State Dept. Urges INS to Ease Granting of Asylum to Christians Persecuted Abroad

In releasing a report detailing persecution of Christians around the world, the State Department called on immigration authorities Tuesday to revise their procedures to guarantee asylum in the United States to people facing religious tyranny.

John Shattuck, assistant secretary of State for human rights, said that as part of this effort, his office is providing the Immigration and Naturalization Service with updated reports on conditions in more than 50 countries to ensure that claims of religious persecution are evaluated fairly.

Christian groups have accused the INS of imposing impossible tests, such as demands to explain complex theological concepts, on refugees seeking asylum on the grounds they are persecuted for Christian beliefs.

These groups also say INS judges frequently are unwilling to acknowledge that Christians face imprisonment or death in several countries.

INS spokesman Brian Johnson rejected such criticism. “To say that INS judges blatantly deny cases based on Christianity is totally unfounded,” he said. “Immigration judges and asylum officers always update themselves about conditions in a country. INS has always given asylum to those who have demonstrated credible fear of persecution.”

Shattuck said the State Department study focused on persecution against Christians in response to a demand from Congress for a report on the subject. But he said the U.S. government is “deeply committed to protecting freedom of religion for all faiths.” Officials said an advisory committee on religious freedom abroad will issue a comprehensive report covering all faiths by the end of the year.

The report covers conditions in 78 countries ranging from Sudan, where the department found evidence of forced conversion to Islam and religious-motivated torture and murder, to Belgium, where it said the government tries to regulate sects it considers dangerous.

Although the U.S. government is not considering any sanctions to punish countries that it believes practice religious persecution, Shattuck said it is important to “shine the spotlight” on violations of religious liberty.

Nina Shea, director of the religious freedom program of Freedom House, a New York-based advocacy group, praised the report for focusing on a problem she said has been largely ignored, even by U.S. churches.

Shattuck’s bureau, she said, is “now sensitive to this issue of anti-Christian persecution, [but] on the bureaucratic level, I don’t think the word has come out.”

Like the department’s annual human rights report, the study makes no effort to rank countries on the basis of their treatment of religion. Nevertheless, conditions in some countries stand out.

In Sudan, where the Muslim-dominated government is fighting rebels who are mostly Christians and those following traditional African religions, the department reported brutal repression of non-Muslims.

“Forced conversion to Islam of Christians, animists and other non-Muslims takes place as part of government policy,” the report said. “There are reports that many Christians are victims of slave raids . . . and some Christian children have been forced into re-education camps where they are given Arab names and raised as Muslims.”

The report also was sharply critical of China. It said the Beijing regime represses all religious groups--Buddhist and Muslim as well as Christian--except for those controlled by the government.

Beginning in October, the report said, the Chinese authorities have been using “threats, demolition of property, extortion of ‘fines,’ interrogation, detention and reform-through-education sentences” against unauthorized religious and social groups. Four Roman Catholic bishops and hundreds of other clergy have been imprisoned or disappeared, it said.

Nevertheless, the report said, membership in “underground” religious groups has soared.

In several countries such as Russia, the report said, dominant religious organizations are allowed by the government to repress potential rivals. It said the Russian Orthodox Church “used its political influence to promote official actions that discriminate against [other] religious groups and sects.”

The report was restrained in its treatment of Saudi Arabia, a country often cited by Christian groups as being among the world’s most repressive societies.