In late March, in retaliation for joint sanctions by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada for human rights violations in Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party placed Gayle Manchin, president of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and Tony Perkins, vice president of USCIRF, on the sanctions list. In an interview with the Voice of America on April 5, Perkins said that the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to eliminate religious freedom will ultimately fail because the spiritual quest of man, which stems from a vision of a creator, cannot be stifled.
In retaliation for the U.S.-led, U.S., British, Canadian, and European Union sanctions announced on March 27 against the Chinese Communist Party for criminal human rights violations against the Uighurs in Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party announced that it had placed the organization’s president, Manchin, and vice president, Burkins, on its blacklist of sanctions.
Perkins: Chinese Communist Party Experiencing Pressure of International Sanctions to Deflect Attention Through Retaliation
In an interview on April 5, Burkins said he has tried to visit the Chinese Communist Party on the ground many times to examine the state of religious freedom on the mainland, but has never been able to do so, which shows that what the Chinese Communist Party is doing in Xinjiang is anything but honorable.
He went on to say that the Communist Party’s sanctions are not only unfounded, but also a reflection of the pressure the Communist Party is beginning to feel from the international community.
Perkins said the CCP is aware that it has been humiliated by international sanctions and that its crimes in Xinjiang have been exposed to the international community and condemned by many countries, so it is trying to divert international attention through retaliation.
He also said that neither he nor the International Commission on Religious Freedom would be afraid or retreat from retaliation by the Chinese Communist Party, but on the contrary, they would redouble their efforts to continue to condemn the Chinese Communist Party’s violations of human rights and religious freedom.
Burkins: The extent of the CCP’s indiscriminate persecution of religious groups on the mainland is shocking
The commission believes the CCP is persecuting religious groups on the mainland indiscriminately because, as an atheist organization, the CCP cannot tolerate the existence of religious freedom on the mainland, Burkins said.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a cross-party federal government agency in the U.S. Congress, was established in 1988 under the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act, and the organization has nine commissioners nominated by the U.S. president and bipartisan leaders in the House and Senate. The U.S. State Department’s Ambassador-at-Large for Religion is a non-voting member of the commission, which has an elected chair and vice chair. Manchin, the current chair of the Commission, was nominated by U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Schumer to the Commission on International Religious Freedom in April 2018 and elected to chair the organization in June 2020; Burkins was also nominated to the Commission in 2018 by then-Senate Majority Leader, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, who was elected to chair the Commission in June 2019 and elected to serve as its vice chair in June 2020. He was elected as the Commission’s Vice Chair.
The National Council on Religious Freedom has been very concerned about the Chinese Communist Party’s violations of religious freedom, recommending in each of its annual reports that the U.S. government designate the Chinese Communist Party as a “country of special concern” and calling on the U.S. government and the international community to hold the Chinese government accountable for its systematic, ongoing and serious violations of religious freedom.
As a Christian, Burkins said he was most alarmed by the Chinese authorities’ practice of breaking up Uighur families and putting them in re-education camps. And the Chinese Communist Party has committed similar crimes against Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and Buddhists.
Freedom of religion lies in people being able to practice their faith and live according to their faith, and although I do not believe in Islam, I also believe that as Muslim Uighurs have the right to practice their faith as a family and as a community, because forming families and communities according to their faith and practicing their faith in their own lives is the way of life for people of faith,” he said. is the way of life for believers. The Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to violently and forcibly break up these communities and break up these families is the most evil act of persecution.”
In its report last year, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom cited independent research that said between 900,000 and 1.8 million Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region are held by the Chinese Communist Party in more than 1,300 concentration camps there, and that nearly 500,000 Muslim children have been forcibly separated from their families. Many are imprisoned in the camps simply for the way they grow beards, refuse to drink alcohol or other so-called extreme religious ideology. Beginning in 2019, some concentration camps in Xinjiang have been increasingly used for forced labor, and many of those illegally detained in the camps have been forced to go to the cotton fields or textile mills to perform hard labor.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom warned last June that the Chinese Communist Party’s population control policies against Uighurs and other Muslims, such as sterilization, meet the definition of genocide under international law. The former Trump administration found the Chinese Communist Party guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang before it left office. The Biden administration made that determination again in its annual human rights report to Congress in 2020.
In its first annual report, published in 1988, the commission focused on documenting the CCP’s violations of religious freedom for Uighurs in Xinjiang, and mentioned the systematic, ongoing and egregious religious persecution of Uighurs, which has intensified, Burkins said.
The treatment of Uighur Muslims on the mainland alone is enough for the CCP to be classified as a “country of special concern,” Burkins said, while other religious groups such as Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and Buddhists are subject to similar persecution and oppression on the mainland.
I can only say that the CCP is persecuting indiscriminately because all it wants is loyalty to the party,” Burkins said.
Perkins: Assessing Religious Freedom in Countries Based on International Standards
Communist authorities deny that what they are doing in Xinjiang violates Uighur human rights and religious freedom, or that they have committed genocide in Xinjiang. The Communist Party claims that its re-education camps in Xinjiang are “educational vocational training centers” aimed at de-extremism and poverty eradication; it also accuses the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom of “interfering in China’s internal affairs under the guise of religious freedom” and claims that the Commission is It also accused the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom of “interfering in China’s internal affairs under the guise of religious freedom,” and claimed that the commission was judging the status of religious freedom in each country according to its relationship with the U.S. government and whether its ‘values’ were in line with those of the U.S. government.
In response, Burkins said that while the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is a federal agency funded by congressional appropriations, the organization evaluates countries on the basis of international human rights standards, and that the commission only has the right to make policy recommendations, not judgments.
We are judging countries on the basis of the International Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, to see if governments are systematically and consistently committing serious violations of religious freedom,” he said. We are simply advising the U.S. government in accordance with international standards of religious freedom.
Countries of special concern for religious freedom are clearly defined in the laws of the U.S. Congress as countries that engage in extremely serious, persistent and systematic repression of the free exercise of national religious beliefs, or that allow such conduct to exist.” He explained that a country is designated as a country of special concern for religious freedom whether a government is involved in violations of religious freedom or a country acquiesces in such acts by non-governmental organizations in that country.
He said, “There’s no preference here, we make policy recommendations for the U.S. government based on these principles, and the U.S. government sometimes adopts our recommendations and sometimes doesn’t.”
Burkins described how the commission often needs to visit countries on the ground in order to accurately assess the state of religious freedom in each country; however, members of the commission have so far been unable to travel to the mainland to investigate because of the Chinese Communist Party’s iron curtain, he said, “which in itself shows that the Chinese Communist Party is hiding something.”
He urged the international community to also assess whether what the CCP is doing in Xinjiang meets the definition of genocide. He said, “I think they will come to the same conclusion and all come forward and tell the CCP that we cannot tolerate this kind of behavior by the CCP.”
Perkins: Human pursuit of faith comes from vision of creator
Burkins said religious freedom is a natural human right, not only because it is a core value endorsed by humanity in the International Declaration of Human Rights, or because it is an important factor in maintaining a prosperous and stable society, but also because this pursuit sustains the human connection to the Creator.
He therefore admires the courage and boldness of those who refuse to submit to government pressure and practice their faith even at great risk, saying, “This reflects the strength of the human spirit, the longing and aspiration of mankind to be connected to the Creator, and we see the same story over and over again in different parts of the world, a longing and aspiration that cannot be suppressed by governments. “
“The CCP is not the first regime to try to eliminate religion; other regimes have tried, but their efforts have failed, and so will the Communist Party’s efforts, because this spiritual quest cannot be stifled. The Communist Party can put up obstacles, but it will never succeed.” He said.
He also said the commission is very concerned about the current human rights situation in the Communist country, which continues to deteriorate. The commission will release its latest annual report this week.
In response to the current dire human rights situation in mainland China, the commission is also continuing to urge the Chinese Communist authorities to respect the religious freedom of their own people, and will continue to call on the U.S. government to use existing laws to sanction Communist Party officials who violate human rights and urge Congress to pass a bill to prevent Uighurs from going into slave labor; the commission is also urging the Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Winter Olympics from the mainland; or to urge the Biden administration, if the games are held in Beijing, do not send a delegation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
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