ly populated by ethnic minorities. Hundreds of churches and religious gatherings have been forced to close or pressured to stop meeting in these same areas. The Government also reportedly destroyed or forced the demolition of a number of buildings used for worship in the Central Highlands. Government officials continued to restrict or supervise closely access to the Central and Northwest Highlands by diplomats, nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and other foreigners, making it difficult to verify conditions in those areas.

I also recently returned from Saudi Arabia, and can report that freedom of religion still does not exist by any internationally recognized standard. The Government continued to enforce a strictly conservative version of Sunni Islam and suppress the public practice of other interpretations of Islam and non-Muslim religions. Muslims not adhering to the officially sanctioned version faced harassment at the hands of the Mutawwa'in (religious police). Members of the Shi'a minority faced political and economic discrimination, including limited employment opportunities, little representation in official institutions, and restrictions on the practice of their faith and on the building of mosques and community centers. The Government continued to detain some Shi'a religious leaders and members of the Ismaili Shi'a community in Najran province. Non-Muslim worshippers risked arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation, and sometimes physical abuse for engaging in religious activity that attracted official attention. There were frequent instances in which mosque preachers, whose salaries are paid by the Government, used violently anti-Jewish and anti-Christian language in their sermons. The Government announced, however, that it had replaced more than 2,000 imams for extremist preaching. Hindus, regarded as polytheists, faced greater discrimination than some other non-Muslims with respect to compensation for accidental death and injury.

In Eritrea, respect for religious freedom has continued to deteriorate. The Government harassed, arrested, and detained members of non-sanctioned Protestant religious groups locally referred to collectively as "Pentes," reform movements from and within the Coptic Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, and adherents of the Baha'i Faith. By some estimates there are over 250 independent Protestants imprisoned, along with 11 Jehovah's Witnesses. There were also numerous reports of forced recantations and physical torture. Only the four government-sanctioned religious groups-Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Catholics, and members of the Evangelical Church of Eritrea-were allowed to meet freely. Following a May 2002 government decree that all religious groups must register or cease all religious activities, all religious facilities not belonging to the four sanctioned religious groups were closed. The Government failed to respond to applications of those groups that attempted to reg

ister.

In China, the Government continued its efforts to restrict religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship. Unregistered religious groups experienced varying degrees of official interference and harassment. Members of some unregistered religious groups were subjected to restrictions, leading in some cases to intimidation, harassment, and detention. In some localities, "underground" religious leaders reported increased pressure to register either with the State Administration for Religious Activities or its provincial and local offices. They also reported facing pressure to be affiliated with and supervised by official party organizations linked to the legally recognized churches, in order to prevent their facilities from being closed. Police closed underground mosques, temples and seminaries, as well as some Catholic churches and Protestant "house churches," many with significant memberships, properties, financial resources and networks. Many religious leaders and adherents were detained, arrested, or sentenced to prison terms. Local authorities also used an administrative process to punish members of unregistered religious groups, whereby citizens may be sentenced by a non-judicial panel of police and local authorities to up to 3 years in reeducation-throughlabor camps. The Government continued its repression of groups that it determined to be "cults" in general and of the Falun Gong in particular. In areas where ethnic unrest has occurred, especially among the Uighurs in Xinjiang, officials continued to restrict the building of mosques and prohibited the teaching of Islam to children. In addition, teachers, professors and university students were not allowed to practice religion openly in Xinjiang. In Tibet, although the authorities permit many traditional religious practices and public manifestations of belief, activities perceived by the Government to be vehicles for political dissent, such as religious activities believed to be advocating Tibetan independence or any form of separatism, were promptly and forcibly suppressed. Restrictions on religious practice and places of worship continued and the level of repression in Tibet remained high.

Finally, I should mention France and some potential initiatives which cause us concern. We have been following closely what appears to be growing support for legislation restricting the display of religious clothing and symbols in public schools.

Just today, the lower house of Parliament overwhelmingly passed a version of this law. While we appreciate France's political and cultural traditions, as well as the challenges it faces in assessing the needs of a changing population, we will continue to reaffirm the principle that religious liberty includes the right to peacefully manifest one's religious convictions through attire and symbols.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is my privilege to be here with you today. As a man whose faith is central to his own identity, I have long held religious freedom at the core of both my personal life and my professional life. When I meet with foreign officials, I explain why Americans care so passionately about this issue. It's because we have brothers and sisters of faith in nations across the world, and we feel a special obligation to seek to relieve their suffering. If we succeed, we will not only have expanded a fundamental human right, but we will thereby have helped to establish a cornerstone of democracy, promoted other fundamental human rights, and assisted in the war against religion-based terrorism.

Our national ideals have always transcended our national borders. It was for this reason that Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday we celebrate this week, insisted that the principles embodied in our Declaration of Independence ultimately promised "liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time." And so it is with religious freedom. It is not the exclusive birthright of Americans, but an inalienable right of all people. It must not only be jealously guarded here at home, but also vigorously promoted around the world.

Thank you, Members of the Committee, for helping to ensure that this issue, which is so near and dear to the hearts of the American people, is also raised to its rightful place in the workings of the American government. I look forward to continuing to work closely with you in the days ahead. And now I would be happy to take any questions.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador, and thank you for coming at an unusual time for a hearing, but because of the timely nature of wanting to get this on record, this seemed to be the best way to achieve that.

Mr. Ambassador, the International Religious Freedom Act has been in place now for the better part of 5 years. Can you evaluate whether, and where, the legislation has achieved its intended effect of helping those suffering from severe constraints on their religious liberty; and, additionally, has the designation of Country of Particular Concern or the threat of such designation had a positive impact on the religious freedom situation in those specific countries? Ambassador HANFORD. Well, thank you Mr. Chairman.

I, as you know, worked on this issue full time for 14 years up here on the Hill and so I have a bit of a standard of comparison. And I would say that while we still have a long way to go, there has been a lot of improvement in the emphasis that has come about as a result of the International Religious Freedom Act, and this was the purpose of the legislation.

There was the feeling that while this issue was a part of our human rights agenda, it had not received as much attention as some of the other human rights, and so a permanent apparatus was put into place.

Now, with any new office or initiative, things take time, but I would say the trajectory has been good, in terms of how things. have been built up on this. And let me just give several examples. We are here today to talk about the report and I must say, as someone involved in putting together the legislation, I was pleasantly surprised at how comprehensive the report was, the 1st year or 2. I frankly did not expect it to be quite this extensive and was impressed that the State Department took the assic this se

riously. And this happened for 2 or 3 years before the responsibility of the report landed in my lap.

I am now fulfilling what many American citizens wish that all of us who work up here on the Hill would have to do, and that is fulfill something you had a role in putting together: Legislation. It is a big job, putting this report together, but the State Department takes it very seriously, and you can look at the length and the detail, and there are still things that need to be improved in the report.

We need to do a better accounting in the report of what we are doing country by country, and my office works hard to get detailed examples in the report, and so we will continue to improve.

My office started out in a very modest way, with an Ambassador and one staffer. We are now up to 10 people, and that is certainly an improvement. We have the whole world to take on, but I have got a great staff.

The commission has continued to make its mark and to build and to create its staff, and they are certainly having a significant impact around the world. And it is my pleasure to work with them, for example, in Afghanistan, that you mentioned earlier.

Another requirement of the International Religious Freedom Act is that Foreign Service Officers be trained in understanding religious freedom problems, and this is something which is going on now. It needs to happen more, but it is happening at a significant level, where my office is involved in the training of new officers; and then, as you mention, there is the whole process of designating CPCs. This is a difficult, complex process. It is a rare provision in legislation to have a designation like this. Similar language is in the Foreign Assistance Act, and yet they are not designations under that act, and so the IRF Act is unique in that it requires our country to point fingers and to call something for what it is.

Six countries have been designated. Arguably there are others who need to be in that list, and we are working hard to see that the countries that belong on that list are on that list.

I might just share my own heart in this, my own intentions when we were working on the bill, would be that the incentive of the designation process be well used with violator countries, where we go in, we negotiate, we make it clear to them what this designation involves, and the sanctions that often are going to accompany that designation. And I believe in the sort of vigorous process-and my office has been engaged in this in my first year-and-a-half on the job, and in fact we are engaged in it right now as we approach, soon, the time for coming up with this year's list of CPC's.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Ambassador, in December I had the opportunity to travel to Thailand and up to the Burmese border, and during that trip I had an opportunity to spend a fairly significant amount of time in the refugee camps and meet with and hear from those folks directly.

What do you think the outlook for religious freedom in Burma is under the current military regime?

Ambassador HANFORD. There is some heart-wrenching stories that come out of Burma. We hear sometimes of children abducted from families or induced to leave families. Often these will be Christian families, and then forcibly placed in monasteries, forcibly

converted to Buddhism; and some of the children have escaped and so we have learned about it this way. But we have a repressive military regime. It links itself with Buddhism, a religion which it attempts to control, and of course minority religions, particularly the ethnic Chin and Naga and others have suffered terribly. Churches have been destroyed, clergy have been arrested.

Now, Burma is one of the six countries currently designated as CPC, and I think I can safely predict that they will not be coming off of that list this year. We have traveled there, we have pressed the case. It is a difficult government to deal with, but we are going to continue doing that; but right now, I am afraid I cannot give heartening encouragement that things will be improving in the short run.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.

I see Mr. Sherman has joined us. Do you have some questions for Ambassador Hanford?

Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Chairman, first I would like to ask unanimous consent to have Ranking Member Lantos' statement made part of the record of these hearings.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Without objection, that will be the order in its entirety.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lantos follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TOM LANTOS, A REPRESENTATIVE ÎN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing.

As one of the original cosponsors of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, I'm delighted to have the opportunity to review the 5th annual State Department Report on Religious Freedom mandated by our Committee's legislation.

I want to start by commending the Department's excellent Report, and its author, our distinguished Ambassador for Religious Freedom, John Hanford.

This year's Report, like the four before it, is hard hitting and factual. Like the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the Religious Freedom Report has quickly become the world's gold standard on the true state of religious freedom in over 190 countries.

Unfortunately, like the Country Reports, the hard hitting, factual reporting of governmental abuse of freedom of conscience outlined in the Report does not always result in a hard hitting U.S. policy responses.

To date, the Department has only designated rogue states with which the United States has no meaningful relations as violators or "Countries of Particular Concern" (CPC's) as defined by the legislation.

Last year, as in previous years, rogue states: Burma, China, Iraq, North Korea, and Sudan were designated as CPC's, while other states with appalling records in the protection of religious liberty such as Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, and Laos avoided getting the black eye they richly deserve.

Instead of making allowances for countries where we have multiple interests, we should be using our leverage with them to press for improvements.

Such an approach would follow the model that the Department has adapted in aggressively fighting foreign government complicity in or laxity in fighting the scourge of human trafficking.

In the Trafficking Report the Department has not been shy about designating even key allies such as Greece, Turkey, the UAE, and Bahrain as bad actors. This has led to quick improvements in efforts to fight trafficking in these countries and graduation from bad actor status.

In the coming year, I hope the Administration will consider applying this successful model to the problem of religious freedom.

I also hope that the Administration will aggressively confront the shocking and disturbing wave of anti-Semitism we are seeing in Europe and elsewhere.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony of our expert witnesses.

Mr. SHERMAN. Got you. And, secondly, as you know, I am late, not out of design, but because this hearing was scheduled for tomorrow and had, on very short notice, to be scheduled for today. That being the case, I am here a little late. I would like to give my opening statement and then hear questions from the next per

son.

Mr. GALLEGLY. If we could do the opening statement between the witnesses, that would maintain a little more continuity, unless you have a real objection to that.

Mr. SHERMAN. I could give a shorter opening statement if I did it now.

Mr. GALLEGLY. If you would like to give your opening statement then, and we will make the statement a part of the record of the hearing in its entirety.

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for holding these hearings, and Mr. Hanford for coming before us and for your wellknown work as Ambassador-at-Large for religious freedom.

The report issued by the State Department, which is the subject of these hearings, should be commended for its comprehensiveness. I want to thank the Ambassador for the treatment in the report of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I have been a critic of that regime since I came to Congress in 1997, and even before then, and have called for tough sanctions against Iran, since we have stood by and let a quarter billion dollars be lent to that regime from The World Bank and since we allow nearly $150 million of imports, nonenergy imports-like we need more caviar-imports to the United States from that regime; though, obviously, we need to work toward the day when Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Suniis and Bahai's do not face the kind of thuggery they face at the hands of that regime.

I first got involved in proposing legislation with regard to the Government of Iran 4 years ago, when 13 Iranian Jews were detained on fabricated charges of spying for the United States. I know the CIA has made some mistakes, but hiring Jews as our spies in Iran, probably not the best move, since no Jew in Iran is allowed near anything of any military significance. Those 13 Jews have been released, most after serving significant prison sentences, and I want to thank the people of conscience around the world who spoke out on their behalf.

There was reason to fear that those arrests would have been the first step in general repression against religious minorities, had they not been greeted with such disdain by the world.

I want to draw my colleagues' attention to the Iran Freedom in Democracy Support Act, an act that still awaits additional cosponsors. It would reimpose a complete embargo until Iran abandons its nuclear weapons program, abandons its efforts to support terror, and improves its human rights record.

The International Religious Freedom Act provides for a number of sanctions against CBCs. Of course in the major cases, those sanctions are less than are already imposed by existing law. That is true, in regard to Iran, Saddam's Iraq, which of course no longer exists, North Korea, probably Sudan and Burma as well.

Finally, I would like to mention a situation in a country we do not usually associate with the denial of religious freedom; namely,