U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 23, 2021.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Wednesday (May 5) led a bipartisan call for President Biden to step up and play a key role in protecting international religious freedom and to appoint a State Department ambassador for international religious freedom as soon as possible. Biden has not yet appointed a candidate for the position since he took office more than 100 days ago.
Rubio tweeted on May 5: “Today, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) and I, leading a bipartisan, bicameral effort, wrote a letter to President Biden about the urgent need to fill the position of Ambassador for International Religious Freedom.”
The letter urged that Biden should fill the post as soon as possible, noting that the ambassador for international religious freedom affairs has been vacant since Jan. 20, when former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican appointed by former President Trump, left office.
Meanwhile, lawmakers have also called on Biden to appoint the National Security Council’s director of international religious freedom to the position. The position was previously held by Sarah Makin-Acciani, a former aide to former Vice President Mike Pence.
The lawmakers said, “Religious freedom is one of the most fundamental human rights and an area of U.S. foreign policy that has historically been sincerely supported and shared by both parties.” “It is critical that international religious freedom remain a top priority of U.S. foreign policy.”
They said that while the federal government has made “significant progress” in promoting the rights of people of faith around the world and condemning the persecution of religious minorities, “the crisis facing international religious freedom has also deepened, with (some) government restrictions on religion (even) rising to historic highs. The letter cites the Pew Research Center’s
The letter cites the Pew Research Center’s 11th annual study on religious restrictions, which shows that (some) government restrictions on religion around the world have reached their highest levels in more than a decade. Among 198 countries and territories, the Government Restrictions Index (GRI) reached record highs in some countries in the Asia-Pacific region, while China (the Communist Party of China) still has the highest GRI in the world.
The report was released in November 2020.
Pew notes that the Chinese (CCP) regime “restricts religion through a variety of means, including banning religious groups (e.g., Falun Gong and several Christian groups), banning certain religious activities, raiding places of worship, and detaining and torturing people of faith.”
The U.S. State Department’s report on human rights practices in China last year also noted that since 2017, Chinese (Communist) authorities have detained more than one million Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Muslims in “re-education camps” using a “broad definition of extremism.” Muslims to instill “patriotism” and eliminate their religious and ethnic identities.
In their letter, the lawmakers wrote, “Genocide and crimes against humanity are being committed by the Chinese [Communist Party] against members of the Uighur, Muslim and other ethnic and religious groups in Xinjiang. China’s (CCP) hostility toward religion and people of faith also extends to Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and Christians, some of whom are being unjustly imprisoned for their faith.”
Also according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom 2021 report, some governments have even used the epidemic to justify religious persecution in the past year. “In 2020, religious freedom in China [the Communist Party of China] worsened as the regime intensified its policy of ‘religious Sinicization,'” the report reads, and vigorously consolidated the Chinese Communist Party’s dominance over faith-based groups by bringing those religions under the party’s umbrella.
On the same day that the U.S. lawmakers sent their letter, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas announced the appointment of Christos Stylianides, a former EU Executive Committee member for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, as the EU Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion and Belief.
In light of the attacks on freedom of religion or belief in many parts of the world, the EU’s appointment “demonstrates our determination to protect the rights of all (people in) faith and belief,” said Hynes.
In contrast, the Biden administration has so far been criticized for backing down on promoting religious freedom abroad.
In March, Secretary of State John Blinken rescinded a Trump-era executive order that required federal agencies to “prioritize international religious freedom in the planning and execution of U.S. foreign policy.
Blinken said the new administration will take a broader approach, including focusing on the rights of immigrants and refugees, victims of human trafficking, gays and lesbians, and women’s rights to abortion and birth control. Blinken criticized the previous administration’s emphasis on religious freedom as “unequal” and ignoring other issues.
In response, Olivia Enos, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, argued that the White House’s new strategy “will undermine its broader foreign policy interests and human rights commitments. I think it would be a huge mistake for the Biden administration not to gain momentum from what the Trump administration has done to promote religious freedom.”
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