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20 ligious leaders while I was there as well. This is one of the things that I felt they could deliver on—— Mr. SMITH. Does that include the Falun Gong? I am sorry to interrupt. Ambassador HANFORD. I don’t think it does, because, of course, the problem there is that the Falun Gong has been labeled an evil cult under the evil cult law. Mr. SMITH. What about the underground churches who are not registered, like the Catholic Patriotic Church, which are all under government control? Anyone who is outside that line, can their youth as well participate? Ambassador HANFORD. The practices are inconsistent from province to province. I think—my guess would be, Congressman, that they wouldn’t press that so much if they were to break into a house church and find youth there. Their point wouldn’t be these youths shouldn’t be there. Their point would be this meeting shouldn’t be occurring. That was one of the other points on my list. We need to deal with this registration law issue, and I tried to point out to them how counterproductive this is for China. When the South China Church gets broken up, and the pastor and parishioners are hauled in, and parishioners are brutally tortured into falsely accusing the pastor of having raped them, this does China no good. The leaders I met with claimed to know nothing about this. We will be following up to make sure that they do work on this, but these issues of brutality were at the top of my list. The registration laws were on our short list. That would be a hard deliverable in the short run, but it is so important. It is the crux of why all these problems happen. We are urging them to begin dialogue immediately with the Vatican. That has stalled. We talked to them about a deliverable or two concerning Tibetan Buddhists. One other thing which they did agree to, and they are still considering the others, in the short run is to set up a working group that will interact with my office. As you know from your work, one of the problems in dealing with a government like this is you go to one bureau, maybe the Office of Religious <strong>Affairs</strong>, and you bring up an incident of brutality in a province, and they can always say, we’re not aware of this; that is the Security Bureau. Or you go to the foreign ministry. It just happens over and over. They are putting together a working group that will comprise several of these government bureaucracies where we can go to them in short order. We want to be able to do rapid response and have people that understand what we are about and work hand in hand with us to solve things quickly. They pledged to me even before I got on the plane to leave that they were going to do that. Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Mr. Tancredo. Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Ambassador, I want to concentrate on just one or two areas of concern. In the first case, specifically India, it is always a little bit of a concern or a little bit of a dilemma, I guess I should say, in how you deal with a democratic nation as opposed to a totalitarian nation on these issues. I mean, it is easier for us to attack, VerDate May 01 2002 14:37 Dec 19, 2002 Jkt 082261 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\IOHR\100902\82261 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
21 it is easier for us to sort of grab hold of a problem in China and Vietnam and a variety of other places, but sometimes I get the impression that it is something we don’t want to do, and that is to say attack another democracy, criticize another democracy for what is happening in their own country. And it does seem to a certain extent that there is a hesitancy in this report, a hesitancy to actually identify some of the more dramatic problems in India, events that have occurred there of such a horrendous nature. They are characterized generally, but there are some specific events that, it seems to me, deserve our attention. The fact that, for instance, evidently a past member of Parliament was forcibly removed from his home, beaten, limbs severed, eventually decapitated in this same riot that we are talking about. I understand that in Tamil Nadu that they have just passed an anti-conversion ordnance law last week. The law contains stiff punishment provisions, especially for conversions among the Dalits and marginalized women. Do you think that the report adequately covers the dimension of the problems in India? Mr. HANFORD. I think it does. Now, I will go back, given the attention you are drawing to this and take another look. I know our office has been focusing on this very heavily, because the signs are so troubling, and what could be precipitated by this is frightening. Now, I have spoken with the Ambassador of India about this. Of course in the short run, we are worried about reprisals against Muslims as a result of the recent killings that occurred in a Hindu temple. I think the issue we are struggling with is, is there any role of the central government in this? And we want to see them fully energized to do whatever they can within their power to solve the problems on the state level, primarily in Gujarat. They are assuring us that they are doing that. They did take some pretty extraordinary measures over the last few weeks which are positive signs of this. I think they have heard our message. Mr. TANCREDO. When you say trying to determine the extent of involvement of the central government, you might also bring up to them the concern we have about their involvement with the rioting, with the actual construction of this ‘‘riot.’’ It is an organized riot, apparently organized by the government. People showed up in buses at exactly the right time, 8 o’clock in the morning, they got off, they all had certain identifying characteristics. They were—and badges and that sort of thing. It was evidently very clearly an organized event. And I do have a fear that the central government was involved in the organization of it. And, you know, have you brought this to their attention, our concern that that exists, number one, and then I guess my question would be, what are we going to do about it if we find these things to be clear violations? Mr. HANFORD. The government—the apparent government complicity that we have found was on the state level, and we are very troubled by that. The leaders in the central government have responded well in terms of condemning what happened, in terms of even expressing their embarrassment, wherever they go. I think it was the Prime Minister who said, wherever I go now our nation is being embarrassed by this. VerDate May 01 2002 14:37 Dec 19, 2002 Jkt 082261 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\IOHR\100902\82261 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
Page 1 and 2: AN EVALUATION OF THE ANNUAL REPORT
Page 3 and 4: C O N T E N T S WITNESSES John Hanf
Page 5 and 6: AN EVALUATION OF THE ANNUAL REPORT
Page 7 and 8: 3 of the suffering they, their fami
Page 9 and 10: 5 freedom in the context of threats
Page 11 and 12: 7 Mr. Smith. Mr. SMITH. Thank you v
Page 13 and 14: 9 PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORAB
Page 15 and 16: 11 Hindu extremists. And the graphi
Page 17 and 18: 13 Ambassador HANFORD. I am going t
Page 19 and 20: 15 International Religious Freedom.
Page 21 and 22: 17 Finally, religion-based terroris
Page 23: 19 Falun Gong, especially with this
Page 27 and 28: 23 The expressions of concern have
Page 29 and 30: 25 Mr. HANFORD. In the dark of nigh
Page 31 and 32: 27 across. And, of course, there wa
Page 33 and 34: 29 would publicly condemn the killi
Page 35 and 36: 31 Andrei Sakharov Foundation, Huma
Page 37 and 38: 33 carried out in many cases. Priva
Page 39 and 40: 35 of these countries continue to c
Page 41 and 42: 37 ward all religions and their fol
Page 43 and 44: 39 The Commission agrees with Ambas
Page 45 and 46: 41 Is it systemic? Is it organized,
Page 47 and 48: 43 has lectured at the American Cen
Page 49 and 50: 45 My younger brother, Yunus Sidik,
Page 51 and 52: 47 Chinese government. This is the
Page 53 and 54: 49 In China, it is almost a crime b
Page 55 and 56: 51 I am very happy that you have pr
Page 57 and 58: 53 Brahmanical forces mask the trut
Page 59 and 60: 55 10. The Hindutva organizations a
Page 61 and 62: 57 Number six. Rabwah, the spiritua
Page 63 and 64: 59 hours ago. I have been following
Page 65 and 66: 61 firmed when their bodies were re
Page 67 and 68: 63 contradiction to the Constitutio
Page 69 and 70: 65 Human rights reports state that
Page 71 and 72: 67 and subject to closed hearings.
Page 73 and 74: 69 an outstanding job of protecting
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71 Mr. RAJ. About this report. I am
Page 77 and 78:
73 Mr. PITTS. How has the governmen
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75 Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. And
Page 81 and 82:
A P P E N D I X MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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79 barring access to one’s own ch
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81 ernment, which is led by the Hin
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83 whether privately or publicly, w
Page 89 and 90:
85 tory acts, largely because the n
Page 91 and 92:
87 rights. The Constitution does no
Page 93 and 94:
89 Commission holds public hearings
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91 12. In testimony provided to thi
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