U.S. Criticizes Countries for Religious Intolerance
Gene Douglas
U.S. Criticizes Countries For Religious Intolerance
By Carol Giacomo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States released its
first annual report on religious freedom
worldwide Thursday, concluding that much of the world's
population lives in countries in which religious
freedoms are restricted.
Many of the countries faulted, including China,
Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, regularly show up on the annual
U.S. list of overall human rights abusers.
But the new report also criticized some U.S. allies,
including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for intolerance.
``Freedom of religion does not exist'' in Saudi Arabia, the report
determined, in an unusually blunt and sweeping finding about
that major U.S. ally in the Gulf.
Although 144 countries are parties to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, ``there remains in some countries
a substantial difference between promise and practice,'' the report,
covering the period from January 1998 to June 1999 and
written by the State Department, said.
``Much of the world's population lives in countries in which the right
to religious freedom is restricted or prohibited,'' it
concluded.
Many nations claim cultural and historical factors for religious
intolerance but ``at the end of the day there is no good reason for
governments to violate religious freedom,'' Robert Seiple, U.S.
ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, told a
news briefing.
SANCTIONS POSSIBLE
The report, based in part on an 18-page questionnaire completed by all
U.S. overseas missions, was mandated by Congress
and authorizes sanctions against violators of religious freedom. But
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had made no
decisions about sanctions or other next steps, officials said.
Religious freedom in the United States was not addressed. Seiple said
the United States has ``imperfections,'' but was not the
focus of this assessment.
China is cited for persecuting Tibetan Buddhists, Muslim Uighurs and
Protestant and Roman Catholics who do not belong to
''official'' churches.
In Afghanistan, religious freedom is ``severely restricted, and the
dominant Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim group that
controls most of the country, persecutes and kills minority Shi'as, the
report said.
In Saudi Arabia where the government supports the Sunni Muslim majority,
members of the Shi'a Muslim minority ``are the
objects of officially sanctioned political and economic
discrimination,'' the report said, citing instances of arbitrary
detention and
travel restrictions among other practices.
Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is a crime punishable by
death under Islamic law, it said.
There are six million foreigners in Saudi Arabia, including Indians,
Egyptians, Pakistanis, Filipinos and Americans, and they, too,
have been penalized for their religious beliefs.
In some areas, both Saudi religious police and religious zealots acting
on their own ``harassed, assaulted, battered, arrested and
detained citizens and foreigners,'' the report said.
It observed that in Egypt, also largely a Muslim country, members of the
non-Muslim Christian minority ``generally worship
without interference, but there is some societal and governmental
discrimination.''
In China, the report noted that the constitution provides for freedom of
religious belief but in practice the government ''seeks to
restrict religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and
registered places of worship and to control the growth
and scope of religious groups.''
RAPID GROWTH OF SOME FAITHS
There are signs of increased limits on traditional Chinese religions,
like Buddhism and Taoism, as these non-Western faiths have
grown rapidly in recent years, the report said.
It noted Beijing's crackdown this year on the Falun Gong religious sect
and cited ``credible reports of abuse or torture of
Buddhist monks and nuns.''
The report also said that in recent years some local authorities have
subjected worship services of alien residents in China to
increased surveillance and restriction.
Concerning NATO ally Turkey, the State Department said ``the military
and the judiciary, with support from the country's
secular elite, continued to wage a private and public campaign against
Islamic fundamentalism, which they view as a threat to the
secular republic.''
Human rights activists and members of an Islamist political party
complained that the government was increasingly enforcing a
50-year-old ban on the wearing of religious headwear, including head
scarves for women, in state-run facilities, it said.
NEW LAWS ARE DISCRIMINATORY
In Pakistan, the report said ``discriminatory'' legislation has
encouraged an atmosphere of religious intolerance, leading to acts of
violence by extremists against members of religious minorities,
including Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis and Zikris.
India initially played down a sharp upswing in violence by extremists
against religious minorities and their places of worship and
the response by state and local prosecutors to these events was ``often
inadequate,'' the report said.
Iran was faulted for trying to ``eradicate'' the Baha'i faith while Iraq
was criticized for conducting a campaign of murder,
execution and arrests against the Shi'a Muslim population.
In Russia, the report cited concerns about an October 1997 law which was
intended to redress a very liberal loosening of
restrictions that followed the collapse of communist rule.
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