Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill, S. 3895, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I and my good friend and colleague, Anna Eshoo, have worked together on many religious…
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill, S. 3895, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I and my good friend and colleague, Anna Eshoo, have worked together on many religious freedom issues over the many years and have introduced the House companion bill to the Senate bill before us to authorize the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
It is both timely and essential that we pass this legislation. Timely, because USCIRF's authorization runs out at the end of this month; and essential, because the cause of religious freedom is under sustained and escalating threat around the globe, particularly in the world's remaining communistic dictatorships, from Cuba to Vietnam to North Korea to Iran, and to the world's largest oppressor of religious freedom in the world today, the People's Republic of China under Xi Jinping.
Indeed, just today, we see that the great defender for religious liberty, 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, has been put on trial in Hong Kong, a city-state which was once a bastion of freedom, but which now sadly has buckled to the dictates of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. All of us here in Congress and the White House need to raise our voices in defense of Cardinal Zen.
Sadly, we also need to add to that list of oppressors Nicaragua, where Comandante Daniel Ortega has reestablished his Sandinista dictatorship along communist lines and is waging a relentless war against the Catholic Church, the one institution which has consistently stood up for freedom throughout his tenure of abuse.
I would note parenthetically that I met with Ortega in 1984 on a human rights trip with Tony Hall and Frank Wolf, and the man is back. He has been back for a number of years, and his proclivity toward dictatorial rule, imprisoning the very people who run against him--I held a hearing earlier this year with the wives of two of the opponents for him in the general election. What does he do? It was with their wives, and they were very articulate, very passionate, very courageous in speaking out for their husbands. But Ortega says, ``I don't like what you are doing; I don't like that you are running against me,'' so he throws them in prison, and they are still in prison. And his oppression of the church has reached new lows as we speak.
Mr. Speaker, USCIRF also calls attention to other issues around the world, including whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or you happen to be Jewish or happen to be a member of a lesser-known faith, such as Baha'i or Falun Gong, USCIRF reports--I encourage everyone to go to their website and read their reports. They are fact-filled, they are very persuasive, based on all these kinds of investigations. The human rights NGOs all feed information to them about what is going on. They talk to the State Department, but they are really a good check on the State Department in terms of getting it right.
That is particularly true when it comes to designating certain countries to be CPC countries, countries of particular concern. Unfortunately, the State Department has a less-than-stellar record of picking and choosing and giving passing grades artificially to some countries that ought to be on the CPC designation, which is the worst violator and, therefore, susceptible to sanctioning by the United States Government.
As a matter of fact, this just happened with regards to Nigeria, where USCIRF accurately labeled Nigeria a top-tier violator of religious freedom while the State Department gave it an unwarranted upgrade right before the Secretary of State went to Abuja to meet with the President there.
We should have said to the President of Nigeria, President Buhari: ``You have got to clean up your act. The killing of Christians, of churches, houses of worship and schools, has to come to an end.'' Some of it he can't stop, but the response could be far better for much of it. Unfortunately, there is serious allegations of aiding and abetting, particularly with Fulani, the killing of Christians there.
I would also point out to my colleagues that Nury Turkel, who is the Chairman of the Board of USCIRF, was born, of all places, in a Chinese detention center during the cultural revolution. He has been a leader on behalf of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, as my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
know--we all know it--they are committing genocide. Now, we have walking point of USCIRF, a man who was actually born in a detention center, and he has been articulate and strong.
Last week, in the China Commission, which I serve as ranking member, when he testified, he just hit it out of the park in terms of good, factual information, persuasive, what next to do, with regards to that genocide and other concerns of all religious faiths that are being oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party.
I will end by saying that it is this great Commission that keeps speaking out so boldly about de-Sinicization of all religions in China. That means they all comport with Xi Jinping's etiology. Whether you are Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Uyghur, or Falun Gong, they are breathing down your neck and putting people in prisons if they do not adhere and comport with Xi Jinping's mandates.
Frank Wolf is now a member of the Commission, and I congratulate him on that. Here is the guy that wrote the law in 1998, the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. We had real opposition to it. I was one of his cosponsors, and I put together a number of hearings in my committee where the bill first originated. But it was Frank who was the absolute champion, and we named the 2016 act after him to honor the champion work that he is doing, the life-changing work across the globe.
I thank Frank for his tenacious defense of religious freedom of all people.
Mr. Speaker, USCIRF needs to be reauthorized. I thank my colleague, and I yield back the balance of my time.
