History
This Act was a response to the growing concern about religious persecution throughout the world. There had been instances of toleration on the part of the governments when the religious rights of their citizens and others had been violated. There are governments around the world which openly sponsor and tolerate restrictions on their citizens' right to practice, observe, study, or associate with other members of their religious faith.
The former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, John Shattuck, cited specific countries that fail to recognize the fundamental right of religious freedom. There is a civil war ensuing in Sudan because of the ruling party's intolerance of opposing religions. The Chinese Catholics and Chinese Protestant groups battle government repression, and the Chinese government tightly regulates religious practices in the regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. Members of the Rohingya Muslim minority are forced to take refuge in the neighboring Bangladesh. There are suspect cases of minority oppression in Europe as well. Russia's new religion law seeks to make restraints and inhibit new religious communities' ability to own property, publish literature or operate schools. This Act tries to recognize such kind of blatant forms of religious discrimination and oppression. It finds that over one-half of the population of the world lives under regimes that have strict policies against basic religious freedoms. Title VII of the Act has noted that some regimes engage in persecution that includes subjection of those people who engage in practice of religious faiths that are not state sponsored, to detention, torture, beatings, forced marriage, rape, imprisonment, enslavement, mass resettlement and death. Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) in his speech to the Congress on October 2, 1998 stated:
| “ | this is an important aspect of the bill. If the definition of religious persecution were limited to only torture, imprisonment, or death, the Act would only cover about a few countries, and would not include about 80 to 85% of the religious persecution that takes place in the world | ” |
This Act was first introduced as H.R. 2431 by Representative Frank Wolf to the House of Representatives on September 9, 1997. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) concurrently introduced the Senate version of the bill, S. 772. The legislation was passed on May 14, 1998, by a vote of 375-41, and was subsequently sent to the Senate. Under consideration, this Act was proposed to be modified by Senator Nickles.
The primary aim of the modification was to allow the president to have more flexibility in responding to countries that violated the Act. The Nickles Bill offered the president a waiver provision if he feels that it would promote the interest of the U.S. national security to not impose measures on a designated country. The Senate agreed to the propositions on October 9, 1998, approved by H.R. 2431 as amended by a vote of 98-0.
Read more about this topic: International Religious Freedom Act Of 1998
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