Friday, September 10, 1999

U.S. Report Details World's Religious Persecution

By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON -- While the number of freely elected governments continues to grow throughout the world, there are still many countries in which people face harassment, imprisonment or even death for practicing their religions, a State Department report said Thursday.

The department's first annual Report on International Religious Freedom cited Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Sudan as among the most repressive countries. The report, filling more than 1,000 pages, covers 194 countries.

"There's something very important that we cannot afford to lose in the pages of such a large report," said Robert Seiple, the department's ambassador at large for international religious freedom, speaking at a news briefing. "It is the fate of millions of people throughout the world who are suffering because of their religious faith."

The persecution cited Thursday has been widely reported before, though perhaps not in such detail. But the document is significant in that it is the first such annual report required under the International Religious Freedom Act, passed by Congress last fall.

The report is meant to guide the federal government in shaping policy toward other countries. The worst offenders on religious freedom, those that engage in systematic and egregious violations like torture or imprisonment, may be subject to severe economic sanctions.

The findings detailed Thursday by Seiple include persecution and killings by Afghanistan's Taliban movement; China's continuing intolerance of unregistered religious activity and punishment by imprisonment and labor camps; Cuba's scrutiny and harassment of many religious activities, its national constitution notwithstanding; Saudi Arabia's detention of members of a minority Islamic branch, and Sudanese persecution of Christians and Muslims in connection with a civil war.

President Clinton, who left Thursday for the Asian economic summit meeting in New Zealand, said he would study the report on the way.

The report was largely based on research by American government employees around the world.

Tacitly recognizing that the criticism is not enough in itself to change the behavior of foreign governments, Seiple said the report would nonetheless "signal unambiguously to persecutor and persecuted alike that they would not be forgotten."

Seiple said that American efforts to effect change in other countries could begin with constructive, diplomatic criticism.

"Suffering has a face," Seiple said. "In my office, there's a lovely watercolor painting of a house and a garden." The painting, he said, was done by a young Lebanese woman named Mary, who fled her village as it was being overrun by militiamen. One caught her and demanded that she repudiate her faith. She refused.

"The bullet that was fired went in just to the left of her chin and severed her spinal cord," Seiple said. Now, she paints with a brush braced in her right hand.

"Throughout the world there are many Marys," he said.