention of up to two years without charge for engaging in “antistate activity”; and 

1.i. repeal the 1999 Administrative Decree on Religion and ensure 

that any new law on religion meets international standards.

2. The U.S. government should urge the Vietnamese government to 

establish a mechanism for reviewing cases of persons detained under 

suspicion of, or charged with, offenses relating to state security, “anti-state 

activities,” “slandering the government,” “disrupting the unity of the 

people,” and “causing public disorder.” This mechanism should also 
87

review cases of detained or imprisoned religious leaders, many of whom 

have been charged with specious criminal offenses.

II. Use U.S. Leverage to Encourage Vietnam to End Religious Freedom 

Violations 

3. The President should designate Vietnam as a “country of particular 

concern” in accordance with the provisions of the International Religious 

Freedom Act of 1998.

4. The U.S. Congress should pass and the President should sign the 

Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2003.

5. The United States should withhold its support for loans to Vietnam 

from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary 

Fund, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, except those 

providing for basic human needs, until the government of Vietnam agrees 

to make substantial improvements in the protection of religious freedom, 

as measured by the standards itemized in 1.a through 1.i above.

6. The U.S. government should take steps to ensure that the annual U.S.-

Vietnam human rights dialogue involves high-level officials and, along 

with consideration of other human rights, serves as a forum to: (a) 

communicate U.S. concerns about the protection of freedom of religion 

and belief in Vietnam; (b) review the requirements of international human 

rights standards regarding the right to freedom of religion and belief; and 

(c) establish measurable goals, practical steps for improvement, and 

specific timetables for implementing these steps. To facilitate these goals: 

-- the Congress should continue to require the State Department to 

report to it on any progress achieved through the dialogue, and 

-- the U.S. government should include the Commission as a formal 

participant in the dialogue.

7. In its public interventions, discussions, and other activities in 

multilateral institutions, the United States should raise prominently 

violations of religious freedom in Vietnam, particularly in the Central 

Highlands and northwestern areas of the country.

8. The U.S. government should urge the Cambodian government to abide 

by its international commitments and recognize as refugees members of 

ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands and the northwestern provinces, 

as well as other Vietnamese, who have fled that country and who meet 

international criteria.
88

III. Strengthen Monitoring and Reporting of Vietnam’s Human Rights 

Violations

9. As a part of the annual Congressional review of the Jackson-Vanik 

waiver for Vietnam, the Congress, in conjunction with the Commission, 

should review Vietnam’s human rights practices, including particularly 

severe violations of religious freedom.

10. The U.S. government should urge the Vietnamese government to 

provide U.S. and other foreign government officials, human rights and 

humanitarian groups, international organizations, and journalists regular 

and unhindered access to members of all religious communities in 

Vietnam, particularly those in the Central Highlands and the northwestern 

provinces. The international affairs and trade committees of the Congress 

should send delegations to visit the Central Highlands and the 

northwestern provinces.

IV. Support Programs to Advance Freedom of Religion in Vietnam

11. The U.S. government should take the steps necessary to overcome the 

jamming of Radio Free Asia (RFA) broadcasts and the blocking of the 

RFA Internet site in Vietnam. The U.S. government should also urge the 

Vietnamese government to allow RFA personnel into the country. 

12. The U.S. government should, through its foreign assistance and 

exchange programs, support individuals in Vietnam who advocate human 

rights, including religious freedom, the rule of law, and legal reform. It 

should also support exchanges between Vietnamese religious communities 

and U.S. religious and other non-governmental organizations concerned 

with religious freedom in Vietnam.

B. Recommendations from the Commission’s 2002-2003 Reporting Cycle

1. CHINA

Despite the Chinese government’s signature on and/or ratification of several 

international human rights treaties, and its stated adherence to the Universal Declaration 

of Human Rights, it has continued to commit severe violations of freedom of religion and 

belief and to discriminate against individuals on the basis of their religion or belief. The 

widespread and serious abuses of the right to freedom of religion and belief in China are 

documented by the State Department, this Commission, and religious and other nongovernmental organizations. In March 2003, the Secretary of State concluded for the 

fourth straight year that the Chinese government severely and systematically violates 

freedom of religion and belief, and named China as a “country of particular concern” 
89

under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. There are numerous egregious 

violations against members of many of China’s religious and spiritual communities, 

including Evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, 

and other groups, such as the Falun Gong, that the government has labeled “evil cults.”

In order to protect freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, the 

Chinese government must take effective steps in the following four critical areas. U.S. 

policy should encourage such steps and effectively respond to whether or not such steps 

are indeed taken. 

(I) Ending the Crackdown: The Chinese government should end the abusive 

practices that constitute its current crackdown on religious and spiritual groups 

throughout China. 

(II) Reforming the Repressive Legal Framework: The Chinese government 

should substantially change its system of laws, policies, and practices that govern 

religious and spiritual organizations and activities. It should establish an effective 

mechanism of accountability for alleged violations of the right to freedom of religion and 

belief and the human rights of religious believers, and for related abuses. 

(III) Affirming the Universality of Religious Freedom and China’s 

International Obligations: The Chinese government should fully respect the 

universality of the right to freedom of religion and belief along with other human rights. 

The Chinese government should also ratify the International Covenant on Civil and 

Political Rights. The U.S. government should undertake to strengthen scrutiny by 

international and U.S. bodies of China’s human rights practices and the implementation 

of its international obligations.

(IV) Fostering a Culture of Respect for Human Rights: In light of its 

international obligations to ensure and protect human rights, the Chinese government 

should take steps to initiate and foster a culture of respect for human rights in China. The 

Chinese government can be assisted and motivated in this effort through U.S. government 

action in the areas of foreign assistance, public diplomacy, securities disclosure 

requirements, business practices, as well as other avenues.

Recommendations

I. Ending the Crackdown

1. The U.S. government should urge the Chinese government to:

1.a. halt the harassment, surveillance, arrest, and detention of 

persons on account of their manifestation of religion or belief; 

1.b. end abusive practices such as detention, torture, and illtreatment in prisons, labor camps, psychiatric facilities, and other 

places of confinement against such persons;
90

1.c. cease practices that coerce individuals to renounce or 

condemn any religion or belief; 

1.d. cease discrimination against individuals on the basis of their 

religion or belief, which currently exists in the areas of government 

benefits, including education, employment, and health care; and

1.e. provide access to religious persons (including those 

imprisoned, detained, or under house arrest or surveillance) in all 

regions of China (including Tibet and Xinjiang) by foreign 

diplomats, humanitarian organizations, and international human 

rights and religious organizations, as well as the U.S. Commission 

on International Religious Freedom. 

2. The President of the United States should ensure that efforts to promote 

religious freedom in China are integrated into the mechanisms of dialogue 

and cooperation with the Chinese government at all levels, across all 

departments of the U.S. government, and on all issues, including security 

and counter-terrorism. 

3. Prior to any state visit by the respective heads of state of the United 

States and the People’s Republic of China, the President of the United 

States should obtain assurances that: (a) freedom of religion and belief 

will be included as a prominent agenda item for his discussions; and (b) he 

be given an opportunity to address the Chinese people directly by live, 

uncensored broadcast of a major speech on fundamental human rights and 

freedoms, particularly freedom of religion and belief.

4. During any state visit to China, the President of the United States 

should take further steps to promote religious freedom in his activities and 

those of the delegation. The Commission should be invited to designate 

representatives to participate in the delegation. 

5. The U.S. government should consistently raise with the Chinese 

government at the highest levels individual cases of violations of the right 

to freedom of religion and belief. 

6. The U.S. government should instruct the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and 

U.S. consulates in China to continue to monitor the status of individuals 

who are arrested or detained in violation of their human rights. 

7. In its reporting on conditions of religious freedom in China, the State 

Department should: 

7.a. articulate regional and local variations in the protection of the 

right to freedom of religion and belief; 
91

7.b. identify specific individuals and/or entities that commit 

violations of this right; and 

7.c. consider the record of provincial and local officials in 

protecting freedom of religion and belief when deciding whether to 

deepen cultural and economic cooperation between the United 

States and China. 

II. Reforming the Repressive Legal Framework

8. The U.S. government should urge the Chinese government to respect 

and fully implement the freedom of individuals and organizations to 

engage in religious activities outside of state control and free from 

government interference, in accordance with international human rights 

standards. This freedom must not be limited to the five state-sanctioned 

religious groups, but encompass all groups that are engaged in the 

manifestation of religion or belief. This freedom includes, inter alia, as 

affirmed in the international instruments to which the Chinese government 

is a party, the right: 

8.a. to worship publicly;

8.b. to express and advocate religious beliefs;

8.c. to distribute religious literature;

8.d. (for parents) to ensure the religious and moral education of 

their children in conformity with their own convictions;

8.e. (for religious groups) to govern themselves according to their 

own rules, including:

8.e.1. to select and train their leaders;

8.e.2. to define and teach the beliefs and doctrines to which 

they adhere;

8.e.3. to solicit and receive voluntary financial and other 

contributions;

8.e.4. to establish and maintain associations for religious 

and spiritual purposes; and

8.e.5. to establish freely and maintain communications 

with individuals and communities – both inside and outside 

China – in matters of religion and belief. 
92

9. The U.S. government should urge the Chinese government to establish 

a mechanism for reviewing cases of persons detained under suspicion of, 

or charged with, offenses relating to state security, disturbing social order, 

“counterrevolutionary” or “splittist” activities, or organizing or 

participating in “illegal” gatherings or religious activities. This 

mechanism should also review cases of detained or imprisoned religious 

leaders (many of whom have been charged with specious criminal 

offenses).

10. The U.S. government should urge the Chinese government to drop 

charges against, and/or to release from imprisonment, detention, house 

arrest, or surveillance persons who are so restricted on account of their 

manifestation of religion or belief, as well as any others who, in 

contravention of international human rights standards, have been detained 

or sentenced unjustly. 

11. The U.S. government should urge the Chinese government to allow 

both faith-based and secular non-governmental organizations formally to 

establish and maintain institutions to provide humanitarian and social 

services in China. 

III. Affirming the Universality of Religious Freedom and China’s 

International Obligations

12. The U.S. government should urge the Chinese government to:

12.a. reaffirm its commitment to the protection of the 

internationally recognized right to freedom of thought, conscience, 

religion, and belief; 

12.b. ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political 

Rights; and 

12.c. abide by its international commitments and recognize as 

refugees North Koreans who have fled that country and who meet 

international criteria. 

13. The U.S. government should take steps to ensure that the annual U.S.-

China human rights dialogue involves high-level officials and, along with 

consideration of other human rights, serves as a forum to: (a) 

communicate U.S. concerns about the protection of freedom of religion 

and belief in China; (b) review the requirements of international human 

rights standards regarding the right to freedom of religion and belief; and 

(c) establish measurable goals and practical steps for improvement. 

14. Until China significantly improves its protection of freedom of 
93

religion and belief, the U.S. government should propose and promote a 

resolution to censure China at the annual meeting of the UN Commission 

on Human Rights and engage in sustained efforts to enlist the support of 

other governments at the highest levels to both vote for and advocate such 

a resolution. 

15. The U.S. government, at the highest levels, should urge foreign 

governments and appropriate international entities (such as the European 

Union) to join the United States in a common policy that vigorously 

promotes freedom of religion and belief in China along with other human 

rights. The components of such a policy should include human rights 

monitoring and a dialogue with the Chinese government that incorporates 

specific benchmarks. 

16. The U.S. government should endeavor to establish an official U.S. 

government presence, such as a consulate, in Lhasa, Tibet and Urumqi, 

Xinjiang, in order to monitor religious freedom and other human rights. 

17. The U.S. Congress should continue to engage in and expand its 

ongoing review of human rights practices in China jointly with the U.S. 

Commission on International Religious Freedom. The U.S. Congress 

should also extend an invitation to the Dalai Lama to address a Joint 

Meeting of Congress. 

IV. Fostering a Culture of Respect for Human Rights

18. In its promotion of religious freedom, the U.S. government should 

resolutely oppose other human rights violations in China that are closely 

connected to violations of religious freedom. Such violations include, 

among others: torture; unlawful arrest or detention; arbitrary executions; 

absence of due process and discriminatory treatment under the criminal 

procedure code (including the lack of access to family members, human 

rights monitors, adequate medical care, and a lawyer); and violations of 

the rights of freedom of expression (including the freedom to seek, 

receive, and impart information), freedom of association, and peaceful 

assembly.

19. The U.S. government should, through its foreign assistance, visitor 

exchanges, and other public diplomacy programs, expand its efforts to 

promote and protect human rights, including freedom of religion and 

belief, in China through supporting and, as appropriate, funding:

19.a. individuals and organizations in China that are advocating 

respect for China’s international human rights obligations, 

including freedom of religion and belief;

19.b. exchanges between Chinese (including Tibetan and other 

ethnic minorities) and U.S. scholars, experts, representatives of 
94

religious communities and non-governmental organizations, and 

appropriate officials (both at the central and local levels) regarding 

the relationship between religion and the state, the role of religion 

in society, international standards relating to the right to freedom 

of religion and belief, and the importance and benefits of 

upholding human rights protection, including religious freedom; 

and

19.c. the efforts of those both inside and outside China to promote 

the rule of law, legal reform, and democracy in China. 

20. The U.S. government should seek expanded opportunities to speak 

frankly and directly to the Chinese people to express why the U.S. 

government, on behalf of the American people, is concerned with 

violations of internationally recognized human rights, including freedom 

of religion or belief. 

21. The U.S. government should prohibit U.S. companies doing business 

in China from engaging in practices that would constitute or facilitate 

violations of religious freedom or discrimination on the basis of religion or 

belief.

22. The United States should require any U.S. or foreign issuer of 

securities that is doing business in China to disclose in any registration 

statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 

for any new offering of securities the following information:

22.a. the nature and extent of the business that it and its affiliates 

are conducting, including any plan for expansion or diversification 

and any business relationship with agencies or instrumentalities of 

the Chinese government, and specifying the identity of such 

agencies or instrumentalities;

22.b. whether it plans to use the proceeds of the sale of the 

securities in connection with its business in China and, if so, how; 

and

22.c. all significant risk factors associated with doing business in 

China, including, but not limited to: political, economic, and social 

conditions inside China, including the policies and practices of the 

Chinese government with respect to religious freedom; the extent 

to which the business of the issuer and its affiliates directly or 

indirectly supports or facilitates those policies and practices; and 

the potential for and likely impact of a campaign by U.S. persons 

based on human rights concerns to prevent the purchase or 

retention of securities of the issuer, including a divestment 

campaign or shareholder lawsuit.
95

The United States should require any issuer that is doing business 

in China to disclose the information specified in items (a) and (c) 

above in its filings with the SEC, including its annual proxy 

statement or annual report, in the case of a U.S. issuer, or its U.S. 

markets annual report, in the case of a foreign issuer.

23. The U.S. government should raise the profile of the conditions of 

Uighur Muslims by addressing religious freedom and human rights 

concerns in bilateral talks, by increasing the number of educational 

opportunities in the United States available to Uighurs, and by increasing 

radio broadcasts in the Uighur language. 

2. INDONESIA

Indonesia is a country in major transition. After 40 years of authoritarian rule, a 

fledgling democratic system has yet fully to take root. The economy, imbued with 

corruption during the decades of state control, collapsed in 1997 and has yet to recover. 

Accustomed to playing a central political and economic role, the Indonesian military 

remains reluctant to accept civilian control and accountability for its actions. Certain 

policies of the previous era, particularly the transmigration program involving the mass 

movement of peoples from one island to another, resulted in the breakdown of centuries 

old political, economic, social, and religious customs, creating grievances that were 

stifled during the long rule of President Suharto. 

All of these factors combine to make Indonesia a particularly unstable country at 

the present time. Moreover, Indonesia continues to face several conflicts in which 

religion has played a central role or in which religious freedom has been affected. In the 

Moluccan Islands, brutal sectarian fighting between Muslims and Christians erupted in 

May 1999, resulting in the deaths of approximately 9,000 people. On the island of 

Sulawesi, fighting between Christians and Muslims that has occurred intermittently since 

1998 threatened to develop into a full-scale massacre after members of a militant Muslim 

group known as Laskar Jihad entered the island in July 2001. In the case of the 

Moluccas, government neglect of the conflict prolonged the sectarian violence and 

allowed unimpeded the entry into the islands of such groups as Laskar Jihad, raising the 

level of violence and killing. In Sulawesi, swifter government action to stop the 

aggression of militant groups managed to prevent a serious escalation of fighting. Peace 

accords have since been signed in both regions: in Sulawesi in December 2001 and in the 

Moluccas in February 2002. However, particularly in the Moluccas, concerns about the 

durability of the agreement remain. 

The Commission continues to be concerned about religious freedom and religionbased violence in Indonesia. The Commission’s May 2001 annual report included a 

chapter on Indonesia that focused and made several recommendations on the conflict in 

the Moluccas. Since the last report, the Commission has met with numerous religious 

and other human rights delegations from Indonesia, representing views across the 
96

religious spectrum, as well as American scholars, representatives of human rights 

organizations, and other experts on the country. In November 2001, the Commission held 

a hearing on “Religious Freedom and the Campaign Against Terrorism,” at which the 

Commissioners examined conditions for religious freedom in Indonesia.

The following Commission recommendations incorporate, enhance, or modify the 

recommendations in the May 2001 report.

Recommendations 

1. The U.S. government should continue to press the government of 

Indonesia to fully disarm all outside militia forces such as Laskar Jihad on 

the Moluccas and Sulawesi. The U.S. government should also press 

Indonesia to hold the leaders and members of these groups accountable for 

the violence perpetrated by them. 

2. The U.S. government should strongly encourage the Indonesian 

government to maintain scrupulously neutral and professional troops in 

the Moluccas and Sulawesi until reconciliation efforts have taken root and 

rule of law established to such an extent that refugees are able to return 

safely. Moreover, rogue elements in the Indonesian security forces, 

particularly those that have taken sides in the sectarian conflicts, must be 

brought under control. Similarly, special efforts should be made to 

establish justice in both regions, including by holding the perpetrators of 

violence, whether Christian or Muslim, accountable for their actions.

3. The U.S. government should commend the government of Indonesia 

for calling for religious tolerance in its reconciliation efforts that led to the 

signing of peace agreements in both the Moluccas and Sulawesi. The U.S. 

government should put sustained pressure on the Indonesian government 

to deepen the reconciliation work already begun and should provide 

technical assistance for these efforts. Such efforts should pay particular 

attention to the establishment of an effective system of registering and 

investigating complaints about human rights abuses. 

4. The U.S. government should continue to support the reconciliation and 

reconstruction efforts of indigenous or international non-governmental 

organizations in the Moluccas and Sulawesi. This should include 

increased funding for such efforts through support for the U.S. 

government’s democracy and good-governance programs, interreligious 

programs in educational institutions, and other programs in Indonesia. 

This should include working with respected Indonesian human rights 

lawyers and academics to devise an emergency program for restoring the 

rule of law in Indonesia, especially in regions that have experienced 

sectarian violence or where there is the threat that such violence could 

break out. Within its assistance program to Indonesia, the U.S. 
97

government should continue to earmark assistance specifically for both 

Christian and Muslim victims and refugees of the conflicts. 

5. The U.S. government should monitor the implementation of Sharia in 

Aceh to determine if individual rights and freedoms, including religious 

freedom, as outlined in international documents, are being guaranteed. If 

it becomes apparent that such rights, including religious freedom, are 

being violated, the U.S. government should press the Indonesian 

government to oppose its implementation in Aceh and elsewhere in the 

country.

6. The U.S. government should ensure that, if resumed, U.S.-Indonesian 

military ties be directed toward reform of the Indonesian military, 

including accepting civilian control, upholding international human rights 

standards, and holding members accountable for abuses. 

7. The U.S. government should earmark funds for the training of 

Indonesian police and prosecutors in human rights, rule of law, and crime 

investigation.

8. The U.S. government should continue to support programs in Indonesia, 

particularly in the regions that have experienced sectarian violence, that 

promote objective, unbiased, and non-inflammatory reporting. Such 

efforts should be consistent with Indonesia’s obligations to protect the 

right of freedom of expression.

9. The U.S. government should urge the government of Indonesia to 

amend the 1969 Ministerial Decree that restricts the building of houses of 

worship and impedes the use of private homes for worship purposes. The 

U.S. government should offer technical assistance in amending this 

legislation in order to bring it into conformity with international standards.

3. DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA (NORTH KOREA)

The people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea or 

DPRK) are perhaps the least free on earth, barely surviving under a totalitarian regime 

that denies basic human dignity and lets them starve while pursuing military might and 

weapons of mass destruction. By all accounts, there are no personal freedoms of any 

kind in North Korea, and no protection for human rights. Religious freedom does not 

exist, and what little religious activity that is permitted by the government is apparently 

staged for foreign visitors. 

North Korea is also a humanitarian disaster of unimaginable proportions. Failed 

economic policies and natural disasters have reportedly left 1 million or more North 

Koreans dead from starvation and disease in the last 10 years, and there may be countless 
98

millions more, particularly children, who are stunted in both their mental and physical 

growth. As awful as the physical toll has been, the deprivation of the human spirit must 

be even greater. Just how bad the situation is in North Korea is not known, as the ruling 

regime maintains strict control over communication media and the flow of information 

into and out of the country. 

The following recommendations are the result of the Commission’s extensive 

attention to the situation in North Korea, including through the holding of a public 

hearing in January 2002. The recommendations are grouped together according to three 

essential areas of focus. The first group of recommendations looks to initiatives on the 

part of various branches of the U.S. government to develop and/or support American and 

international efforts against human rights violations in North Korea. The second group 

addresses the issue of North Korean refugees, particularly those who have fled to China. 

Finally, the third group of recommendations focuses on the ways in which human rights 

in North Korea can be advanced through official contacts between the U.S. and North 

Korean governments.

Recommendations

I. International Initiative Against Human Rights Abuses in North 

Korea

1. The U.S. Congress should fund an objective and comprehensive study 

of human rights conditions in North Korea by a non-governmental source.

2. The State Department should expand both its capability to obtain 

information and reporting on human rights violations in North Korea.

3. The President should continue to speak out personally on the

humanitarian situation in North Korea and the lack of freedom and 

protection of human rights there. 

4. The U.S. Congress should establish a congressional caucus to focus on 

human rights in North Korea.

5. The U.S. Congress should expand its funding for (a) organizations 

advocating the protection of human rights in North Korea and (b) 

activities that raise the awareness of human rights conditions in that 

country. 

6. The U.S. government should develop and support ways to provide 

information to the people of North Korea, particularly on religious 

freedom and other human rights issues. This includes expanding or 

developing:

-- broadcasts that target a North Korean audience by the Voice of 

America and Radio Free Asia; and 
99

-- channels of people-to-people exchange and other forms of 

contact with North Koreans.

7. The U.S. government should use multilateral diplomacy to advance the 

protection of human rights in North Korea. This should include: 

7.a. raising human rights violations in North Korea in appropriate 

international fora, and encouraging others to do so as well. The 

United States should sponsor a resolution at the United Nations 

condemning religious freedom and other related human rights 

violations in North Korea and calling for the appointment of a UN 

special rapporteur to investigate the situation in North Korea. 

7.b. urging the Republic of Korea and Japan, as part of the 

trilateral coordination among the United States and those two 

countries, to press for improvements on religious freedom and 

other human rights in their talks with the DPRK.

7.c. urging the European Union to include religious freedom 

concerns as part of its human rights discussions with the North 

Korean government. 

II. Protecting North Korean Refugees and Advancing Human Rights

8. The U.S. government should urge China, Russia, and other members of 

the international community to grant refugee status to North Koreans. 

9. The U.S. government should urge the Chinese government to allow 

South Korean and international non-governmental organizations greater 

access to northern China and greater capacity to serve the needs of North 

Korean refugees.

III. Advancing Human Rights Through Official Contacts

10. Although the U.S. government has very limited contacts with the 

North Korean government at the present time, it should use what contacts 

it does have to advance an agenda that includes the provision of 

humanitarian assistance, the protection of human rights, including the 

freedom of religion and belief, and the reuniting of Korean Americans 

with their family members in the DPRK.

10.a. In any discussions regarding humanitarian assistance, the U.S. 

government should urge the North Korean government to allow 

considerable expansion of both the amount of assistance and the number 

of providers, which should include non-governmental organizations.

10.b. With all humanitarian assistance to North Korea, the U.S. 

government should work to ensure that the delivery of such aid is 
100

adequately monitored. Monitors should be able to read, speak, and 

understand the Korean language. The U.S. should ensure that delivery of 

U.S. and other foreign aid is not misrepresented by the North Korean 

government through false claims that the aid is being provided by that 

government.

11. The U.S. government should work with the international community 

to urge the North Korean government to permit monitoring of human 

rights conditions by UN human rights mechanisms, and to lift restrictions 

on the freedom of movement by foreign diplomats, independent 

journalists, and others. 

12. The U.S. government should work with the international community 

to urge the North Korean government to address the concerns and 

implement the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee as a 

result of the Committee’s recent review of North Korea’s compliance with 

the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

13. The U.S. government should ensure that any permanent peace treaty 

between the parties to the Korean War includes provisions on religious 

freedom and non-discrimination in the treatment of religious minorities.

4. SUDAN

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in its reports for the 

last three years, found the government of Sudan to be the world’s most violent abuser of 

the right to freedom of religion and belief. The Commission also found that religion is a 

major factor in Sudan’s ongoing civil war between Sudan’s largely Arab and Muslim 

north and African and non-Muslim south, and that religious persecution by the Khartoum 

regime is intertwined with other human rights and humanitarian violations, including 

aerial bombardment of civilians and of humanitarian facilities, deliberate denial of 

humanitarian assistance, abduction of women and children into conditions of slavery, and 

the forcible displacement of populations from oil-producing areas.

Over the past three years, the Commission has made a series of recommendations 

regarding U.S. policy toward Sudan, several of which have been adopted. President Bush 

prominently raised the situation in Sudan in a major address in May 2001. The President 

appointed former Senator John Danforth as Special Envoy for Sudan in September 2001. 

The Administration has also taken several steps to alleviate the humanitarian crisis of the 

Sudanese people, including designation of U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID) Administrator Andrew Natsios as Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan 

and several reforms undertaken by USAID. All of these efforts implement directly or 

indirectly prior recommendations of this Commission.

The U.S. government should build upon the Danforth Mission and take a central 

role in seeking a just and lasting peace in Sudan. The Commission urges implementation 
101

of its additional recommendations, particularly those directed toward ending the civil 

war. 

Recommendations

1. The U.S. government should urge the government of Sudan to abide by 

its international obligations to protect and ensure the right to freedom of 

religion. Specifically, the U.S. government should urge the government of 

Sudan to:

1.a. unequivocally affirm that Sharia-based criminal code 

provisions do not apply to Sudan’s southern states or to nonMuslims throughout Sudan and re-affirm its commitment to 

Section 3.4 of the Declaration of Principles of the 

Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD); 

1.b. allow all religious groups to conduct their activities freely 

without interference or burdensome regulation by the state, 

including the selection and training of religious leaders, the content 

of sermons, and the distribution of religious literature, subject only 

to restrictions provided for by international standards; 

1.c. ensure that all religious groups are free to build, repair, and 

operate houses of worship and social service ministries without 

delay or harassment, subject to land-use regulations that are 

applicable to all, regardless of religion; 

1.d. ensure the protection of religious properties, return 

confiscated religious properties, and compensate religious groups 

for demolished or damaged properties; and 

1.e. repeal any laws that punish changing one’s faith or 

encouraging another to do so (e.g., Article 126 of the Sudan Penal 

Code), and release any persons convicted of or detained on account 

of any such law.

2. The U.S. government’s diplomatic effort in Sudan should have as its 

major goal encouraging the government of Sudan, including all its allied 

militia, to enter into a comprehensive and conditioned cease-fire with the 

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the National 

Democratic Alliance (NDA) that would apply to all areas of the country 

and be subject to monitoring by international observers.

The U.S. government should urge the government of Sudan, as an 

essential condition of the ceasefire, to agree either to cease the extraction 

of oil in the country, or to place its oil revenues in an internationally-
102

administered trust fund to be expended solely for development and 

humanitarian purposes on an equitable basis in both the north and the 

south. 

3. The U.S. government should strengthen economic sanctions against 

Sudan and should urge other countries to adopt similar policies. 

Specifically, the United States should:

3.a. require companies doing business in Sudan to disclose the 

nature and extent of that business in connection with their access to 

U.S. capital markets, 

3.b. prohibit any foreign company from raising capital or listing 

its securities in U.S. markets as long as it is engaged in the 

development of oil and gas fields in Sudan, and 

3.c. deny licenses for the importation of gum arabic from Sudan to 

the United States. 

...

4. The U.S. government should urge the government of Sudan to 

demonstrate a good-faith commitment to and participation in 

internationally-recognized and -monitored peace talks based upon the 

Declaration of Principles developed under the auspices of the 

Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and previously 

agreed to by the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation 

Movement/Army.

The re-establishment of full diplomatic relations with Sudan or the 

opening of a USAID mission in Khartoum should be conditional upon the 

government of Sudan demonstrating a fundamental change in its policies. 

5. In fostering such peace talks, the U.S. government should work to 

ensure the inclusion of Sudan’s civil society, including its various political 

parties and religious leaders from the north and the south.

6. The U.S. government should urge all parties to the conflict to include as 

an element of the peace settlement a full accounting for crimes against 

humanity, such as the systematic aerial bombardment of civilians. 

Moreover, the parties to the conflict should undertake efforts now to 

investigate reports of war crimes and other human rights abuses and to 

prosecute those individuals responsible. 

7. The U.S. government should continue to increase the amount of its 

humanitarian assistance that passes outside of the UN humanitarian relief 

mission, Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), and should press OLS to deliver 
103

aid wherever it is needed, especially to the Nuba Mountains, with or 

without the approval of the Sudanese government. 

8. The U.S. government should increase its non-lethal assistance to 

southern Sudan and to the National Democratic Alliance. As provided for 

by law, this assistance should include, but not be limited to, 

“communications equipment to notify civilians of aerial bombardment.”

9. The U.S. government should work to increase human rights and media 

reporting on abuses in Sudan, including supporting, diplomatically and 

financially, the placement of human rights monitors in southern Sudan and 

in surrounding countries where refugee populations are present. 

10. The U.S. government should further promote grassroots reconciliation 

among Sudanese as an essential building block toward a lasting peace 

settlement in Sudan. 

5. TURKMENISTAN

Turkmenistan can be described as one of the most totalitarian states in the world 

today. Human rights are severely curtailed by the highly authoritarian government of 

President Saparmurad Niyazov, who rules Turkmenistan by means of an extensive cult of 

personality. Criticism of Niyazov or the government is not tolerated and there is no legal 

organized opposition. Major opposition figures have been imprisoned, institutionalized, 

deported, or have fled the country, and their family members are routinely harassed by 

the authorities. As the government completely controls all media, there is no press 

freedom and foreign media is not permitted. No independent, politically-active nongovernmental organizations exist.

Conditions for religious freedom in Turkmenistan are extremely poor. Only two 

religions, Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodoxy, are officially recognized, and even these 

two are highly restricted by the state. The government tolerates only those Muslim 

religious teachers and believers who accept and fully cooperate with state authority. 

Similar to its control over the Islamic clergy, the Turkmen government’s Council for 

Religious Affairs exercises direct control over the hiring, promotion, and firing of the 

Russian Orthodox Clergy. Other religions are effectively prohibited from operating 

freely. Members of minority religious groups have reportedly been arrested, detained 

(with allegations of torture and other ill-treatment), imprisoned, deported, harassed, fined, 

and have had their services disrupted, congregations dispersed, religious literature 

confiscated, and places of worship destroyed.

The Commission has broadly studied the situation in Turkmenistan. It has held a 

number of private briefings with academics, former diplomats, and other experts on 

Central Asia and Turkmenistan, and conducted personal interviews with representatives 

of human rights organizations and victimized groups. In view of the ongoing, egregious, 

and systematic violations of religious freedom in Turkmenistan, in 2000 and 2001, the 
104

Commission called on the U.S. Department of State to name Turkmenistan a country of 

particular concern, or CPC, pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act. 

However, in both years, the State Department declined to designate Turkmenistan a CPC. 

Recommendations

1. The U.S. government should designate Turkmenistan as a country of 

particular concern for particularly severe violations of religious freedom 

pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

2. The U.S. government should immediately suspend all nonhumanitarian assistance to the government of Turkmenistan, with the 

exception of programs that serve specifically identifiable U.S. national 

security interests in connection with the current campaign against 

terrorism. This recommendation does not apply to U.S. assistance to 

appropriate non-governmental organizations, private persons, or cultural 

or educational exchanges. 

3. The U.S. government should scrutinize all aspects of any remaining 

assistance programs in Turkmenistan to ensure that these programs do not 

facilitate Turkmen government policies or practices that result in religious 

freedom violations. The United States should also examine its programs 

in Turkmenistan to determine if opportunities exist within those programs 

to promote the development of genuine respect for human rights, 

including religious freedom, in that country. 

4. The U.S. government should support efforts to facilitate 

Turkmenistan’s sale of natural gas on world markets, including support for 

the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline, only if the Turkmen government takes 

definitive steps to improve substantially conditions for religious freedom 

in Turkmenistan.

5. The U.S. government should identify specific steps that the government 

of Turkmenistan could take in order to have its currently suspended 

assistance reinstated and to avoid triggering further restrictions on 

assistance programs. These steps should reflect a substantial improvement 

in the protection of religious freedom and should include, but not be 

limited to, the lifting of oppressive legal requirements on religious groups 

and allowing all such groups to organize and operate freely, the end to 

harassment and deportation of religious leaders, and the halting of unjust 

arrest, detention, imprisonment, torture, and residential and workplace 

intimidation of religious leaders and their adherents (including releasing 

those currently in detention or imprisoned).

6. The U.S. government should press forcefully its concern about 

religious freedom violations in Turkmenistan, consistent with the 

Turkmen government’s obligations to promote respect for and observance 
105

of all human rights. The U.S. government should vigorously press the 

government of Turkmenistan: (a) to release immediately and 

unconditionally any persons who have been detained solely because of 

their religious beliefs, practices, or choice of religious association; (b) to 

ensure that all people in Turkmenistan are able to exercise their right to 

religious freedom without threat of harassment, detention, imprisonment, 

or torture; and (c) to permit all religious groups to organize and worship 

freely.

7. State visits between the United States and Turkmenistan should be 

suspended until such time as religious freedom conditions in the country 

have improved significantly.

8. The U.S. government should also encourage scrutiny of religious 

freedom violations in Turkmenistan in appropriate international fora such 

as the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe and other 

multilateral venues. The U.S. government should also raise the issue of 

religious freedom violations in Turkmenistan at those United Nations 

bodies that consider human rights questions, including the Commission on 

Human Rights. The United States should sponsor a resolution at the 

United Nations condemning religious freedom and other related human 

rights violations in Turkmenistan, and creating a UN special rapporteur to 

investigate the situation in Turkmenistan.

6. UZBEKISTAN

The conditions for religious freedom are very poor in Uzbekistan. In addition to a 

highly restrictive law on religion that severely limits the ability of minority religions to 

function, the Uzbek government in recent years has been harshly cracking down on 

Muslim individuals, groups, and mosques that do not conform to government-prescribed 

ideas on how the Islamic faith should be practiced and expressed. This crackdown has 

resulted in the arrests of thousands of persons and there are credible reports that many 

have been and continue to be tortured in detention, torture that in some cases has led to 

the death of those detained. While the government of Uzbekistan does face threats to its 

security from certain religious groups that have used violence against it, the 

government’s mass arrests of religious believers and reports of torture nevertheless 

suggest that gravely troubling religious freedom violations are occurring in that country. 

The Commission has widely studied the situation for religious freedom in 

Uzbekistan. It held numerous private briefings with scholars, former diplomats, and 

other experts on Uzbekistan, and conducted personal interviews with representatives of 

American and international human rights organizations, a religious organization that 

visited Uzbekistan, and with human rights activists from Uzbekistan. In addition, the 

Commission met several times with Uzbekistan’s ambassador to the United States. In 

November 2001, the Commission held a hearing on “Religious Freedom and the 
106

Campaign Against Terrorism,” at which Commissioners examined conditions for 

religious freedom in the Central Asian countries.

Recommendations

1. The U.S. government should continue to press forcefully its concern 

about religious freedom violations in Uzbekistan, consistent with the 

Uzbek government’s obligations to promote respect for and observance of 

human rights. The U.S. government should also encourage scrutiny of 

these concerns in appropriate international fora such as the Organization 

on Security and Cooperation in Europe and other multilateral venues.

2. The U.S. government should press the Uzbek government to cease its 

abuse of those articles in its criminal code, including Articles 159 and 216, 

that impinge on religious freedom. 

3. The U.S. government should strongly encourage the Uzbek 

government to establish a mechanism to review the cases of persons 

detained under suspicion of or charged with religious, political, or security 

offenses and to release those who have been imprisoned solely because of 

their religious beliefs, practices, or choice of religious association, as well 

as any others who have been unjustly detained or sentenced. 

4. The U.S. government should instruct the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent to 

continue to every extent possible its policy of carefully monitoring the 

status of individuals who are arrested for alleged religious, political, and 

security offenses.

 5. While recognizing the Uzbek government’s duty to protect its people 

from violence and terrorism from whatever source, the U.S. government 

should press the government of Uzbekistan to discontinue its practice of 

excessively regulating the free practice of religion in Uzbekistan, 

including the oppressive regulation of the Islamic clergy and the use of 

registration requirements to prevent minority religious groups from 

practicing their faith. 

6. The U.S. government should press the Uzbek government to adhere to 

its international commitments to abide fully by the rule of law and to 

protect human rights ensuring due process of law to all.

7. The U.S. government should press the Uzbek government to ensure 

that every religious prisoner has access to his or her family, human rights 

monitors, adequate medical care, and a lawyer, as specified in 

international human rights instruments, including Article 14 of the 

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In addition, the U.S. 

government should press the Uzbek government to ensure that all 

prisoners are allowed to practice their religion while in detention, to the 

fullest extent compatible with the specific nature of their detention.
107

8. All U.S. assistance to the Uzbek government, with the exception of 

assistance to improve humanitarian conditions and advance human rights, 

should be made contingent upon that government’s taking a number of 

concrete steps to improve conditions for religious freedom for all 

individuals and religious groups in Uzbekistan. These steps should 

include:

8.a. releasing persons imprisoned solely because of their religious 

beliefs, practices, or choice of religious association, following the 

review mechanism as described in Recommendation 3;

8.b. ending torture;

8.c. halting the arrest and detention of persons because of their 

religious beliefs, practices, or choice of religious association; and

8.d. refraining from using registration requirements to prevent 

religious groups from practicing their faith.

The state should also relinquish at least some control over the Islamic 

clergy and believers. In addition, U.S. security and other forms of 

assistance should be carefully scrutinized to ensure that these programs do 

not facilitate Uzbek government policies that result in religious freedom 

violations.

9. The U.S. government should continue to develop assistance programs 

for Uzbekistan designed to encourage the creation of institutions of civil 

society that protect human rights and promote religious freedom. This 

assistance 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. 

10. The U.S. government should retain the reinstated Uzbek language 

program at the Voice of America (VOA), and should use VOA and other 

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 religious freedom in their 

country. In addition, the U.S. government should continue its practice of 

encouraging exchanges between the people of Uzbekistan and the United 

States, paying attention to opportunities to include human rights advocates 

and religious figures in those programs.
108

APPENDIX 1: BIOGRAPHIES OF MEMBERS U.S. COMMISSION ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Felice D. Gaer is the Commission's current Chair. Ms. Gaer served on the 

Commission’s Executive Committee from September 2001 to June 2002. She is the 

Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of the 

American Jewish Committee. She is a member of the Committee Against Torture, a 10-

person United Nations expert body that reviews reports by governments on their 

compliance with the Convention Against Torture, a treaty ratified by over 130 countries. 

Nominated by the United States and elected in 1999, she is the first American to serve on 

the Committee. Ms. Gaer was appointed as a public member of nine U.S. delegations to 

UN human rights negotiations between 1993 and 1999, including the UN Commission on 

Human Rights, the World Conference on Women, and the World Conference on Human 

Rights. She is also a member of the steering committee of Human Rights Watch/Eurasia, 

and Ms. Gaer is a frequent author on international human rights topics. In 1995, she was 

awarded the Alumnae Achievement Award from Wellesley College and is a member of 

the International Human Rights Council of the Carter Center.

Michael K. Young is the Commission's current Vice Chair. He served as the 

Commission's Chair from September 2001 to June 2002 and as its Vice Chair from June 

1999 to June 2000. Dean Young joined the George Washington University Law School 

in the summer of 1998. Prior to that, he was the Fuyo Professor of Japanese Law and 

Legal Institutions at the Columbia University School of Law. At Columbia, he also 

served as Director of the Center for Japanese Legal Studies, the Center for Korean Legal 

Studies, and the Project on Religion, Rights and Religious Freedom. Dean Young has 

been a Visiting Professor and Scholar at the Law Faculties of the University of Tokyo, 

Waseda University and Nihon University. He has also been a Japan Foundation Fellow 

at Columbia University. During the Administration of President George H. W. Bush, he 

served as Ambassador for Trade and Environmental Affairs, Deputy Under Secretary for 

Economic and Agricultural Affairs, and Deputy Legal Advisor to the U.S. Department of 

State. He currently serves as a member of the Brown v. Board of Education 50th

Anniversary Commission and the Trade and Environmental Policy Committee, Office of 

the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President.

The Honorable Charles R. Stith is the Director of the African Presidential Archives and 

Research Center at Boston University. Reverend Stith served on the Commission’s 

Executive Committee from September 2001 to June 2002. He also served as the United 

States Ambassador to Tanzania from September 1998 to January 2001. He is founder of 

the Organization for a New Equality, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding 

economic opportunity for people historically excluded from the economic mainstream, 

serving as president from 1985-1998. Ambassador Stith was a member of President 

Clinton’s official delegation to monitor the South African election in 1994.

Firuz Kazemzadeh, of Alta Loma, California, is the Senior Advisor for the National 

Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States. He served as the Commission’s 

Vice-Chairman from May 2000 to May 2001. As the American Baha'i community's 

principal spokesman on external-affairs issues, Dr. Kazemzadeh testified frequently 
109

before the House International Relations and Senate Foreign Relations Committees on 

the religious repression of Baha'is abroad. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Yale 

University, having taught Russian history there from 1956 until his retirement in 1992. 

During his tenure at Yale, Dr. Kazemzadeh also served variously as Director of Graduate 

Studies in Russian and Eastern European Studies, Chair of the Committee on Middle 

Eastern Studies, Director of Graduate Studies in History, and Master of Davenport 

College. He is the author of The Struggle for Transcaucasia:1917-1921 and Russia and 

Britain in Persia:1864-1914 as well as co-author of several other books and author of 

many articles on the history and foreign relations of Russia, Central Asia and the Middle 

East. Kazemzadeh has been visiting professor at Stanford University, Harvard 

University, Columbia University, and the University of Southern California Law School. 

He has lectured at the University of Humanities in Moscow and the Institute of Oriental 

Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.

Richard D. Land is President-Treasurer of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, 

the Southern Baptist Convention's agency for "applied Christianity" (social, moral and 

religious liberty concerns). Dr. Land has served in this position since his election in 

October 1988. Prior to becoming The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission's 

President, Dr. Land served as The Criswell College's Vice-President for Academic 

Affairs from 1980 to 1988. He had taught as Professor of Theology and Church History 

at that institution since 1975. Dr. Land graduated with the Bachelor of Arts degree 

(magna cum laude) from Princeton University and with the Doctor of Philosophy degree 

from Oxford University in England. He also received a Master of Theology degree from 

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

The Most Reverend Bishop William F. Murphy is the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese 

of Rockville Centre, New York. Prior to this position, Bishop Murphy was the Vicar 

General and Moderator of the Curia for the Archdiocese of Boston for eight years. He 

served as the Director of the Office of Social Justice and the Secretary of Community 

Relations for the Archdiocese of Boston from 1987 to 1993, and during these years also 

served as a director on numerous boards. In 1974 he was named to the Pontifical 

Commission Justitia et Pax in Vatican City, serving as Under Secretary from 1980 until 

his return to the Boston Archdiocese in 1987. Since 1996 Bishop Murphy has been 

serving in several positions with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the 

United States Catholic Conference, as well as the Board of Trustees of Catholic 

University of America. Bishop Murphy is a graduate of St. John's Seminary and the 

Pontifical Gregorian University.

Leila Nadya Sadat is a Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law. 

Professor Sadat is one of the country's leading experts in international and comparative 

law. She joined the Washington University School of Law in 1992, after practicing law 

for several years in Paris, France. In addition to her teaching at Washington University, 

Professor Sadat has taught abroad in France, Ireland, Italy, and Greece. She is the author 

of more than three-dozen publications in English and French dealing with topics in 

international criminal law, comparative law, human rights and the European Union. She 

is the author of The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of 
110

International Law: Justice for the New Millennium. She is a graduate of Douglass 

College, Tulane Law School, Columbia Law School and the University of Paris I –

Sorbonne. 

Nina Shea is the Director of the Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House in 

Washington, D.C. She has been an international human rights lawyer for 25 years and 

has for 18 years focused specifically on the issue of religious persecution. Before her 

appointment to this Commission, on which she has served from the beginning, Ms. Shea 

served on the Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom to the U.S. Secretary of State. 

Ms. Shea has organized and sponsored numerous fact-finding missions to Sudan, China, 

Egypt, and elsewhere and has testified regularly before Congress on the governments of 

these countries. She is the author of In the Lion’s Den, a book on anti-Christian 

persecution around the world. She was appointed as a public delegate on the U.S. 

delegation to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2001.

The Honorable Shirin Tahir-Kheli, while serving on the Commission, was a Research 

Professor and founding Director of the South Asia Program of the Foreign Policy 

Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 

Washington, D.C. Ambassador Tahir-Kheli was appointed Alternate United States 

Representative to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs (1990-1993), a post that 

carries the rank of Ambassador. She served as Director of Near East and South Asian 

Affairs (1986-1989) and Director of Political Military Affairs (1984-1986) for the 

National Security Council. From 1982 to 1984, Ambassador Tahir-Kheli was a member 

of the Policy Planning Staff in the office of the Secretary of State. She has also served on 

the Presidential Commission on the Public Service. Ambassador Tahir-Kheli resigned 

from the Commission when she was appointed Special Assistant to the President and 

Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations in March 

2003.
111

APPENDIX 2: THE INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT OF 19981

SELECTED PROVISIONS

Section 3. DEFINITIONS (22 U.S.C. § 6402)

(11) PARTICULARLY SEVERE VIOLATIONS OF RELIGIOUS 

FREEDOM.—The term ``particularly severe violations of religious freedom'' means 

systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom, including violations such 

as—

(A) torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment;

(B) prolonged detention without charges;

(C) causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction or clandestine 

detention of those persons; or

(D) other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of 

persons. 

(13) VIOLATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.—The term ``violations of 

religious freedom'' means violations of the internationally recognized right to freedom of 

religion and religious belief and practice, as set forth in the international instruments 

referred to in section 2(a)(2) and as described in section 2(a)(3), including violations such 

as—

(A) arbitrary prohibitions on, restrictions of, or punishment for—

(i) assembling for peaceful religious activities such as worship, preaching, and 

prayer, including arbitrary registration requirements;

(ii) speaking freely about one's religious beliefs;

(iii) changing one's religious beliefs and affiliation;

(iv) possession and distribution of religious literature, including Bibles; or

(v) raising one's children in the religious teachings and practices of one's choice; 

or

(B) any of the following acts if committed on account of an individual's religious 

belief or practice: detention, interrogation, imposition of an onerous financial penalty, 

forced labor, forced mass resettlement, imprisonment, forced religious conversion, 

beating, torture, mutilation, rape, enslavement, murder, and execution. 
112

Section 402. PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONS IN RESPONSE TO PARTICULARLY 

SEVERE VIOLATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM (22 U.S.C. § 6442)

(b) DESIGNATIONS OF COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN FOR 

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.—

(1) ANNUAL REVIEW.—

(A) IN GENERAL.— Not later than September 1 of each year, the President shall 

review the status of religious freedom in each foreign country to determine whether the 

government of that country has engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of 

religious freedom in that country during the preceding 12 months or since the date of the 

last review of that country under this subparagraph, whichever period is longer. The 

President shall designate each country the government of which has engaged in or 

tolerated violations described in this subparagraph as a country of particular concern for 

religious freedom. 

 

1

 P.L. 105-292, as amended by P.L. 106-55 and P.L. 107-228, 22 U.S.C. § 6401, et seq. 

The full text of the Act can be found on the Commission’s Web site, www.uscirf.gov.