wfn.org | CWS Cosponsors Roundtable On Religious Persecution, Refugees

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Church World Service
Contacts: NCC/CWS Media Relations, 212-870-2252/2227
CWS/IRP Communications: 212-870-2815
November 4, 2002 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CWS, UNHCR SPONSOR ROUNDTABLE ON RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION AND REFUGEES

By Thomas Abraham

BALTIMORE, Md. -- After 50 years of assessing refugee status on the grounds
of religious persecution, officials charged with this responsibility are
asking how the changing meanings of religion and persecution apply to
the millions whose destinies they decide.

A roundtable of immigration and refugee experts gathered in Baltimore last
week [10/30-31], in a meeting co-sponsored by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Church World Service, to discuss how
both religion and persecution have become far more complex than when the
1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees came into force in the
wake of World War II.

To ascertain refugee status, UNHCR interviews tens of thousands who flee
their countries each year. The Convention and the related 1967 Protocol
spell out the grounds on which refugee status is to be determined. People
who say theyve fled for fear of religious persecution are on the rise, as
issues of gender, culture and identity increasingly impact religion.

The UN body is seeking far-ranging expertise in interpreting the terms of
the Convention and related treaties governing these religion-based claims.
The conveners of the Baltimore roundtable hope a comprehensive set of
guidelines will emerge to aid UNHCR in making fair and reasoned
adjudications in the 21st century.

In addition to UNHCR staff, the 38 international participants invited to the
roundtable included academicians, jurists, religious lawyers, refugee
advocates, two immigration judges, and State Department and Immigration and
Naturalization Service representatives. Tibetan asylee in the US Amchok
Gyamtso and Indian Sikh asylee in the US Sadhu Madahar told their stories of
persecution, exile and asylum.

Church World Service, the global humanitarian agency of the 36 Protestant,
Orthodox and Anglican member denominations of the (U.S.) National Council of
Churches, has been instrumental in resettling over 400,000 refugees in the
US since 1946. One of the largest humanitarian aid agencies, it administers
refugee processing programs in Nairobi, Kenya, and Accra, Ghana, through a
cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of State. The two offices
represent ten voluntary agencies in resettling some 20,000 refugees from
sub-Saharan Africa in the U.S. each year. Admissions have slowed as a result
of increased security screens after 9/11.
Jeremy Gunn, who serves on a panel of experts for the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, contends that those who define
 religion fail to look at what it means to the persecutor.

Gunn points out that obtaining reliable evidence in religion cases is
probably more difficult than in any other asylum issue. Reports by the UN
Special Rapporteur on Religion or Belief and the Annual Report on
International Religious Freedom, issued by the US Department of State, are
two of the best sources of information, despite their handicaps and
shortcomings, he added.

One government representative said 9/11 was an opportunity for Islam to
change how it is perceived. We have a right to expect more from Muslims who
insist theirs is a religion of peace, he added.

But a law professor pointed out that Christians were not asked to
reinterpret their faith as a result of the Oklahoma bombings. She also
warned of a neo-Orientalist understanding of religion-based refugee claims
by Muslim women. The premise that persecution is Islamic silences their
actual claims, she said.

Gunns background paper for the roundtable rules out the likelihood that
religious discrimination and persecution will decline over the next decade.
Gunn said increasing numbers of claims are likely from China, India,
Pakistan and the Middle East. He attributed the rise in religious
persecution to religious fundamentalism, reaction against symbols of power
like the US, and tighter control over religious groups as a byproduct of
economic modernization.

A second paper was submitted by Karen Masulo, who was lead attorney in a
case that established that a successful claim to asylum could be based on
fear of female genital mutilation. Her paper examined international
agreements on the right to freedom of religion as well and analyzed how
religion-based refugee claims were treated by the US, Canada, New Zealand
and the United Kingdom.

Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Miami Thomas Wanski cut short his
participation to attend to Haitians detained by the Coast Guard after
jumping ship October 29 into the shallows off Key Biscayne, Florida.

-end-

Thomas Abraham is Information Officer for the Church World Service
Immigration and Refugee Program.