Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights, North America

RIGHTS: U.S. Raps Nations Over Religious Freedom

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Dec 18 2003 (IPS) - The United States criticised several countries on Thursday, both allies and adversaries, for failing to protect religious freedom, a charge it has faced itself since launching its “war on terror”.

In its fifth annual report on religious persecution, the U.S. State Department condemned many Muslim governments, including those in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as remaining communist states China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, of similar offences.

It also criticised Israel, a staunch U.S. ally, saying that some non-Jews there continued to experience “discrimination in the areas of education, housing, employment and social services”.

But a leading Muslim civil society group here said the report should also focus on conditions for religious minorities in the United States, especially Muslims, who have faced heightened discrimination since the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. landmarks by men that Washington describes as “Muslim”.

“We wish that the report could also focus on dangers of this Islamophobia in American society, in different circles of government and the media and also by evangelical leaders,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Awad acknowledged that conditions for Muslims in the United States are better than in other countries where Muslims are minorities but said the report’s writers should have included more people of different faiths.

“As a Muslim American I’d like to see more diversity in the team that prepares this document, to include Muslim American voices to make sure that this report is balanced and reflective of reality,” he said.

“There are rising anti-Muslim trends in American society that we cannot ignore.”

The report says that despite widely accepted international standards to protect the freedom of worship, “much of the world’s population lives in countries in which the right to religious freedom is restricted or prohibited”.

The report classifies governments that deny religious freedom into five categories.

In the first, “totalitarian or authoritarian regimes” rule, controlling religious belief or practice. Such countries include North Korea, China, Vietnam and Burma.

States that favour a dominant religion and are hostile toward minority or non-approved religions include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and Turkmenistan, and make up the second category.

“In this latter case, new, draconian legislation has effectively criminalized the religious activities of many Muslims, Christians and other faiths, and I’m speaking here of Turkmenistan,” said John Hanford III, U.S. ambassador for international religious freedom, at a news conference.

Countries accused of “neglect, discrimination or persecution toward minority or non-approved religions”, like Egypt, Georgia, Indonesia and Nigeria, are in category three.

In the fourth category, where states have “discriminatory legislation or policies disadvantaging certain religions”, Washington slotted Belarus, Russia, Turkey and Eritrea.

In the last category – countries that stigmatise particular religions by wrongfully associating them with dangerous cults or sects – Washington included Belgium, France and German.

The report was compiled before French President Jacque Chirac announced Wednesday he will recommend a ban on religious symbols in public schools, particularly the Muslim headscarf for women.

Hanford said Washington does not favour government interference in religious matters and will follow the French case closely.

“President Chirac is concerned to maintain France’s principle of secularism and he wants that, as I think he said, not to be negotiable,” said Hanford.

“Well, of course, our hope is religious freedom will be a non-negotiable as well … so we’re going to watch this carefully, and this is certainly an important concern at this time.”

The U.S. report is mandated under a law passed by Congress in 1998 after a lengthy and sometimes controversial campaign, led mostly by lawmakers associated with the Christian Right upset about reports of growing persecution against Christians in China, India and Russia, as well as in a number of Muslim countries.

Their original bill, which included far-reaching and mandatory economic sanctions against offending governments, was targeted primarily at those regimes.

But in the face of strong opposition from the administration of former president Bill Clinton and corporate interests with major investments in China and key Arab oil-exporting countries, the bill was significantly watered down.

The president, for example, is not obliged to impose sanctions against countries the report names as worst offenders.

This year the United States re-designated six nations – Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Sudan – as “countries of particular concern” under the act for “having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations”.

By publishing the report, Washington says it wants to help end abuses of religious freedom around the world.

“And in seeking to stop persecution, the first, and often the most vital step, is to ensure that the stories are told and the abuses revealed,” said Hanford.

But the report and conditions in the United States have themselves attracted criticism and accusations of double standards from foreign countries and, more recently, international bodies.

In September, a senior United Nations official said the United States needed to ”confront” the spread of ”Islamophobia and Arabophobia” within its borders.

Abdelfattah Amor, the special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, said in a report to the U.N. General Assembly that the number of attacks against Muslims and Arabs rose sharply following the terrorist attacks against the United States on Sep. 11, 2001.

In his annual report, the official said that incidents of religious intolerance continued to occur in the United States, and might have been encouraged in particular by statements from public figures and by a certain media bias.

But despite U.S. shortcomings at guaranteeing religious freedom at home, some analysts say the report is still a valuable tool in international politics.

“The fact that the report is not always the basis for U.S. foreign policy or that some groups continue to attack other religions within the U.S. doesn’t detract from the value of putting international religious freedom on the global agenda,” said Husain Haqqani from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank.