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The Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations has conducted a number of hearings to make sure that successive administrations have complied with the letter and spirit of the human rights laws.

Today, many innocent people around the world are also victims of a special kind of human rights violation-religious persecution. The phenomenon of religious persecution is not limited to any particular political system or region of the world. Unfortunately, it occurs too often and people are made to suffer because of their religious and ethical convictions.

In Albania and North Korea-officially atheistic states-religion of any kind is outlawed.

In Africa, the Falasha Jews are relentlessly persecuted in Ethiopia; in South Africa, anti-apartheid religious believers-both black and white-are harassed, jailed, or banned.

In many Latin American countries, Jews, Catholic priests, nuns, and lay leaders, as well as those who work with Protestant mission groups, are tortured, jailed, or assassinated for their witness on behalf of the poor, the silenced, and the suffering. In Asia, the Moslems are fighting a bitter war in the Philippines; in Taiwan, South Korea and other countries, the Presbyterians and other Christians suffer harsh treatment because of their beliefs.

In the U.S.S.R. and other East European countries, both Christians and Jews are harshly persecuted for their beliefs, and most of them are denied the right to immigrate to countries where their freedom of worship is secure.

In the Middle East, similar repressions can be found. In Iran, the situation is desperate as the Baha'i community has been singled out for extermination by the İslamic authorities solely because of their faith; in Egypt many of the Coptic Christians languish in jails.

The list goes on-the sad truth is that few countries in the world enjoy the religious freedoms that are so treasured in the United States. All available evidence presented to the subcommittee indicates that the free exercise of religion is limited, at least to a degree, in most parts of the world. And discrimination, imprisonment, torture and death are often the price paid for one's religious belief.

Religious freedom is a human rights issue. As a people who profess to be "God fearing," the United States ought to give special attention to the question of religious persecution. The Bible speaks plainly about this subject. Jesus said of victims of persecution, "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

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At today's hearing, we have several excellent witnesses who will give us the definition, scope and historical aspects of religious persecution. In subsequent hearings we will focus on specific instances of religious persecution in the Middle East and Europe, in Latin America, in Asia, and in Africa.

Mr. BONKER. The subcommittee intends to have two such sessions in which we can hear from experts in this field and to get an idea of the scope of this very important problem. Subsequently, the subcommittee will have hearings on specific examples of religious persecution so that we can focus exclusive attention on more acute cases of persecution of religious freedoms.

At this time, I would like the three witnesses to come to the witness table, and we will hear from each of you before we open for questions and comments.

While they are approaching the table, I would like to call on the ranking minority member of the subcommittee, Mr. Jim Leach, for comments.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I just want to congratulate you for holding these hearings on this very important subject.

First, I would like to note that Congressman Porter had requested the opportunity to testify. I understand that the feeling was that because his resolution might be more appropriately dealt with at a later date, he could testify then.

Second, I would like to note that I have had the privilege of working for Dean Ernest Gordon at the Princeton University Chapel as a young chapel deacon. He brings before the subcommittee a background of a different type of persecution that I think all

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of us should contemplate. He was a prisoner of war at the location called the River Kwai.

Mr. BONKER. The River Kwai, yes.

Mr. LEACH. I read his book many years ago. In fact, I read it before a final exam. I was inspired, but not too knowledgeable.

In any respect, for those of you who have ever seen the movie about the River Kwai, Dean Gordon was a Scottish captain who was among those held at the famous prisoner-of-war camp there. I might add that Professor Clark has an esteemed background, as well, as a former teacher at the University of Iowa, which I currently have the privilege of representing in this Congress, and brings before us a New Zealand accent. We are blessed with an international perspective.

Mr. BONKER. You can see who had influence on the selection of our witnesses this morning. [Laughter.]

But we recognize each of you as authorities on this subject, and we are very anxious to hear from you.

For the benefit of the record, the three witnesses are Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, who is the director of the Office of International Justice and Peace, U.S. Catholic Conference; Prof. Roger Clark, professor of law, Rutgers University Law School; and Dr. Ernest Gordon, president of CREED, the Christian Rescue Effort for Emancipation of Dissidents.

I have also had the opportunity to work with Dr. Gordon. His organization is set up to focus attention on human rights problems around the world, and this subcommittee has worked very closely with him on a number of occasions. At least one of our colleagues here is on the advisory board of CREED.

I believe we will start with Dr. Gordon, and then go to Professor Clark, and then to Reverend Hehir.

Dr. Gordon, it is a privilege to have you before the subcommittee. We have had to reschedule on several occasions, as you know. We are pleased that, at last, we are beginning these hearings, and that you are our leadoff witness.

STATEMENT OF ERNEST GORDON, PRESIDENT, CHRISTIAN
RESCUE EFFORT FOR EMANCIPATION OF DISSIDENTS

Mr. GORDON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to be here. I am indeed glad that this Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations exists to deliberate on the subject of human rights and religious persecution.

The awareness of the need to consider such a subject is comparatively new. It didn't appear to be a concern of the Western democracies in the years of the Third Reich, from 1933 to 1945. The Nuremberg laws of September 15, 1935, for example, were the evidence of a nation's decision to eliminate a religious community to the extent that 6 million Jews were sacrificed.

This persecution was not limited to the Jews. The Catholic Youth League, for example, was dissolved by government action. Eric Klausner, head of Catholic Action, was murdered by government agents in 1934, an act indicative of a policy of control and destruction. For opposing the nazification of the Protestant churches, over

800 pastors of the Confessional Church were arrested in 1937, and hundreds more within the next 2 years.

It is only recently that the West has taken seriously the record of religious persecution in the Soviet Union. The premise for this religious persecution is stated in section 13 of the Communist Party Constitution, which demands that every member must be an atheist and engage in antireligious propaganda.

Malcolm Muggeridge reports that he wrote about religious persecution in the Soviet Union when he was in Moscow as a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian in 1935. He was ridiculed for doing so by the press of that time.

It wasn't until the fall of 1963 that the persecution of believers was documented in a letter smuggled out of the country and written by a distinguished group of believers. It was Solzhenitsyn, however, who has documented the horror and extent of this persecution. In 60 years of the Soviets' existence, 70 million people have been exterminated.

I know of no golden age in the past. Yet, this may be the worst stage of all, so far as the people of the world is concerned. The witness of Solidarity and the people of Poland tells us that the record of punishment and imprisonment is no mere accident, but the deliberate policy of tyrannical forms of government stretching from our neighbor, Cuba, around the planet.

James H. Billington, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution here in Washington, maintains in his recent book, "Fire in the Minds of Men," that the political revolutions, from the time of the French Revolution on, are the direct consequence of ideologies which have been and are being given ultimate worth. I believe this to be the

case.

The most powerful of these, of course, has been Marxism, with its threefold expression of negativism, materialism, and atheism. It is this ideology which has done so much to destroy the civilization of the West, one which was at least 1,500 years in maturing.

The irony is that this ideology has dominated most where Marx expected it least; namely, in the nontechnological countries of Russia, Africa, and Asia.

Why is it that this ideology has flourished like a weed in the countries that are classified under the heading of Third World? The only answer I can think of, and I am sure there is a better one, is that the collective consciousness of the controlled society is not too different from the cosmic consciousness of the Oriental religions and their derivative cultures. Both reject the existence of individuals in their freedom and responsibilities.

For the Communists, for example, man qua man does not exist except as a classless society. Thus, responsible individuals in community are replaced by an all-embracing ideology which demands total obedience. To abbreviate the statement of Martin Buber, those who of the left without memory, and those of the right who control memory, march together into the common abyss.

The agony of the Third World seems to be that of a catastrophic revolution from a tribal to a collective society which attempts to enforce a barely understood ideology upon the people in the name

of technological progress. The accumulated wisdom of the past that makes for culture is thus destroyed.

Another question which has to be asked is why is that tyrannies of this ideological variety find it necessary to abolish religion and those who practice it. I can only presume that it is because those in power insist upon controlling every aspect of human existence, including that of the mind.

The first characteristic is that of negating the past and the memories of it. The past, therefore, is to be destroyed in the romantic presumption that out of its ashes and ruin will emerge the new society in which the new man will come into being.

The second is that of materialism, which presumes that reality is a closed system of natural laws, and that it is these laws which can be objectified and applied to society. Thus, the individual is a piece of biological machinery who is a part of the greater social machine which, in turn, is part of the cosmic machinery. Consciousness, as such, is an illusion, and religion is the greatest illusion of all. That is why it is referred to as the opiate of the people.

And the third is that of atheism. This attempt to abolish God attempts, at the same time, to abolish man, the living soul or conscious being. The mystery of mind and personality is thus destoyed in intention, if not in fact.

Thus, it would seem that the religious person, one whose faith is centered upon God, cannot be subject to the ideology which demands complete obedience. The freedom of the person lies in his or her freedom to obey God as the only one worthy of such obedience. In this connection, we may say that a free society is one which recognizes the freedom of its citizens to worship God rather than itself. It is in this recognition, and in the recognition of the reality of what is called sin, that we have a system of checks and balances. I believe that the faith articulated by the Bible is unique, and part of its uniqueness is its rejection of any government, system, or tyrant who would be God. Together, the Jews and Christians have existed as a community of faith and freedom in the world. The ideals of this community have characterized the best of Western civilization and the greatest threat to tyrannies.

It is interesting to note that the intellectual antidote to this tyrannical ideology was worked out in Russia by philosophers such as Prof. S. L. Frank and Prof. Nicholas Beroyaeu who rejected Marxist ideology to become Christian thinkers. Their thinking, by the way, has had great influence among intellectuals belonging to the underground religious movement.

I shall end by quoting from one of them, having written about the dehumanization of contemporary social life because Western civilization has lost its religious roots, he goes on to say, “At the present time, Christianity is again called upon to protect man, to protect his whole image from a demonology which torments him with servitude to the new technical forces."

I am not romantically optimistic about the present or the future. I am convinced that the struggle we are engaged in is not between right or left, it is a struggle to maintain the freedom of people everywhere to think for themselves, to witness to God and to obey Him, and to act morally according to the dictates of their conscience. This struggle for human freedom is such a threat to tyran

nies, that they will continue to oppose it. Therefore, we may expect religious persecution to increase rather than decrease over the next decade.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. BONKER. Professor Clark.

STATEMENT OF ROGER S. CLARK, PROFESSOR OF LAW, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

After that wonderful cosmic view of our subject by Dr. Gordon, I am somewhat embarrassed to come down and talk about some of the nitty-gritty details of our subject.

However, I was asked to discuss particularly what the letter from you, sir, called "the definition, scope and historical aspects of religious persecution." Persecution and freedom, Mr. Chairman, are two opposite sides of the coin, and I hope that you will forgive me if I approach the subject from the positive side-from the viewpoint of the development of religious freedom.

I propose to deal in three different ways with this subject: First, by discussion of the United Nations recent declaration on religious freedom; second, by outlining some historical aspects of the topic; and third, by giving some current examples of religious persecution.

I believe that a positive approach is justified to the topic because these hearings are taking place at a moment of great symbolic significance in the struggle for the international protection of human rights.

After some 19 years of sporadic effort, the U.N. General Assembly has just completed the drafting of a very important document with a rather cumbersome title of the "Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief." That document was adopted by the Third Committee of the General Assembly on November 9 last and by the Plenary Meeting of the Assembly on November 25.

You will find a copy of the declaration in annex 1 to the written document that I have supplied for the record.

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the subcommittee will find the declaration a valuable framework for its work. It is clearly destined to be the prime benchmark for anyone who seeks in an international forum to make a case based upon religious freedom.

In my opinion, there are three basic issues that need to be addressed in any attempt to define the parameters of religious freedom: First, the right of members of religious faiths to practice their religion with a minimum of state interference; second, the prevention of discriminatory treatment by governments of individuals or groups on the ground of their membership in a particular faith; third, some requirement that the state make a good-faith effort to suppress the manifestation, by private persons or groups, of intolerance for others based on the holding of a different religion or belief.

The U.N. declaration is not a perfect instrument, but it does address itself in a forthright way to each of these matters.

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