WASHINGTON (ABP) — More than two months after George W. Bush left the White House and Condoleezza Rice left the State Department, the agency has revealed its list of the world’s worst religious-freedom violators.
The big news is that nothing on it is new.
Inclusion on the list — created under the terms of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) — enables the administration to institute measures designed to pressure those nations to improve their human-rights conditions. But many religious-freedom activists regularly criticized the Bush administration for acting too timidly in regard to some countries’ violations of the freedom of conscience.
That is unlikely to change with the administration’s final actions on international religious freedom. This year’s list includes the same seven countries Rice named in 2006, the last time she designated CPCs. They are Burma, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.
Such a designation requires the administration either to implement measures designed to pressure the designated countries into improving human-rights conditions or grant waivers if it is determined that it is not in U.S. interests to sanction the countries.
As she has in the past, Rice waived sanctions against Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan. An independent federal panel charged with monitoring global religious freedom expressed dismay March 27 that Rice once again chose not to add any nations to the list and to issue the waivers.
“The commission is disappointed that Secretary Rice refused to designate any new countries and that waivers were granted for both Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia,” said Felice Gaer, chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, in a prepared statement. “Religious-freedom conditions in Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia are appalling and a specific U.S. government response is required.”
Rice formalized the designations Jan. 16 — just four days before leaving office — but did not make them public. According to the commission, they were only revealed after the panel sent an inquiry to Rice’s successor, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“In adopting IRFA, Congress recognized that CPC designation is an important tool in securing improvements in international religious freedom,” said Gaer. “State Department efforts to negotiate with certain countries to bring about improvements in religious freedom certainly might be an appropriate reason for delaying CPC designation, but the commission concludes that the State Department should have acted years ago in the case of a number of the countries our commission recommended for CPC designation, under our statutory authority.”
The panel has repeatedly recommended several other nations that the administration has chosen not to include on the CPC list. They include Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.
Vietnam is the only nation to have been designated a CPC and then removed from the list. The State Department first declared Vietnam an egregious violator of religious liberty in 2004, and then removed it in 2006, citing progress in religious-freedom conditions there. USCIRF officials criticized the removal, saying Vietnam had not shown sufficient improvement for removal from the CPC list.
The bipartisan panel also recommended Iraq for CPC designation late last year, after political wrangling rare for a body that usually makes its decisions by consensus.
Whether the new administration is more responsive to the commission’s concerns remains to be seen. Clinton and President Obama have signaled a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy than their predecessors, but also must answer to a constituency vocal on human-rights issues.
“As it reviews the previous administration's CPC designations, we hope the Obama administration will recognize the added value that CPC status can bring to American public diplomacy on human rights,” Gaer said.
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Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.
Related ABP stories:
Iraq status reportedly divides panel on religious freedom (5/8/2008)
Non-partisan federal panel decries Iraq's religious-freedom record (5/2/2007)
Vietnam becomes first country to earn removal from religious-violators list (11/28/200I6)