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Introduction Participants Contents
V. Religious Persecution and U.S. Foreign Policy Lee Boothby: The presentation that Willy Fautré made gives me some great concern. I have been pleased with what I believe to be the concern of the U.S. government with reference to certain countries in Western Europe establishing anti-cult or anti-sect organizations. What concerns me is the fact that some European countries seem to lump groups together under the terminology of "sect" without any empirical evidence. For instance, in France, 173 groups have been listed as sects and in Belgium 189 religious groups have been officially listed as sects. Once you are placed on that list, if you are a member of that organization, you many times lose your employment. It’s very difficult to function within the society. The churches themselves sometimes have great difficulty also. One of the problems that I’ve observed is the fact that there is a domino effect that takes place. Once a Western government attempts to set up these kinds of organizations, they are emulated in central Europe, in eastern Europe, and in Russia. And when you attempt to criticize it, they point to the Western governments and say, "Well, they are doing it, so obviously it does not violate international human rights standards." And in those countries of eastern Europe and central Europe, many times those individuals that would function in the capacity of investigating what sects or cults are doing have a communistic background or anti-religious background and, therefore, bring to their investigation an anti-religious attitude. I was interested at the last meeting of the OSCE in Vienna as the French ambassador attempted to defend the position of the French government with reference to cults and sects operating within France. I was somewhat amused to have him explain that there shouldn’t be any problem at all because sects are those organizations that have "violated the law." I’m wondering how many of the 173 religious groups that have been identified in France have ever been charged with violating the law. One of the problems, of course, is that they take a look at a religious group such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and they decide that they are not an acceptable group, not because they have stolen from anyone, not because they have defrauded anyone, but simply because they are out of step. They do not salute the flag, they will not participate in military service and, therefore, the government views them as bringing an anti-national viewpoint to the table. One of the things that I am somewhat concerned about, though, from the standpoint of the U.S. government’s involvement in religious freedom issues on an international basis, is the fact that we have to be very careful about making certain that our own linen is clean. For instance, when there was criticism with reference to Turkey, the ambassador from Turkey pointed out that our own history was not great. For another example, consider that a few months ago the Maryland legislature passed a resolution to set up an investigative body to determine cult activities on the campuses of Maryland colleges and universities. I’m just waiting for the countries of France and Belgium and Austria and Germany to point that out the next time that we have a conference criticizing what is going on in those countries. Still, Europe could learn from past U.S. mistakes. For instance, European moves against cults raise the issue of "deprogramming" cult or sect members. In my legal experience I’ve had an opportunity to represent several individuals who were kidnapped and subjected to religious deprogramming. To me this is a major concern because it is my view that the anti-sect attack in Western Europe may very well be a prelude to persecution of individuals within unpopular religious groups through the deprogramming process. This is already going on in Japan. I think in the United States in the last 20 years we have learned our lesson that you cannot kidnap people for their religious faith. You cannot engage in that type of religious persecution, because that goes to the very heart of religious freedom. You are actually attempting to change their religious beliefs. Religious activity may be subject to some state control, but religious belief is an absolute right. One final thought on the role of the media in affecting the policymaking environment. We’ve had many members of the media here and I think that is good. So many times we don’t have members of the media present for this kind of conference. I think one of the problems with reference to new religions is the fact that the media gives special attention to an event if it involves individuals in new religions. If a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization were to commit suicide in Russia or Romania, the headline would be, "Jehovah’s Witness Commits Suicide." If an individual is found to have abused a child it will say, "Pentecostal Abuses Child in Ukraine." But if, using a different example, a member of a majority religion commits suicide, it will just say, "John Doe Committed Suicide."
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan: One of the first things that struck me about the State Department report is that there was no section on the United States. I think that’s a very serious omission. We’ve been told here repeatedly that this Act and the activities of the American government with respect to this Act are intended to be actions in the international space, actions that see the United States as a partner with other international actors. Right from the beginning this omission sets up an American exceptionalism. You will find the same kind of problem in the very introduction to the Act. Again, we have also been told repeatedly that the Act simply uses the language of international conventions and is not intended to impose an American style of religious freedom. Yet the first paragraph of the Act reads as follows: "The right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States. Many of our nation’s founders fled religious persecution abroad, cherishing in their hearts and minds the ideal of religious freedom. They established in law as a fundamental right and as a pillar of our nation the right to freedom of religion. From its birth to this day, the United States has prized this legacy of religious freedom and honored this heritage by standing for religious freedom and offering refuge to those suffering from religious persecution."In my view, these "findings," as they are called, perpetuate myths about American religious freedom. They don’t describe American history. And they’re quite misleading myths. If you follow American history after the Revolution you have the establishment during the 19th century of a de facto Protestant establishment which was very damaging. The Mormon Church radically changed its theology in response to the persecution of the federal government. Native Americans were systematically converted to Christianity through the efforts of the United States government. African Americans in slavery were denied rights to practice their religion. And you could go on like this. I don’t think that these are trivial examples. I don’t think they are marginal. One often hears that "Americans have always been dedicated to religious freedom. There’s never been a problem with religious persecution of any significance in this country." I don’t think that’s true. And I think it’s important that we acknowledge this. As to whether all of our efforts have made us the great success story, a country where religion is free and yet religion flourishes, I think that’s another question. I don’t know how you measure success. Some people who evaluate the American religious scene would say that it may look as if we have flourishing religion but what we have in fact is a secularized religion that doesn’t really have much bite left. I was interested to hear that in the expansion of coverage from the Wolf-Specter bill to the International Religious Freedom Act, one of the moves was from attention in the Wolf-Specter bill mainly to extreme cases of religious persecution to a very broadly based concern with religious freedom all over the world. I think that’s a tremendously significant move, and one I am going to have to think about more, but it does certainly put the United States in a very different position. Not simply responding to emergency situations of extreme violence but putting the United States more in a situation which seems to be promoting a certain version of religious freedom. As far as how the Report privileges religion—and I talked to Tom Farr about this—in a way I think it’s refreshingly candid. The introduction to the Report clearly privileges and honors a religious understanding of the human person and a religious understanding of the sources of human rights. These understandings are certainly valid and important, and motivate many people to do great things. But the Report puts the United States government in a position of suggesting that this is the best way to understand the human person and the rights around the human person. The introduction to the Report also announces the following as a goal: to advocate religion as a "transnational vehicle of conflict prevention and post conflict reconciliation," not as a "tool of division." There you have a very clear statement of what kind of religion this Act is interested in promoting. It’s interested in promoting religion that is a vehicle for peace. There have been times in human history when religion was a tool of division. Separating the two kinds of religion is very difficult. The Report and the Act tend to set up as protected a religion that is individual, chosen, private, and believed. This would be the classic, evangelical Protestant understanding of what religion is, an understanding that is in some ways a product of disestablishment. In many places in the world, and indeed, in parts of America—you don’t have to go to other places to see this religion, as Abdullahi said—religion is communal. It’s given, it’s not chosen. It’s public, it’s not private. And it’s enacted, embedded in the culture, not simply believed in a private way by an individual. Religion that is communal, given, public, and enacted is a much more unwieldy partner with a government than the other form. And it’s much more difficult to advocate full religious freedom for that kind of religion. Perhaps religion is too unstable a category to be used effectively in legal contexts. Freedom from persecution should be advocated regardless of religious conviction or identity. At several points in this conference it’s been mentioned in quoting international conventions that conventions include discrimination on the basis of religion with discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender, but that religion has been neglected. Religion is different from the other items on this list. Race, ethnicity and gender are, indeed, particularly given; they are not chosen. You cannot opt out of them. If religion is understood as chosen, it is in a different situation. Race, ethnicity and gender have no ideological content. Religion does. The way in which religion is implicated in cultural and political histories suggests that maybe you cannot just plug religion in with other ways of dividing people.
Response Jeremy Gunn: I was sent by the United States Institute of Peace to the State Department to work for a year on issues related to religious freedom. So I was able to say that I was "in" the State Department but not "of" the State Department. I think it is important for people who are outside of the State Department to understand how difficult it is to work there. There are many people inside the State Department who are working on the issue of religious freedom and who are often fighting an uphill battle. It’s important for people who are interested in advancing the issue to understand that there are people who are trying to do that from the inside against many obstacles. I think Tom Farr should get a great deal of credit for the Report having come out as well as it has. That said, I nevertheless think there are many improvements that need to be made in the Report. I don’t think there’s anybody at the State Department who would disagree with that, although we might disagree about what improvements are needed. I think Abdu has correctly identified many of the criticisms leveled against the United States from abroad. But I happen to disagree with the accuracy of almost all of the arguments that he made, and I would like to respond to some of those. I would like to identify some of the criticisms that have been raised against the United States on the question of the promotion of religious freedom. One of them is that the United States ranks religion as the most important right. Although the right is indeed the most important for some people, Congress may simply be enacting legislation because the issue has been neglected and that it is a problem that is not being advanced by anybody else. The appointment of a Special Ambassador for International Religious Freedom need not be perceived as exceptional or extraordinary. The U.S. also has a special ambassador who deals with war crimes. This does not mean that war crimes is the most important issue. There also is a special ambassador who deals with the Newly Independent States. That doesn’t mean those are the only states in the world that matter. The appointment of a Special Ambassador and the creation of a new office do not necessarily mean that there is a hierarchy of human rights. It simply reflects that there is important work to be done. It does not mean the United States necessarily places religion at the top of a human rights hierarchy, but it simply says that something is being neglected and needs to be addressed. A second criticism is that the United States is focusing particularly on Christians and this reflects America’s Christocentric cultural values and that Americans are inserting their cultural tradition into the international arena. Again, that is a criticism that is often heard from abroad. It is a criticism that I think is both fair and unfair. It is certainly fair to the extent that the Report reflects the issues and facts that come to the attention of the U.S. government. Persecution of Christians comes to the attention of the U.S. government more than other issues do. Thus such persecution is emphasized in the Report. (If France were producing a report on abuses they surely would have a disproportionate emphasis on the abuses of the French language abroad.) This is not to say that it is okay to have a disproportionate emphasis on Christians; it is to account for the emphasis. It was the information that was available at the time. It is extremely important to understand that the United States, in its bilateral discussions with other countries and in its public statements on this issue, never says anything like, "Christians are particularly important." The State Department stresses that it is not one religion or another religion that is at issue. It is the equal treatment of all religions. A third criticism that is heard is that the United States is acting as a moral crusader and as a Lone Ranger. I think that to some extent this criticism is unfair, although there is some merit to it. Other countries have not been taking up the issue with sufficient force. So it’s not that the United States wants to be alone in this issue, it’s that the United States happens to be somewhat alone on the issue. Perhaps, instead of criticizing the United States for being alone on this issue, it should be credited for trying to put this issue on the international agenda—an issue that has been, for the most part, neglected. If the United States goes abroad and says, "Do it the way we would do it here because there are no problems in the United States," then that is a Lone Ranger approach. (I feel sorry for the Lone Ranger because he never even did that himself.) A fourth criticism is that the United States is trying to impose Western standards on the world. Again, it is possible to understand why that is being said. The issue of religious freedom has been an issue of concern in the United States for a long time. For all practical purposes, I agree with almost everything that Winni said on there being sort of a myth about the freedom of religion in America. I am reminded of a statement Garry Wills made in his book, Lincoln at Gettysburg. He said it more eloquently than I, but he said something like "proclaiming the rights of man" is as much a part of the American tradition as it is to tar and feather somebody and run him out of town on the rails. Both of these are part of the American tradition: intolerance and tolerance. They are both there and it good when the United States can self-consciously recognize it. Nevertheless, I think there has been a dramatic change in the United States in the last 50 years on issues related to religion. Today there are relatively fewer attacks on minorities and the United States should be very proud of that. But the important thing is that we acknowledge that we are promoting a universal standard and that we be open to criticism by others. A fifth criticism is that the United States has a double standard on different countries; that it will criticize Sudan but will not criticize Saudi Arabia and that it criticizes some countries more severely than others. There are different ways you can respond to this criticism, one of which is to say, "it’s true!" And in that way the United States is not unlike any other country in the world. You show me the country in the world that is not hypocritical in its foreign policy and I’ll show you a country that no longer exists. The other criticism of hypocrisy leveled at the United States is that it is not consistent on human rights issues. This is a pretty powerful argument that I hear all the time. I personally think that is true, and I think the United States makes a serious mistake in not taking its international obligations seriously enough. It should ratify the Children’s Convention and Women’s Convention. It does make the United States look like a hypocrite to argue loudly for some international standards and ignore others. Nevertheless, I think it is important to recognize that the rights of women and children are reasonably well protected in the United States, whether the international conventions are ratified or not. So to some extent it’s a rhetorical criticism of the United States. But it’s a powerful rhetorical argument people use to dismiss what we’re trying to do on freedom of religion. Capitol Hill could really improve the situation by showing that the United States wants to be a full partner, a full player in the international human rights community. That would make advancing religious rights much easier.
Tom Farr: With respect to the introduction to the Report, it strikes me as a bit odd, frankly, to say that the United States government may not or ought not make the point that religion, while divisive, is also a human endeavor which can have a positive effect on international affairs. If we are going to defend this very important freedom, surely we can make the argument that a religious conception of human dignity is a universal conception, and thus has a beneficial effect for everyone. This is why we went into the introductory discussion of what I characterize as a religious understanding of universality. The Report is a product of the work of hundreds of people. It began with the law in October, 1998, that mandated the Report. By November, we had preliminary instructions out to the field, out to 200 embassies and consulates. By January, we had final instruction cables out to all of our embassies and consulates, giving them a series of questions that they needed to begin to assimilate and answer. Submissions in draft form began to come in May—drafts of what were to be 194 country reports. Throughout this past summer there was a process of reading these drafts by State Department officials and our offices and others. We worked back and forth, refining the drafts, and gathering input from NGOs—both at the embassy level and at the Washington level—and from religious rights groups. Out of this came, in some cases, arguments and heated discussions over a single word. I can tell you that even though the Report was delivered to Congress in the early hours of the morning of the 9th of September, it wasn’t finished until late the previous evening. I make these points to give you a sense of a process that we think was measured. Of course it can be improved. Any such huge undertaking can be improved. But what I would like to leave you with is not a sense of American triumphalism, certainly not State Department triumphalism. We do have pride in this Report, but we understand the need for improvement. I like to think the Report is a product of hard work and passion about the subject. We have thick skins. So I ask each and every one of you, if you have criticisms of fact or analytical approach or anything else, for that matter, write a letter to me, articulated in as great detail as you can and I promise you that not only will I read it but I will get it to the appropriate people who need to read it in my office and other offices in the State Department. |