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MR. RUBIN: Greetings. I think we have all the key wire services almost sitting down, wearing ties and dressed properly. I said almost all. Wearing ties or dressed properly. Let me say that I am very pleased to be able to introduce today Assistant Secretary Harold Koh and Ambassador Bob Seiple who will be able to brief you on the first ever Religious Freedom Report. The Secretary was briefed on the report prior to her departure for the Middle East and, pursuant to our policy, she will be reviewing it upon her return to determine what, if any, additional steps we may take. The report, I gather, is available to all of you now and without any further ado let me introduce Harold Koh, who will begin the briefing once all the appropriate wire service reporters are seated and in their places. Very good ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: Good afternoon. On behalf of Secretary Albright, I am delighted to appear at this, the public release of the Department's first Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. As the official responsible for our international human rights policies, including religious freedom, I want to express my thanks to Secretary Albright for her fierce and sustained commitment to these issues, a commitment that is deeply rooted in her own personal history. As the Secretary has noted, "our commitment to religious liberty is even more than the expression of American ideals. It is a fundamental source of our strength in the world." Religious tolerance and respect for those who hold different beliefs are central elements of the American experience. Our country was founded by people who fled religious persecution and intolerance and who, as a consequence, insisted on the prominent placement of religious freedom in the Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson called religious freedom "the creed of our political faith and the text of our civil instruction." But it would be a profound mistake to regard religious freedom as a uniquely American concept. In fact, it is a universally recognized human right profoundly interlinked with other human rights. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for everyone's "right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to manifest ones religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." Religious freedom not only embodies the Golden Rule, but also serves as the basis for many conceptions of both human conscience and human consciousness. The right to believe (or not to believe) as one's own conscience dictates is a central component of every major faith tradition, and is inherent in the dignity of every human being. No government can legitimately deny this right, no matter what the justification. Moreover, when we promote religious freedom, we promote all human rights. The right to think and believe freely undergirds rights of free expression, free association, free assembly, and democratic participation. As President Clinton has said, "We must continue to proclaim the fundamental right of all peoples to believe and worship according to their own conscience, to affirm their beliefs openly and freely, and to practice their faith without fear of intimidation." To strengthen that commitment and to help draw world attention to violations of religious freedom, including religious persecution, President Clinton signed into law last October the International Religious Freedom Act. The Act strengthens the United States' already strong commitment to advancing religious freedom throughout the world. Among other provisions, the Act mandates an annual report on international religious freedom, of which this is the first. Shortly after he signed the International Religious Freedom Act, the President nominated, and the Senate confirmed, my close friend and colleague Robert Seiple to serve as America's first Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Over the past year, I have had many opportunities to work closely with Bob and his fine staff at their offices within my Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The experience has reinforced my view of the deep interconnectedness of our work on international religious freedom and international human rights policy. Preparing any human rights report is never easy; it requires literally tens of thousands of hours of data collection, on-the-ground observation and challenging analysis. Preparing a brand new report, which means not only gathering data but also designing a methodology that works, is a particularly arduous task. Bob and his staff, along with Marc Susser and his staff at my Bureau's splendid Office of Country Reports and Asylum Affairs, deserve the highest praise for their efforts, which have produced the first-ever worldwide assessment of the state of religious freedom throughout the world. Without further ado, let me turn over the podium to Bob Seiple. AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: It is with a sense of great pleasure that we deliver this first Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. It fills over 1,000 pages, covers 194 countries, and assesses the status of religious freedom around the globe. And yet, it is but a small, measured step that we are taking. The good news is that we are on our way. But there is something very important that we can not afford to lose in the pages of such a large report. It is the fate of millions of people throughout the world who are suffering because of their religious faith. People who fear to speak of what they believe. People in prisons because of how they worship. People tortured because of whom they worship. Children stolen from their parents, sold into slavery, forcibly converted to another religion. Who can fail to be sobered when setting forth to alter such harsh and pervasive realities. Nor should we see the suffering merely in terms of numbers. Suffering has a face. In my office there is a lovely watercolor painting of a house and garden. The painted scene is one of peace, which reflects the forgiveness in the artist's heart. But that painting has its origins in hatred. The artist is a young Lebanese woman by the name of Mary, who at the age of 18 was fleeing her village after it was overrun by militia. Mary was caught by a militiaman who demanded that she renounce her faith or die. She refused to renounce her faith, and the bullet that went in about to the left of her chin came out the base of her head and severed her spinal cord. Today Mary paints her paintings of forgiveness with a paint brush braced in her right hand. She represents both the painful consequences of religious persecution and the best fruits of religion. Filled with physical suffering, Mary forgives. Forgiveness begets reconciliation, which is the real answer, the enduring answer, to religious persecution. So that we do not forget the face of suffering, and of forgiveness, I dedicate this first annual report to Mary. The goal of the report is simple: to create a comprehensive record of the state of religious freedom around the world, to highlight the most significant violations of the right to religious freedom, and to help the persecuted. As this report documents extensively, violations of religious freedom, including religious persecution, are not confined to any one country, religion, region, or nationality. Throughout the world there are many Marys. They are Baha'is, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and others. It is our hope that this report will do two things: first, provide all three branches of the federal government - as well as the press, foreign governments, religious groups, and NGOs - with a factual basis for evaluating religious freedom worldwide. Second, by so doing, that it will help alleviate suffering, recalling to persecutors and persecuted alike that they are not, and will not be, forgotten. As Assistant Secretary Koh noted, the report represents a massive effort involving hundreds of individuals in difficult, and at times, dangerous work. Having seen this process from the inside, I can attest to the countless hours of labor that went into making it a reality. Let me also first thank Secretary Albright, under whose leadership the issue of religious freedom has received extraordinary attention. Let me also thank Assistant Secretary Koh, who has provided his personal support and the expertise of his entire Bureau. Let me thank the hundreds of State Department officers who have worked on these reports, and the many outside of the Department who have provided necessary information to this endeavor. I must also pay special tribute to the splendid and dedicated team that oversaw both the development and production of the report. In particular, I would like to note the work of my deputy, Tom Farr, and Marc Susser. Marc Susser and Tom and their staffs, outstanding staffs, I thank them for persevering with such care and integrity to bring this report to fruition. And I also want to thank the Congress for its support of our work. We accept wholeheartedly its call -- as expressed in the Act -- to "stand with the persecuted," and I look forward to making the Act an example of cooperation between the executive and legislative branches. A report of this magnitude is not easily summarized. Let me start by noting that at the heart of universal human rights lies a powerful idea. It is the notion of human dignity - that every human being possesses an inherent and inviolable worth that transcends the authority of the state. Indeed, this idea is the engine of democracy itself. It flows from the conviction that every person, of whatever social, economic or political status, of whatever race, creed or location, has a value which does not rise or fall with income or productivity, with status or position, with power or weakness. Every human being, declares the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is "endowed with reason and conscience;" reason and conscience direct us to the source of that endowment, an orientation typically expressed in religion. "Everyone," says the Declaration, "has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship or observance." Religious freedom - the right to pursue one's faith - thus emerges as a cornerstone of human dignity and of all human rights. The vast majority of the world's governments have committed themselves to respect religions freedom, but there remains a substantial and often vast difference between promise and practice. Much of the world lives in countries in which the right to religious freedom is restricted or prohibited. This gap between word and deed has many causes, some of which we outline in the Executive Summary. However, every nation must meet the standards on religious freedom established by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other international instruments. Each nation is accountable - accountable to the international community for its failure to meet these standards. The United States acknowledges and accepts its responsibility to meet these standards in the safeguarding and protection of religious liberty. At the end of the day, there are no good reasons for any government to violate religious freedom, or to tolerate those within its warrant who do. There are, however, many good reasons to promote religious freedom. It bears repeating that the United States seeks to promote religious freedom, not simply to criticize. Such vital work usually is done out of the limelight, often without acknowledgment, occasionally without knowing its results. But the work must, and does, take place. It happens when a foreign service officer, sometimes at risk to her own life, presses local authorities to tell where the priest has been taken and why. It happens when an Ambassador, after discussing with a senior official his country's important strategic relationship with the United States, raises that "one more thing" - access to the imprisoned mufti, or information on the missionary who has disappeared. It happens when senior US officials, responsible for balancing and pursuing all of America's national interests, make it clear that a single persecuted individual, perhaps insignificant in the grand affairs of state, matters to the world's most powerful nation. All men and women, whether religious or not, have a stake in protecting the core truths expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To preserve religious freedom is to reaffirm and defend the centrality of those truths - and to strengthen the very heart of human rights. Now Harold and I would be very happy to address any of the questions that you might have. Q Based on your -- AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: And Phil, would you referee? Q Based on your months of research, would you care to pinpoint the country which you would consider the most egregious violator of human freedom? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: No, I would not. I think the report is very clear in expressing violations. The report was written with a great deal of integrity. We've swept absolutely nothing under the rug, but neither do we think it's in the best interest of this bill or in the best interest of diplomacy to single out a particular country. The report, in that sense, does speak for itself. Q Can you talk a little bit about the sanctions that are called for in the legislation and whether - I know Mr. Rubin said that the Secretary would be considering next steps, but clearly you must've had some discussions. Would you anticipate that there might be some sort of sanctional activity this year or will you give these countries a pass? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: Well, it is premature for me to talk about sanctions given this other part of the exercise - this designation process - that needs to wait until the Secretary returns and completes her own review. But let me say that the act itself was never conceived primarily to be a sanctions act. Sanctions are a last resort. In the sanction portion of this act is a very nuanced; a very sophisticated approach. There's essentially a menus approach - 15 different sanctions anywhere from a private demarche to withdrawal of economic aid - and the provision allows the Secretary a great deal of flexibility and latitude. But again, let me emphasize that first and foremost this was never perceived - conceived to be a sanctions bill. Q Will you publicize - when you do make a determination about the countries of particular concern - are you going to publicize that or is that something that you'll just sort of tell Congress about? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: The act gives us the option of both doing this publicly or doing this in a classified way. And that determination has not been made yet. Q What would a sort of - what is it that you consider - what is that affects your determination or your judgment about whether to make a list of the countries that you're particularly concerned about public or keeping it private? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: The report, first of all, goes to Congress and we might want to keep things private between here and Congress. Congress has then the option. But it's the report for them. It's not first and foremost for a larger community. So we may take that approach and allow them to make the option; we may not take that approach. We have not gotten to the point of whether countries that may be - or may not be - but may be designated such should be presented publicly to the rest of the world at the outset. That's a determination that will be made in the process of the second exercise, the exercise of designation. Q Ambassador, do you think the United States stacks up against the standard you've set here for other countries on religious freedom? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: The United States has its imperfections and we do not set ourselves up as a moral watchdog for the rest of the world. We have problems that we are working on. I think if you look at the history of the 223 years of this republic, compare that with any other nation-state in the world, we can be very proud of what has happened. That doesn't make us perfect and we don't suggest that that is the case. But I think we have an opportunity and an obligation in terms of the international covenants, the international instruments, and inherent in those instruments is this concept of mutual accountability. So we welcome, for example, the UN Special Rapporteur into this country to look at what we're doing. We feel that we can also look at another country as part of this global nationhood and, with this concept of mutual accountability, look at things that are happening within another country. We are all in this together and we hold each other accountable. We're open and we hope other countries will be equally open. Q You both spoke about the fact that no country can find a reason to discriminate against or persecute people religiously or not allow them their religious freedom, and yet you have, you know, some pretty stand-out examples where a number of Islamic countries - like Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia - which you declare where freedom of religion does not exist -- countries like Pakistan where there are, you know, written right into their constitution, you know, Islam is the state religion. How do you come to grips with that disparity? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: First of all, we take the standard in the Act and we apply it to any country regardless of whether it is a theocracy, a totalitarian state or a democracy, and look at what has happened in that country. Have there been violations? Have there been violations where religion has played a significant role? What has been the history of those violations, the pattern; were they systematic or not? And we apply that across the board. Now, if there are, we call it like it is. We pull no punches. But we are looking, again, at persecution or violations of religious freedom that are caused primarily, to a significant degree, because of religion dynamic. Q Maybe the more fundamental question is though how do you expect - I mean, obviously you are doing this because you are hoping to make improvements, and how would you make - how would you hope to make improvements if, you know, a country, you know, has it as part of their constitution? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: There are two points of discernment in this process. One is what is going on and, for the most part, I think there is agreement even with the countries themselves, we can find out what is going on. It might be consensual truth but we can find out through a variety of ways - our own post reporting, the NGO community reporting, the human rights operatives reporting. We can find out and agree to what is happening. The next point of discernment is much more difficult: What do you do about it? And we will all, reasonable people, look at the same information and perhaps come to different points of view on methodology, on timing, on the impact of culture and history and system, but that is where we need to wrestle. This is not a - we don't do this totally by the numbers at that point. This is where all those other issues - the dynamic foreign policy, et cetera, et cetera - all these things get woven in but we, again, try to create as much as possible that first standard so that we know what's going on. Today we are releasing the report. This is what we think is going on. In the coming months we will be talking about and working with, if we haven't started that already, the next steps: how we go about advancing religious freedom knowing what the truth is in a particular country -- what methodologies, what time frames, how do we do it. Q Ambassador Seiple, your report on page nine of the second section, the one on China, refers to a group of leaders from house churches in Xinjiang who requested a meeting with the government to petition a proper relationship between their churches and the government in China. They actually met with two American reporters at the time; they were photographed. Are you aware that all three of them - three of the four leaders have been arrested and are being held on charges of being members of a cult? And if so, does the State Department plan to do anything about that? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: First of all, a lot of our information has come from reporters who have been there and we treat those reports with a great deal of interest and a great deal of concern. I am very familiar with the initial events that took place. Frankly, I'm hearing for the first time that three of the leaders - as you say, David - were ultimately put in jail under a cult rationale. And yes, we would follow that up and I appreciate the fact that you brought it up and we will - before the day is out - begin working on that issue. In this province there's been a lot of activity with the unregistered church, as you know. And in each case we have followed it up; in some cases we brought it first to the attention of the Chinese Government. A lot of the vertical information flows faster than the horizontal inside the country, and in many respects our information was better than they had, thanks to people like yourself who have traveled there. But this is something new; this is something I had not heard before and thank you for it. Q What role will the UN play -- Q Just on China again - today the foreign ministry has already - in China has already dismissed this report as malicious interference and has hinted that this is just the kind of thing that could sour the upcoming presidential talks in New Zealand. I guess the question is should this be on the table in the same way as economic concerns are on the table; security concerns are on the table the way that they were on the table back when we were talking to the Soviet Union about such matters a decade or so ago? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: Absolutely. Human rights are part of our foreign policy. If there's a meeting in Auckland to talk about our bilateral relationships, sure, this should be on the table. This is important. When I was in China at the first of the year, I heard all the things that we're now seeing in the newspaper: how can you come in and trifle with our internal concerns. And I tried to answer then and tried to answer earlier today, I think that you have a human right that's universal that transcends nation-states, that transcends borders. You have this concept of neutral accountability in the international covenants that China has signed. And further, if this country, which is involved - our country which is involved on so many levels - from disaster relief to military security to economic contract to drug interdictions - it would be a supreme irony not to also be involved on the level of human rights. So this Act, more than anything else - if we didn't believe it before - this Act essentially says that human rights in a bilateral relationship will never, ever again be swept under the rug. Now, their comment in the press of dismissive comment was not unexpected. Q (Inaudible) - will be on the table? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: I don't know the agenda in Auckland. I'm talking generically that we should never apologize for human rights being part of our foreign policy, part of our national interest, and being on the table in any bilateral relationship. Q It's my understanding that 194 nations were surveyed as part of this report. You have provided us with 19 individual reports. Should we assume that these are the most - these 19 are the most egregious? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: Let me tell you where the 19 came from. Every year, apparently, we ask the press corps to give us what they want so that you don't have to wade through 1,000 or 1,100 pages. These 19 are the ones that you've chosen. Q What role has the UN played or will play as far as preparing this report, and also how are you going to enforce the report internationally as either politically or a humanitarian basis? And so many churches and temples have been destroyed in many Muslim countries, including Pakistan and also in China, so what is the future now? This is the first annual or first international report on religious persecution. AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: Well, let me just say a couple things. You ask a very broad and a very long question, but the enforcement I would like to change to the word that I use in my statement: promotion. This International Religious Freedom Act is designed to promote religious freedom. All the countries that you mentioned, we desperately want to work with those countries in the promotion around the common agenda in ways that will enhance religious freedom for their people. We do not look at this bill as a punitive bill. We do not look at this bill as a way to punish people. We do not look at this bill as a moral high ground for one country against another. We are in the business of promoting international religious freedom; we will work with anyone who will work with us to enhance that right. Q About the UN - I'm sorry - the UN playing role? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: The primary role that the UN has played to date where we've had interaction is with the Special Rapporteur for Religious Freedom and, as you probably know, that person has been to many of the high visibility countries; he has also been to this country. We read his reports very carefully and those reports - in some way, shape or form, directly or indirectly - also inform the report that you now have in front of you. Q I'm curious why you don't include the Chinese Falun Gong as a religious group and why you don't deal with the persecution by the Chinese authorities of these people. AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: The Falun Gong are included in the China report. Q Well, it says that -- AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: You may be looking at the Executive Summary, which I'm not sure if they're mentioned there, but there is a whole section on the Falun Gong. Let me just say that "Falun Gong" translated into English is "Buddhist Law" and there are elements of Buddhism and Taoism which tether us to their situation in terms of a religion regardless of whether or not they call themselves a religion. And we also say that in the international covenants the precise language under the category of religious freedom is thought, conscience and belief. And if you take that definition - which 144 countries now have signed these covenants - you take that definition and Falun Gong should be considered. And yes, we have spoken out - people from this party have spoken out about the crackdown on the Falun Gong in times past. Q And have you or the embassy brought up the arrests of these people? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: Yes. Q Can you talk a little bit about how the process that was mandated by this law - how that affected the thinking in the State Department and in posts? You said earlier in one of your comments that never again will this be swept under the rug. Has this process of forcing - AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: Obviously a bad phrase if you think that before it was. Q But did the process of going through this - of making your posts focus in on religious freedoms - did it change sort of the place that religious liberty has on the State Department plate? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: I think it's fair to say that that is true. In the process of writing the bill - the Act - it was 18 months in the making with a lot of input and of course, what came out after 18 months was a whole lot better than where it started. That's just the process. So you had a beautiful process, essentially instituted by the American people -- democracy at its finest. Ultimately, at the end, you have this act. At the same time, there was a growing number of activities being conducted inside the State Department: there's an advisory committee of 20 people who are making reports all along; there was the approach that we took for trying to get people into a traveling mode in the some high-visibility countries -- the religious leaders who went to China a couple of years ago; and finally, my position. My position was created - my staff was brought up to speed really before the bill was signed last October. So all these things are coming together at the same time. The fact that you have a law and can say, but it's the law, I think helps your institutionalization, helps make more operative the concepts of religious freedom as one of the freedoms protected and worked on - an issue worked on by the State Department. Q Ambassador, we have this much, but in effect the whole book is out for the public to see now, so what is still confidential? Do you write a special memo that's attached to this recommending action or do you just wait and is there a committee in Congress that calls you to some closed hearing or the White House calls you to a closed hearing? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: There's nothing in what you have that is confidential and by the end of the day the entire 1,100 pages will be up on our website, none of which will be confidential unless you have problems accessing the website. But it's going to be up there. I think what you're referring to in terms of confidentiality was the possibility - the option - that we have in the act when we finally designate a process that hasn't been brought to completion by any stretch of the imagination - designate countries of particular concern. We have the opportunity to do that confidentially. We could also have the option to take parts of the Executive Summary and send them up to Congress on a confidential or classified basis. We chose not to do that. And I think what you'll find in the end, that most everything that comes out on the issue of religious freedom from the State Department is going to be for public consumption - unclassified. Q Ambassador, I understand the scope of the report is 1998 and the first half of 1999 -- AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: 18 months. Q But in the context of Indonesia, I note - and I obviously haven't read every word you've written - but I note that you talk about differences between the predominantly Muslim security forces and Catholics in East Timor and cite abuses, but you say the abuses were not motivated by religious differences but resulted from efforts to stem support for the independence of the province. Can you update that in any way given the current situation in terms of the current reports against Catholics now? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: The current situation obviously is a major tragedy - a major tragedy unfolding that a lot of people in this building are working on even as we speak. Let me broad-brush some things. What you have in Indonesia at the grassroots are people who have as their primary identification - their identity; their identifier - they identify themselves on the basis of religion first. You go to a mixed community, everybody knows where the Muslims are if you are Christian; everybody knows where the Christians live if you are Muslim. And there's been a long history -- this is part of the tragedy - there's been a long history of tolerance at the grassroots level. But at the country level, they've been hit with two massive hits in the last two years on the political side and on the economic side, and there's a lot of chaos that comes from those hits. And that chaos, unfortunately, does not filter through what we would take for granted as institutional democracy-building, judicial systems, rule of law, the military and so on, that you would find perhaps in a country like the United States or a country where democracy has been around for a long while. So you have the massive hits, you have people whose primary identity is tied to religion, and you have very little buffering that. So when this ultimately gets translated down to the grassroots you have violence and it looks like a religious war. I would caution - this is in my mind not a religious war, but started with events larger than anybody could've controlled - it's part of the identity conflicts that we've seen over and over again in the 1990s. We are very concerned about it; lots of people are working hard on it and there's no question that this is a tragedy unfolding. Q Do you have any information about the current reports that - not from this report - but current reports of activities against especially Roman Catholics? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: The current reports that I have seen are reports of concern that if the UN pulls out or if there is not someone to stabilize the situation, a number of Catholics, Catholic leaders, feel extremely vulnerable. Q Since this question was asked and answered on the record I feel this other perspective has to be sort of represented on the record, and that is I think it would be a misimpression left here thinking that it was reporters who decided that only a finite number of these reports would be available on paper. In the last few years since the State Department has been putting its information up on the website, the State Department has chosen not to reproduce all thousand pages for everybody and reporters were asked to choose a number of specific countries. AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: (Inaudible.) MR. REEKER: Let me just clarify. There are two full sets available and people can make copies. In order to accommodate people we did a poll of the 20 most interesting to journalists - countries - that's obviously somewhat subjective. We provide those but the others are freely available and see the press office afterwards if you need them. Q You say that this is not a punitive act, sir, but it does have the potential for sanctions. Is there any point where you recommend or where you believe sanctions are warranted based on what this report contains? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: Again, that would be premature for me to comment on because as part of the larger exercise of reviewing and designating - if that's the way things go - and then also determining what the sanctions should be. So it would be premature at this point to comment. Q Short of determining what they would be, is it your sense based on what you've compiled here that sanctions are merited in any of these countries that you've examined? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: This is a report that comes from the State Department and this is a report that the Secretary of State has to feel comfortable with and sign off on in terms of that question, and it would not be proper for me to give an answer without the opportunity for her to look at the same material -- which she's doing even as we speak - and coming to a conclusion based on inputs from all of us -- recommendations. So I won't answer that. Q In your report you say that the government of Turkey has supported a ban on the wearing of religious head garments in government offices and state-run facilities for 50 years. Actually, what is the US Government's position on this? Do you regard this ban as religious persecution? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: I have an answer to that but Harold, you just got back from Turkey and no one has asked you any questions. Are you going to answer this question? Or if you don't, just tell me. ASSISTANT SECRETARY KOH: I was asked the question in Turkey. I think the question really is - there is an ability to practice one's religion in Turkey, but when there comes to a public demonstration of that by wearing a head scarf in a parliamentary or public session, that has aroused huge public debate and outcry in Turkey. What I've said to officials in Turkey and also in press discussions and on-the-record-interviews is that this is something that we, as Americans, have difficulty understanding - that on the one hand we do have rules in our country against the establishment of religion, but on the other side rules favoring the free exercise of religion and that we believe that these two instincts can be accommodated - and we encourage the Turkish Government to do the same. Let me just also mention in response to one of the other questions that the Human Rights Report also - every year for 20 years - has reported on religious freedom in each country - 195 countries. There's a section on both the freedom of religion and on the treatment of religious minorities. Of course, in a report of this magnitude, those same issues can be treated with much greater detail. But this is not something that we have ignored as part of our general human rights survey year after year. Q The basic problem of religious persecution is basically in a communist country or in a Muslim country today. If you are not going enforce this report, then how are you going to educate the people there or the governments there presently? And also, who played the major role preparing this report - reporters around the world or the embassies or consulates? AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: Your second question first and then maybe you want to fine tune the first part. The bulk of the reporting came from the return of an 18-page questionnaire to our posts. That reporting was supplemented by all the people in the last year that we have talked to in this building or on our travels; cables from the field; trip notes from the field; reports from human rights groups, faith-based organizations, NGOs - all of that was factored in. Let me say in that regard, because I see David Sapperstein here - David Sapperstein is the chairman of the commission which was also formulated by this act - a 10-member commission; an independent commission that has the role of making its report to the Secretary and President by the first of May of every year. This commission, for a variety of reasons, was put together late in the day and we did not have a report forthcoming. In future years we will have that, as well as an attempt to get additional information, especially from countries where we don't have a diplomatic presence. Now, the first part of your question was tied to a sense that all the bad things happen in totalitarian states. I'm not sure if that's true. Q (Inaudible.) AMBASSADOR SEIPLE: I'm not sure if that's true and I don't want to comment on that, but I'll say again that we use the same grid regardless if it's a totalitarian state, if it's an Islamic state, if it's a democracy, if it's all of the above - whatever - we use the same. And when we get to the point of truth in terms of abuses, we will move to try to correct those abuses through diplomacy, through talking, through the promotion of. Again, this is not an enforcement arm of the United States Government; this is an office designed to promote international religious freedom. MR. REEKER: Mr. Rubin asked me just to tell people, since we didn't have a regular briefing today, if you have questions we are in the press office this afternoon. Thank you very much. (The briefing concluded at 12:46 P.M.) [end of document] Remarks Index | Religious Freedom Report | Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor | State Deparment |
