ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ABROAD ISSUES REPORT

[USIA]

USIS Washington File

23 January 1998

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ABROAD ISSUES REPORT

(Recommends ways for U.S. to advance religious freedom) (860)
By Stuart Gorin
USIA Staff Writer

Washington -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright received a series
of recommendations January 23 on ways the U.S. government can advance
religious freedom and oppose religious persecution.

The recommendations were in a 35-page interim report from the
Secretary's Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad, which
comprises 20 American religious leaders and academics who represent a
wide spectrum of experience on religion and human rights.

Noting that the overall tone and direction of the report is "very much
in keeping with the administration's own intentions and aspirations,"
Albright told reporters that she would be taking immediate action on
the report's "first and most important" recommendation.

She said she will designate "a new, senior level coordinator within
the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor to ensure that our
efforts to advance religious freedom are integrated successfully into
our broader foreign policy."

The coordinator's responsibilities will include developing a strategy
for overall implementation of the advisory committee's
recommendations, Albright said, adding that the work done under the
direction of Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck and in
consultation with the White House, Congress, religious leaders, and
members of the committee.

"I consider the promotion of religious freedom to be an integral
component of U.S. foreign policy to be pursued not in isolation, but
as part of our efforts to increase the respect for human rights around
the world," the secretary said.

"America is a leader in promoting religious freedom because it serves
our interests and because it is right," she added. "With the
committee's counsel, we hope to pursue that goal with even more vigor
and effectiveness in the days ahead."

Following Albright's remarks, a senior administration official said
the report is comprehensive in its treatment of problems of religious
persecution and detailed in its treatment of resolution of conflicts.

But while noting that the report includes recommendations in 14
different areas, ranging from the White House to multilateral
organizations to economic assistance programs, the official said it is
still an interim document. He said the committee's even more
comprehensive final report would be issued at the end of 1998.

Among the committee's recommendations in the interim report, it called
on the State Department, in addition to creating the coordinator
position, to instruct embassies to raise routinely through diplomatic
channels cases of imprisoned religious believers and other individual
cases where religious freedom is violated.

"The State Department and other relevant U.S. government agencies
should pay special attention to the status of religious freedom as a
human rights concern when considering arms sales, military assistance
or economic aid," the report also said.

In the section concerning the White House, the report recommended,
among other points, that the president deliver a major address
explaining the importance of religious freedom at home and abroad, and
that he "stress and highlight, in our bilateral and multilateral
international relations, the increased importance which U.S. foreign
policy accords issues of religious freedom."

Recommendations in the area of multilateral diplomacy include a call
for the United States to continue to make every effort to raise the
profile of religious freedom at the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N.
Human Rights Commissioner, through resolutions and statements.

Concerning economic assistance, the report recommends that the United
States work to ensure that funding is adequate for international
initiatives for human rights monitoring in areas of conflict or
systematic human rights abuses, including those related to religious
freedom.

In the report's section on U.S. government policy objectives, the
committee said "the exercise of religious freedom should
simultaneously focus on communicating strong U.S. disapproval of
religious persecution and promoting a broad international coalition of
nations committed to the realization of religious freedom as an
inseparable element of universal human rights."

The aim of U.S. foreign policy in this area, the report said, "should
be to influence governments, with both positive and negative
inducements and though public and private diplomacy, to live up to
international standards of religious freedom." Policy also should seek
to strengthen local civil society, it said, and encourage the private
sector to take a robust interest in religious freedom.

The report said the following four general guidelines govern both
governmental and non-governmental policies in this area:

-- 1) Religious freedom is a universal human right that deserves
attention in its own right, not simply as an adjunct to political
issues.

-- 2) Policy makers should strive for effective, results-oriented
policies to benefit the people they are designed to help.

-- 3) The reactions and concerns of the local victims who are meant to
be assisted by proposed policies should be fully understood and taken
into account.

-- 4) Religious freedom is often best protected in the context of a
broad range of human rights objectives.

Noting that sanctions are an important foreign policy tool, the report
said the committee has not had enough discussion in this area but that
the issue would be given more attention in the coming year.