U.S. Government Not Fully Supporting Freedom of Religion, Says Commission

WASHINGTON, D.C.—U.S. foreign policy does not reflect the central importance of religious freedom, according to members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

“You cannot do statecraft without understanding the importance of religion,” said Dr. Don Argue, a Commissioner of USCIRF at an April 29 press conference. He noted the importance that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave to religious freedom late in her tenure.

“Neither prior Democratic and Republican administrations, nor the current administration, have been sufficiently engaged in promoting freedom of religion or belief abroad,” said the 373-page 2010 Annual Report, released at the news conference.

The Obama administration was rebuked for allowing the position of ambassador-at-large on International Religious Freedom to go unfilled for over a year.

Leonard A. Leo, chairman of USCIRF, expressed concern that President Obama was backing away from the full endorsement of freedom of religion he so eloquently defended in his Cairo speech last June. References to “freedom of religion” have become rare, often replaced with “freedom to worship,” said Mr. Leo. “Freedom to worship” is only one aspect of “freedom of religion,” which includes freedom of belief, thought, and conscience. This subtle shift in rhetoric may be deliberate, said Leo. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton also referred to “freedom of worship” in her Dec. 14 speech on human rights at Georgetown University, noted Mr. Leo.

Crimes of impunity

The Annual Report focused on 28 countries with the worst religious rights abuses. Many foreign governments were described as preventing minority religious groups from freely practicing their religion, or discriminating against them, such as not allowing a group a permit to build a church.

This year, however, USCIRF highlighted the sectarian, religiously motivated, violence that private groups inflict on others. The commission condemned the impunity in many countries. Government stands aside and permits or abets sectarian violence. The lack of accountability for these acts of violence encourages its repetition.

The commission singled out Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Eritrea, India, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan for the state’s failure to punish religiously motivated violence.

Nigeria is a case in point. The commission visited Nigeria three times in the past year to try to understand how a nation can be engulfed in waves of sectarian violence. For over a decade, Muslims and Christians have been killing each other with impunity. The latest incident was early this year in a Christian village near Jos, where 500 men, women, and children were hacked to death with machetes and dumped into wells, according to the report. No one was convicted or punished for this incident or any other sectarian violence in the last 10 years. The Nigerian government is unable or unwilling to protect either group, and over 12,000 deaths—1,000 since January—have resulted. Many more people have been displaced.

Dr. Argue said that when the commission was in Nigeria a few weeks ago, the persecution in the Jos area was “horrible, horrible. Women and children were murdered in their beds, beheaded, and we got a series of photos of the remains. … They were targeted because of their religious work.”