commit these atrocities. Inaction on our part makes us moral accomplices to these crimes. Ignoring the horrors in today's Kosovo empowers those who oppose democratic values of religious freedom in places like Afghanistan and Iraq to stand up to us, and this we cannot allow.

On the brighter side, there do exist around the globe models of developing, secular, predominantly Muslim states that respect, protect, and promote religious freedom.

Morocco is a tremendously important model as an Arab Muslim state that recognizes the integrity and importance of religious freedom as a national policy. The promotion and advancement of the religious rights of all religious minorities by the Moroccan government distinguish it as a unique paradigm in the Arab Muslim world. While the King of Morocco also serves as head of religion, no one is persecuted or denied their rights because of their religious beliefs. No discrimination or privileges based on affiliation or rejection of affiliation to a religion is acceptable to the King or the Government.

Kazakhstan as a predominantly Muslim, non-Arab state should be recognized for its contributions to the discussion of respect for religious rights. The Kazakh Government under President Nursultan Nazarbayev has promoted the global inter-religious dialogue and cooperation as a means to combat religious intolerance and violence. Further, the Kazakh Government has taken steps to improve human rights standards and practices in Kazakhstan itself. All citizens and residents are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of their rights, thanks to the establishment of a human rights ombudsman, standards of civic governance, and other measures. The government respects the equality and rights of all religious believers before the law and all are entitled without discrimination to equal protection of the law.

It is vitally important that the United States encourage and advance such states as alternative models to those of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, and Iran, whose suppression of religious rights and pluralism are pervasive.

In order to encourage and advance such alternative models and to establish consistency in the U.S. policy regarding international religious freedom, and in consistency with the categories of countries already established under the State Department Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, I would recommend that the International Religious Freedom Act Section 402 << NOTE: 22 USC 6442. >> (b) (1) (A) be amended in such as way that the President shall designate each country in the world into categories such as those below:

• Totalitarian or Authoritarian Attempts to Control Religious Belief or Practice; • State Hostility Toward Minority or Nonapproved Religions;

• State Neglect of The Problem Of Discrimination Against, or Persecution of, Minority or Nonapproved Religions;

• Discriminatory Legislation or Policies Disadvantaging Certain Religions; Stigmatization of Certain Religions by Wrongfully Associating Them With Dangerous "Cults" or "Sects";

• Significant Improvement in the Area of Religious Freedom

• Significant Protection and Promotion of Religious Rights.

Expanding the categorization of countries serves to advance the cause of religious freedom and of overall United States foreign policy, as well as to more clearly establish consistency within United States foreign policy.

First, the expansion of the list into more defined categories allows the United States to holds its allies and friends to the same standards of freedom of religion and belief to which it holds its opponents and enemies

Second, it clears the charge of duplicity in U.S. foreign policy often raised by foreign governments and actors.

Next, the expansion of the list allows the United States to engage all nations on equal footing, without focusing on the most egregious actions, therefore not losing sight of discrimination and other factors, which can lead to persecution. It provides an opportunity to demonstrate distinctions in and recognition of difference in treatment of religious rights.

Finally, such expansion also allows the United States to recognize positive changes in countries, an action not often taken in U.S. human rights policy, which can serve as a very positive carrot to many states.

CONCLUSION

Domestically, religious freedom issues enjoy tremendous grassroots and political support. It is perhaps the only human rights issue that attracts widespread interest

among Americans. It is also the human rights issue with the most support and interest on Capitol Hill, as evidenced in the unanimous passage of the International Religious Freedom Act.

In recent years, the United States Government has increased its advocacy on behalf of religious freedom worldwide. However, these efforts are too often uncoordinated, inefficient, and marginalized from the rest of U.S. foreign policy. Some important steps need to be taken to integrate more fully freedom of religion into overall U.S. foreign policy. The United States Government must accept its awesome responsibility of both protecting American vital interests and promoting American values in its bilateral relationships and discussions, as well as in multilateral fora. The U.S. Government must remind the international community of its commitments regarding freedom of conscience and protection of minority rights. The United States must have a flexible foreign policy that allows it to hold its allies to the same human rights and freedom of conscience criteria and levels to which it holds its opponents.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Our next witness is Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Foreign Policy Speechwriting at the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration. From 1994 to 1998, he was a speech writer for Secretaries of State Christopher and Albright and a member of the State Department Policy Planning staff. Mr. Malinowski appears frequently as a radio television and op ed commentator on Ü.S. human rights policy worldwide. Welcome Mr. Malinowski.

STATEMENT OF TOM MALINOWSKI, WASHINGTON ADVOCACY DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Mr. MALINOWSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for inviting me to testify. Like everyone, I have a longer written statement which I would like to ask appear in the record. Mr. GALLEGLY. Without objection.

Mr. MALINOWSKI. And I will abbreviate. We have before us the State Department report, and I agree with every other witness that it is an excellent report. It is honest, it is candid, it pulls no punches, whether with respect to allies or adversaries of the United States, and Ambassador Hanford and the Department deserve a lot of credit for pulling it together.

But I think we should all agree that a report by itself is not a policy. To make a difference, the words that we have all heard need to be backed by a strategy that is consistently and effectively applied. And I think our focus therefore ought to be on how the Administration is using these reports. Is it employing the tools that you and the Congress have given it to try to make a difference in the fight for religious freedom and human rights around the world, and is respect for these values truly a serious and consequential element of America's relationships with countries around the world. Now, what are the tests of that kind of seriousness? I will try to mention just a few.

One test I think that is particularly important right now, and that I go into more in my written testimony, is how we respond to countries that are trying to piggy-back on the war on terrorism to try to justify abuses of religious freedom around the world. One such country, obviously a big one is China, which has tried to justify its crackdown on Muslims, Uighurs, in its western provinces as part of America's war on terrorism. It has claimed the support of the United States for that crackdown. And it is something that Ad

ministration and the Congress need to speak out on very consistently and at a very high level so that we do not associate a legitimate struggle against terrorism with these cruel repressive practices that the Chinese are engaged in which actually undermine the credibility of the war.

Another very important test others have mentioned is Afghanistan precisely because the United States has such a profound influence right now on that country. And like other witnesses, I share concerns about the new Afghan constitution and about the role that Islamic law may end up playing, once again, in that country. Whether the human rights standards in this Constitution are preeminent or Islamic law is something that remains to be seen. And then there is the question of what happens in all the parts of the country that are not even under the sway of the new constitution or the central government, but rather under the sway of these warlords who are brutally repressing their people.

And the answer to that question, that problem is, of course, not a State Department report, but whether or not the United States adds its muscle to the Karzai government to try to restore security and the rule of law for all the people of the country by expanding the security forces in that country.

That is really the test of whether we truly care about these issues.

But what I want to talk about the most is this whole issue of CPCs, Mr. Chairman, and whether we are applying them to the right list of countries. I think the whole premise of the CPC designation is that there are a group of countries around the world that do not want to be shamed by being named so much so that they are willing to take some steps to improve their behavior to avoid being named.

But logically, I think that assumption is only going to hold true for countries that value their relationships with the United States. Putting North Korea or Iran on the list is great. But if you are already a member of the axis of evil, you are not going to care so much about being added to another top 10 list. Putting an American ally or a country that is close to the United States on that list could make a difference.

In other words, these are countries that will be particularly concerned to be named countries of particular concern. And those are the countries that we ought to be focusing on. Now, I want to focus on two such countries that I think deserve our attention. One has been mentioned and that is Saudi Arabia. As others have suggested and pointed out, the State Department has consistently said that religious freedom does not exist in Saudi Arabia. It has been able to make such a categorical statement about only two countries in the world, Saudi Arabia and North Korea.

These are the worst of the worst, and yet it has never been designated and this obvious contradiction completely undermines, I think, the credibility of this process because you know you would have to be from Mars to not understand why Saudi Arabia is not designated. It may be the people at the State Department don't use the word "oil." you know it is crude to talk about oil, no pun intended. But it is clearly a particularly important country in a very sensitive part of the world, and it just has not been confronted this

way. And it is especially urgent that we do so now because President Bush has announced to his great credit this new American approach to Arab countries that is going to emphasize human rights and religious freedom far more than in the past, and if we are going to do that credibly, we need to begin by speaking honestly about these countries. That has got to be the fundamental test of that policy.

A second country that I think deserves to be added that no one has mentioned today is Uzbekistan, Mr. Chairman. It is a profoundly important country, the heart of central Asia, on the front lines of the war on terrorism, important for a dozen reasons. It is a Muslim country in which the government has basically taken the old Soviet Union's approach to religion. It regulates what religion exists, and anything that is not regulated and controlled by the state is forbidden. And there are about 6,000 mostly young men in Uzbekistan rotting away in prison because they have tried to worship outside of this state-controlled system, and these people are subjected to the most brutal and ruthless torture, which is really comparable to what we saw in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

And these policies aren't just cruel but they are dangerous. They have shut down the space in which a moderate Islam can exist in this country. It gives people really no choice but either to go to the stale state-run mosques where they can't-they have to praise the President of the country and pledge loyalty to the state, or to go to the sort of shadowy underground radical organizations that are banned and which provide them the only opportunity to dissent against this repression.

So you can see the danger there. It is potentially fueling the very danger of radicalism that all of us want to see avoided in that part of the world. And you know in the past the State Department has raised these concerns with the Uzbek government. They have been rebuffed on point after point despite the aid Uzbekistan is getting, despite the good relationship it has. And so I think it is very, very important that as we look at the CPC list we look at Uzbekistan as a country that needs to be singled out. There needs to be sent a very clear message that if you are an ally of the United States in the war on terrorism, you don't shut down the right of Muslims to express their religion peacefully, legitimately and lawfully. In this way, Mr. Chairman, and in a lot of other ways, I think the findings of the report are a call to action. They shouldn't represent the final word but the opening salvo of a consistent American strategy to support religious freedom and human rights throughout the world. And I am grateful to you and the Committee for your oversight of the process; happy to take any questions you may have. Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Malinowski. [The prepared statement of Mr. Malinowski follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TOM MALINOWSKI, WASHINGTON ADVOCACY DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Mr. Chairman:

Thank you for holding this hearing and for inviting me to testify.

If you would like us to analyze the State Department's annual report on religious freedom around the world, then you've given us a relatively easy task. I believe that the report does what the Congress intended and required when it passed the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998. It gives us a comprehensive picture of violations of religious freedom around the world. It does so honestly, pulling no

punches in its description of abuses by America's friends and foes alike. And it recognizes that promoting religious freedom is in America's national interest, in part because it "dampens the appeal of religious extremism and religion-based terrorism."

The State Department, and particularly Ambassador Hanford and his team, deserve great credit for publishing this kind of candid report on human rights violations around the world. At times, however, the Department has acted as if merely describing such problems is enough. Time and again, American diplomats, when asked "what are you doing" about human rights violations in a particular country, have responded: "We put out an excellent human rights report or religious freedom report-doesn't that prove we care?" But of course, a report is not a policy. To make a difference, words must be backed by actions. And those actions must follow from a coherent strategy, consistently pursued.

Our focus, therefore, should be on how the administration is using these reports. Is it applying the tools Congress has given it to combat the abuses described in the report? Is respect for religious freedom truly a consequential issue in America's bilateral relationships with governments that restrict religious freedom? How seriously, in other words, does the State Department take the very serious concerns it raises in this report?

A critical test of the Department's seriousness is its response to countries that try to justify the suppression of religious freedom by claiming it is part of the struggle against terrorism. One such country is China, which has repeatedly sought-and claimed-American support for its crackdown against Muslims suspected of separatism in its western province of Xinjiang, asserting that all those it is persecuting are terrorists. As the State Department report makes clear, authorities in Xinjiang have in fact cracked down on all independent manifestations of faith by Muslims. Officials have prohibited the building of new mosques and the teaching of Islam to children, and forbidden teachers, professors and university students from practicing their religion openly. The administration needs to make equally clear, at the highest possible level, that this kind of persecution is wrong, and that it undermines any legitimate struggle against terror, and that it will hurt China's relationship with the

United States.

Another key test this year will be Afghanistan, if only by virtue of the U.S. military presence in that country and the extraordinary influence the United States has on its fate.

Afghanistan recently adopted a new Constitution. It is a solid framework for Afghanistan's future. It seeks to protect human rights. It shows how determined Afghans are to settle their problems with words instead of guns. But the institutions needed to protect the Afghan people's rights, including their right to religious freedom, are still weak. And the Constitution does not adequately address the role of Islamic law, and its relationship to human rights protections. The Constitution will be interpreted by the Afghan Supreme Court. And there are powerful factions in Kabul who, if given the chance, may try to stack the Court with justices who will implement conservative interpretations of Islam that are rejected by the majority of Afghans and that may violate human rights.

Meanwhile, outside Kabul, much of the Afghan countryside remains under the control of warlords, some of whom have been supported by the United States, who have free rein to abuse the Afghan people. In the western province of Herat, for example, which is ruled by the warlord Ismail Khan, some of the most oppressive practices of the Taliban era have been recreated. Girls cannot attend university classes with boys. Religious police patrol the streets. Women have been detained and subjected to forced virginity tests.

The solution to these problems cannot be provided by a State Department report. The key is for the United States to use its muscle to help the Afghan central government stand up to unelected, authoritarian forces, and to establish security and the rule of law throughout the country. This will require, at a minimum, expanding the NATO-led international security force in Afghanistan so that it covers all the key areas of the country, as the Bush administration has promised, but not delivered. But perhaps the most obvious test of the administration's seriousness this year, as in past years, will be its willingness to add the world's worst violators of religious freedom to its list of "Countries of Particular Concern" (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act.

The CPC list can be a powerful tool. But we should remember that it is primarily a symbolic tool, because it does not automatically lead to the imposition of sanctions. The premise behind the CPC list is that many countries would be shamed to be named-so much so that they would be willing to change their behavior to avoid designation.