is calculated to have robust consideration of human rights training as part of any of that kind of training that goes on, not merely training relating to how to use the truncheons and the guns.

We ought to be looking at our economic aid packages, targeting those aid packages, removing nonhumanitarian aid when we see that there needs to be a signal sent to the government, deploying the non humanitarian and other kind of aid in ways that reward countries for making movements in the direction they should be moving. It is a-the tools are there. It is a question of the focus and the will.

Mr. GALLEGLY. There was mention of Uzbekistan, Mr. Malinowski. How would you characterize recent trends in religious freedom there? Obviously, it is not positive.

Mr. MALINOWSKI. It is not positive. I think some of us were hopeful after September 11th when Uzbekistan developed this very close relationship with the United States that there would be opportunities for progress there. And indeed, Uzbekistan, last year, the last couple of years has made a number of explicit commitments to the United States Government, written commitments that it would improve respect for human rights, democratic freedom, religious freedom across the board. And U.S. diplomats have been working pretty assiduously to try to get the Uzbeks to keep those commitments.

Unfortunately, they have hit a brick wall in the last year and we have not seen the kinds of basic reforms in that system that are needed to combat torture and to create space for people to just be able to worship and express themselves politically, religiously openly. And we are hitting this crunch point right now where we think a very strong signal needs to be sent.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr Sherman.

Mr. SHERMAN. I would like to address first the nongovernmental witnesses. What can we add to the list of sanctions to put some more teeth into the law?

Mr. GRIEBOSKI. Mr. Sherman, one thing that I would like to suggest is that as the United States Government provides foreign aid, that we look at whether or not human rights standards should be established for U.S. foreign aid. Very often we provide aid, particularly now after the war on terror to states which do repress the rights of religious believers, and we should take into consideration whether or not providing aid, particularly military aid in the war on terror is in keeping with our own values and with the values expressed and carried out by these states.

Mr. SHERMAN. If I can interrupt, so we will list one and that is focus in foreign aid additions. Do you or your colleagues have anything else to list?

Mr. MALINOWSKI. Well, I think the list of sanctions on the books is pretty comprehensive. I mean it goes from, you know, raising the issue diplomatically all the way to, you know economic embargoes at the opposite extreme. I would say that the issue is are we going to apply the CPC designation to any countries that are not already under sanction.

Mr. SHERMAN. I get your point and want to move on. Should we-you know, you listen to the dial, radio dial here in America you hear a lot of religious broadcasts and it occurs to me that

disfavored religious groups in these countries have no opportunity to broadcast. Would it be a good idea or would it-or would it taint certain religious groups to give them 1⁄2 hour of broadcast time every week on one of the Voice of America or Radio Farga or whatever?

Mr. GRIEBOSKI. I am not sure, Mr. Sherman, if putting on American radio in these countries is going to be helpful to them. My fear is that if they are seen to be supported by American money and American governmental influence that that may cause a greater persecution of that group.

Mr. SHERMAN. Moving on, what can we in America do in a-to get the French to think twice about their head scarf bill.

Mr. GRIEBOSKI. If I could just make a quick point about that, sir. What we need to do is not just look at this the issue of the head scarf and Muslims post 9/11, but I would like to take the lens back a little bit. And this is just the latest step in an ongoing process of devolution of religious rights in France and western Europe, which goes back even to 1996 when the French established a sect list which Ambassador Hanford referred to earlier.

One hundred and seventy-six groups are on this list, including Hasidic Jews and mainstream Protestant organizations. The question is whether or not the United States Government will take the political will to speak to one of its allies in the same way that it will speak to one of its opponents.

on.

Mr. SHERMAN. We will put the word "allies" in quotes and move

Mr. MALINOWSKI. That is the problem.

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. Can you gentlemen think of countries that are listed as CPCs that have been better in terms of religious freedom than Saudi Arabia? Can you list one or two? I won't ask Ambassador Young to do that because that is criticizing his own department, perhaps. I will ask Mr. Young, Chairman Young as well. All three of you, please name a country, if you can, where religious tolerance is not quite so bad as Saudi Arabia, but it is still listed as a CPC. I mean, there are probably five or 10 countries you could list that should be listed as CPCs.

Mr. MALINOWSKI. All of them, except for North Korea by the State Department's own language. I mean, there are only two countries in the world of which they say that religious freedom does not exist, period: North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

Mr. SHERMAN. So you think Saudi mistreats religious dissidents to a worse degree than, say, Iran.

Mr. MALINOWSKI. I think there is more, you know, it is a difficult question because, you know, you don't want to praise the status of freedom in any of these other countries, certainly not Burma, certainly not Iran. But I think-I cannot think of any country where the space is so completely closed for religious worship for, you know, any nonrecognized religion than Saudi Arabia and north Korea, which is not a compliment to Iran.

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Sherman, I wonder, just to clarify, I am, actually, our commission is an independent advisory commission. I am happy to report that I am no longer with the State Department as much as I enjoyed my service there, but we are an independent, so we are free to criticize the State Department.

Mr. SHERMAN. Criticize away.

Mr. YOUNG. But we do try to do in a constructive way. And let me turn your question around just a bit, if I may. I think one of the real questions that might be asked with respect to Saudi Arabia is not so much who is worse and who is better. It is complicated but Saudi Arabia certainly is in the top three. It must be. The real question is where could we have an impact of all those countries on the list. And it seems to me that the one we are closest to with which we have the deepest pattern of interaction has to be Saudi Arabia, which means we have the most foreign policy tools at our disposal.

So whether or not Iran tortures a bit more than Saudi Arabia, our capacity to affect Iran is more limited, to be sure. But it is greater in the case of Saudi Arabia, and that warrants itself an opportunity to pay more attention to Saudi Arabia.

Mr. SHERMAN. I see you nodding heads rather than additional comments, and our time is short. I yield back.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Ambassador you said you had a commitment at 7:30. If we have no other questions for Ambassador Young, I would like to thank him for his participation. And did you have any other questions for Mr. Malinowski or Mr. Grieboski.

Mr. YOUNG. Could I add

Mr. GALLEGLY. By all means.

Mr. YOUNG [continuing]. One further observation to Mr. Sherman's very good question about what other sanctions one might use. Now that I am not part of the government, I can actually opine on that as well. I think one interesting tool we don't use very much and could use much more profitably would be benchmarks. It is possible to look exactly, as Mr. Malinowski suggested, and count the number of prisoners in Uzbekistan. We count them in other countries, to look at the number of arrests to look at, I mean, we can set very specific precise benchmarks, measure the behavior of these countries and act appropriately and rather than simply say we talked to them and they promised us this and we asked that, you could actually set measurable goals and standards and predicate our relationship and interaction with those countries on those. And that is something we have failed and failed miserably I think to do. The broadcast itself, we don't need to do religious broadcasts either. I mean, we at the moment, we met for about 4 hours with members of the Iranian community in Los Angeles last week, an enormously interesting meeting. And one of their main points was we are spending millions, tens of millions of dollars on broadcasts into Iraq and Afghanistan, countries that we have much more capacity to disseminate information, and something like a million dollars a year broadcasting into Iran. It just makes no

sense.

And those kinds of things are measurable, observable and can be changed with only focus and will, and so I thank you very much and I do apologize for having to leave.

Mr. SHERMAN. If I could just comment, I believe the Committee understands how important it is to increase our broadcasting into Iran. And even if we don't have a religious program, we can at least give news coverage to situations in which human rights and religions rights are denied.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Before I let you get away, I would like to ask one quick question. I will throw it out to anyone or all, and it has to do with Pakistan and what is the transition there. What, if any, indications do you see that the Pakistani government is taking action to reverse legislation that has been identified as fostering an atmosphere of religious intolerance. Mr. Grieboski, you seemed to perk up on that one.

Mr. GRIEBOSKI. Mr. Chairman, there has been on the books in Pakistan, if you look in the Pakistani constitution an article, article 8 and article 20 within the Pakistani law books which says that a, Ahmadi Muslims are not Muslims and are therefore persecuted. And ordinance 20 within the Pakistani law creates a law called the blasphemy law but does not define what blasphemy is, and is, therefore, held against Christians by virtue of being Christian. We have seen no steps taken since both of those items were added into Pakistani law that would indicate that there would be an easing of that problem.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Any reversing?

Mr. GRIEBOSKI. No, sir, as a matter of fact we have seen things get worse.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Malinowski.

Mr. MALINOWSKI. I agree. And of course it is part of the larger problem of the suppression of democratic freedoms in Pakistan, which I think has the impact of strengthening some of the more rigid conservative elements in the Pakistani government at the expense of more moderate secular forces in society that might help resolve these kinds of problems, and that is an issue that has got to be on the bilateral agenda with Pakistan front and center.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much. And I would like to, again, thank you all for being here. I would like to congratulate our staffs on doing a good job and getting such talented and qualified witnesses. I am sure there are going to be many days ahead where we are going to look to you for some words of wisdom because your experience and your obvious knowledge in these areas are invaluable, and I thank you all for being here today. The hearing stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 7:42 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

APPENDIX

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

LETTER FROM MICHAEL K. YOUNG, CHAIR, UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, TO THE HONORABLE COLIN L. POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, Washington, DC, February 3, 2004.

Hon. COLIN L. POWELL, Secretary of State,
United States Department of State,
Washington, DC.

DEAR SECRETARY POWELL: In compliance with the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal agency, has assessed the evidence, including that contained in the State Department's 2003 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, regarding especially severe violations of religious freedom around the world. The Commission has focused particularly on countries whose governments are responsible for or have tolerated systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. As a result of this examination, the Commission recommends that you designate the following 11 countries as countries of particular concern (CPCs): Burma, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Eritrea, India1, Iran, Pakistan, People's Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam.

The Commission respectfully requests a meeting with you prior to your CPC determinations to discuss the Commission's full findings and recommendations on these proposed CPCs. We would also like to discuss the actions planned toward those countries that are officially designated as CPCs.

In March 2003, you designated Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Sudan as CPCs. It is the opinion of the Commission that, with the exception of Iraq, nothing has changed to warrant the removal of these countries from the list of CPC designations.

In light of the fall of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime in Iraq in April 2003 and the policies established under the new Governing Council, the Commission no longer recommends Iraq for CPC status. However, the Commission urges the U.S. government to remain highly engaged in the process of restoring freedom and building democracy in Iraq, including in the development of a new constitution for that country that will guarantee every individual's right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and other human rights. Although the people of Iraq are now experiencing many religious freedoms for the first time in more than two decades, some prominent individuals and groups in Iraq have been demanding the implementation of Islamic law (Sharia) in a manner that would constitute a potential threat to the freedom of thought, conscience, or belief of all the citizens of Iraq.

The Commission remains especially concerned about the situation in China, where repression of religious freedom continues to be a deliberate policy of the Chinese government. In the past year, Chinese authorities have intensified their violent campaign against religious believers, including Evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics, Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and other groups, such as the Falun Gong. This campaign has included imprisonment, torture, and other forms of ill treatment. As you know, the Commission attempted to travel to China twice in the past year but was thwarted in both attempts by unacceptable limits imposed by the Chinese government that prevented such a visit. The Commission recently visited Hong Kong, but continues to seek a visit to other regions of China.