The Death of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom?

In all probability, if Congress does not act quickly, USCIRF will have to shut down. (Photo credit: Flickr)

In 1998, after much hard work and many political hurdles, advocacy on behalf of persecuted religious believers became for the first time part of official U.S. foreign policy. The International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), a means to assist victims of persecution around the world, was signed into law by then President William Jefferson Clinton. The law provided many new avenues for advocacy, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, bi-partisan U.S. federal government commission tasked with making policy recommendations to the President, Congress, and the State Department. With nine appointed commissioners and a small professional staff, for thirteen years USCIRF has helped persuade countries in which vulnerable minorities are persecuted that the United States government is serious about religious freedom. But now, because one senator seems to be holding up its reauthorization in Congress, the commission is threatened with extinction.

In all probability, if Congress does not act quickly, USCIRF will have to shut down. In October, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to reauthorize the commission by a vote of 391 to 21. Even in a time of economic crisis, many of the most fiscally conservative members of the House still approved the reauthorization of USCIRF, understanding its moral and practical significance, and appreciating its modest budget of $4 million, compared to the U.S. Institute of Peace’s $39.5 million in 2011. USCIRF Commissioners receive no remuneration for their time, and the small staff works in modest, rented quarters near Union Station and Capitol Hill.

Nina Shea, the director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute and one of the USCIRF Commissioners, says that in the Senate, the House bill was “poised to pass under a unanimous consent agreement when a single senator anonymously called it back for undisclosed reasons.” It now appears, according to a recent article by CQ Weekly’s Shawn Zeller, that the senator in question is Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), and his reasons for holding up the authorization have no direct relation to the commission. Rather, according to the article, Dick Durbin wants Congress to fund the purchase of an unused maximum-security prison in his state of Illinois and make it a federal facility that will provide jobs for his constituents. “His leverage could be that Rep. Frank R. Wolf, the Virginia Republican who sponsored the legislation creating the commission in 1998, chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds federal prisons,” Zeller offers.

If true, it is appalling that Senator Durbin would tie the continuation of USCIRF to any other issue. Many advocates for the persecuted church were appreciative that the commission was included in the law as a counterbalance or at least an enhancement to the Office on International Religious Freedom at the U.S. State Department. The new State Department office and Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom were also important provisions of IRFA. But an office on international religious freedom at the State Department is still an office at the State Department. And currently, the climate at the State Department is not one in which concern about religious persecution thrives. On the other hand, being independent, USCIRF speaks forthrightly about the behavior of thug regimes.

Among its accomplishments, Shea says the commission, “pushed the Bush administration to understand the north–south conflict in Sudan as primarily a religious one, and not merely a fight over resources; this led to specific policies that resulted in the secession of South Sudan this past July and political independence and religious freedom for its people.” USCIRF “was the first official body to recognize the terrible plight of Iraq’s minorities, and to speak up for the Copts,” she notes. In addition, the work of USCIRF, in exposing the violations of human rights in such places as China, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan, got the State Department to designate them as “egregious” persecutors, and its “insistent appeals to end legal impunity” in Nigeria, led the country’s leaders to this year oversee “the first convictions in sectarian strife that has killed thousands over the past decade.”

USCIRF’s demise would affect persecutors and the persecuted alike. Lindsay Vessay, director of advocacy at Open Doors USA, told CQ that failure to reauthorize the commission “would send a message to the rest of the world that religious freedom is no longer a national priority.” And Shea reveals that some other nations such as Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and the Philippines are now studying the USCIRF model for possible replication in their own lands. Moreover, in October the European Union called for its member states “to adopt specific guidelines on the defense of freedom of religion and belief abroad, citing in particular the repression of religious minorities and persecution from apostasy laws.” She concludes, “It would be ironic indeed if the U.S. Senate were to unilaterally give up a key American instrument in the global contest of ideas, just as other parts of the free world are starting to catch on to the importance of religious freedom.”

As one who battled against all odds, including the “odds” of the National Council of Churches, the trade lobby, and members of the Clinton Administration, for the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act in Congress, I agree with Vessay and Shea that the loss of USCIRF would be a terrible tragedy. Please pray that those who seek to use for their own purposes an issue that affects the lives of so many millions around the world would be convicted in their hearts and would stop obstructing the reauthorization. In addition, let your own senators know that you care about those who are persecuted. Let’s pray that America would continue to send the message to the world that religious freedom matters.

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