Reuters-U.S. Cites Five Nations For

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Subject: Reuters-U.S. Cites Five Nations For Religious Persecution

Thursday October 7 12:27 AM ET
U.S. Cites Five Nations For Religious Persecution
By Jonathan Wright

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department has designated China, Iran,
Iraq, Myanmar and Sudan as countries of particular concern for violations of
religious freedom, making them liable for U.S. diplomatic and economic
sanctions, spokesman James Rubin said Wednesday.

The designations are the first under a procedure mandated by Congress in
last year's Religious Freedom Act.

The test is whether a government has ``engaged in or tolerated particularly
severe violations of religious freedom during the preceding 12 months.''

But Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has not yet decided what sanctions
should apply to each of the five cases, and the United States already has
limited contacts with several of the countries, Rubin said.

The State Department is also naming Serbia and the Taliban movement in
Afghanistan, which are not sovereign states, as ''particularly severe
violators of religious freedom,'' he said.

Last year's act offers the administration 15 policy responses -- eight
diplomatic and seven prohibitions on U.S. aid or economic sanctions.

The options range from diplomatic protest and cutting diplomatic exchanges
to limits on export licenses and votes against loans by international
institutions.

Robert Seiple, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom,
also announced the designations at a congressional hearing Wednesday and
formal congressional notification would follow within a few days.

Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who fought hard for the Religious
Freedom Act, criticized the State Department for sparing other countries
which practice persecution.

He said the list of designated countries should have included Vietnam, North
Korea, Laos, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

``Were the President and his advisers more worried about 'injuring the
relationship'...than with giving the honest assessment required by the plain
language of the statutes?'' he asked Seiple in the international operations
subcommittee.

The Religious Freedom Act also requires the State Department to prepare an
annual report on the extent of religious persecution around the world.

The report, released in September, criticizes many other governments,
including those of U.S. allies Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Asked why such countries escaped designation, Rubin said, ''One makes
judgements as to where the worst offenses are and that's what we've
judged.''

The United States has no relations with Iran, Iraq or Serbia and has poor
relations with Myanmar and Sudan.

Therefore it might not be possible to find a new category of sanctions that
would have any effect on those governments.

``That doesn't mean we shouldn't identify them as countries that are
violating religious freedom...Those we do have ties with, we will make our
own judgements as to what the right sanction should be,'' Rubin said.

Where the United States already takes punitive measures against one of those
countries, sanctions under the Religious Freedom Act might stay in reserve
in case sanctions imposed for other reasons are lifted, he added.

The annual report cited China for persecuting Tibetan Buddhists, Muslim
Uighurs and Protestant and Roman Catholics who do not belong to ``official''
churches.

It said the Chinese constitution provides for freedom of religious belief
but in practice the government ``seeks to restrict religious practice to
government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and to
control the growth and scope of religious groups.''

Iran was faulted for trying to ``eradicate'' the Bahai faith, while Iraq was
criticized for conducting a campaign of murder, execution and arrests
against the Shi'ite Muslim population.

The Sudanese government has been repeatedly accused of trying to impose
Islam on the animists and Christians of the south. Buddhists say the
military government of Myanmar has executed some Buddhist monks and
destroyed monasteries, charges the authorities have denied.