This Makes No Sense: Democratic Senator Wants to Make International Religious Freedom Agency More Partisan
John G. Malcolm /
With large-scale attacks against Christians by groups such as ISIS in Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Al-Shabab in Somalia, religious intolerance has been much in the news lately. Christians, of course, are not the only religious group subjected to persecution. Whether it is Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong in China, Baha’is and Jews in Iran, or Ahmadis and Hindus in Pakistan, religious intolerance around the world is rampant.
A small U.S. agency that monitors the state of religious freedom around the world and makes policy recommendations to the president, the secretary of state, and Congress is in danger of becoming more partisan and likely less effective, if the Senate adopts a bill that has been proposed by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).
76 percent of the world’s population live in countries with high or very high levels of restrictions on religion.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which was established by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), is an independent, bipartisan, governmental entity, comprised of nine private sector commissioners of different religious backgrounds with expertise in religious freedom, human rights, and international affairs, who are appointed by the President, the leaders of the President’s party in Congress, and the leaders of the other party. They are assisted by a staff of policy analysts with expertise in different regions of the world and an executive director. Throughout the year, USCIRF commissioners engage in fact-finding trips, contact in-country sources and non-governmental organizations, and then make recommendations, contained in an annual report, about which countries engage in “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom,” thereby warranting the designation “country of particular concern” (which might subject that country to sanctions under IRFA).
The cover of USCIRF 2014 Annual Report. (Photo: uscirf.gov)
Sadly, they are kept busy. According to USCIRF’s 2014 Annual Report, “84 percent of the world’s population identifies with a specific religious group,” and, according to the latest Pew study, religious intolerance around the world is at a frighteningly-high level with 76 percent of the world’s population living in countries with high or very high levels of restrictions on religion.
USCIRF also serves as a watchdog, emphasizing the importance of religious freedom and urging the administration to take aggressive action to urge countries to respect this fundamental human right. When the commissioners believe that an administration has not been zealous enough in its actions, as they often have during both Republican and Democratic administrations, they have been forthright in their criticisms, and they are similarly forthright in their praise on those rarer occasions when they believe it is warranted.
The Durbin bill would politicize the agency by creating a majority staff director and a minority staff director, representing the Democratic and Republican parties.
While commissioners can, and do, disagree with each other, sometimes vigorously, about how to designate a particular country in their annual report, their disagreements do not tend to break down along the usual lines of Democrat versus Republican or liberal versus conservative. They tend to break down, as one might hope, along the lines of each commissioner’s views about whether the country in question has done a better job of respecting the rights of people in that country to freedom of religion or belief since the last reporting period or whether conditions in that country have remained the same or deteriorated since the last reporting period. I have some insight into this process, having served as the General Counsel at USCIRF for a year-and-a-half, including the period when USCIRF was last reauthorized.
The House of Representatives recently voted to reauthorize USCIRF for another five years, along with some minor adjustments that should help USCIRF better fulfill its mission. In the Senate, however, things have gotten bogged down. On July 30, Durbin introduced S. 2711, which would reauthorize USCIRF for only two years, as if the problem will be gone by then. Even worse, the Durbin bill would politicize the agency by creating a majority staff director and a minority staff director, representing the Democratic and Republican parties, who would be empowered to hire additional professional staff members. It is hard to fathom how hiring overtly partisan staff members will help USCIRF address what is, and should always be, a bipartisan, really a non-partisan, issue.
In 1998, IRFA was passed overwhelmingly in the House (375-41) and unanimously in the Senate (98-0) before being signed into law by President Clinton. Religious freedom was one of the principles upon which our country was founded. Presidents and secretaries of state of both parties have stated that concern for the rights of people around the world to believe, worship and live according to their convictions is a fundamental human right and an integral part of our foreign policy. That right is in peril today throughout much of the world. When it comes to reauthorizing a small agency that punches above its weight in terms of highlighting this important issue and pointing out injustices and instances of intolerance wherever they occur, and urging our government to take appropriate action to rectify those injustices, wouldn’t it be better to just leave politics and partisanship out of it?