Written by Don Byrd
Via Religion Clause, a House Oversight subcommittee yesterday held a hearing on the government’s implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act. That legislation, enacted in 1998, established the US Commission on International Religious Freedom as well as the Religious Freedom Ambassador at-Large position within the State Department. Since then, questions over the role of these congressionally-mandated entities in U.S. foreign policy has caused some strain between the Executive and Legislative branches. (The Commission and State Department each issue separate international religious freedom reports, the Commission often makes recommendations regarding policy toward a country that the State Department does not follow, etc.) During recent budget negotiations, some in the U.S. Senate strongly considered de-authorizing the Commission altogether.
It is not completely surprising, then, that some members of Congress feel the Administration is not making proper use of IRFA. The Witnesses included Thomas Farr, a former Director of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, who suggested the goal of using U.S. foreign policy to improve religious liberty around the world is simply not working.
[I]t would be difficult to name a single country in the world over the past fifteen years where American religious freedom policy has helped to reduce religious persecution or to increase religious freedom in any substantial or sustained way.
In fact, the Pew Reports make it clear that in most of the countries where the United States has in recent years poured blood, treasure, and diplomatic resources (such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia), levels of religious freedom are declining and religious persecution is rising.
Some of these countries have been on the IRFA-mandated list of particularly severe violators, the so-called “countries of particular concern.” IRFA requires that this list be issued annually but the Obama administration has not done so since 2011. Congress, it seems, takes little notice of this omission (although the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has voiced its concern).
You can watch the hearing and read the testimony of witnesses at the Committee’s hearing site here.
