In its first comprehensive review of persecution of Christian groups around the world, the U.S. government sharply criticizes China for suppressing religious worship and urges Russian President Boris Yeltsin to veto legislation restricting religious freedom there.
The State Department report, due to be issued Tuesday, was prepared at the behest of Congress, which last year demanded "a detailed summary of United States policies designed to reduce and eliminate today's mounting persecution of Christians throughout the world."The report, which covers 78 countries, concentrates on difficulties faced by Christians but broadens its mandate to address, at least briefly, the persecution faced by others, like Tibetans in China - or the forced conversion to Islam of animists, as well as Christians, in the Sudan.
Congressional Republicans have been using the issue of persecuted Christians as a way to criticize the Clinton administration's policies toward China and Russia, most recently in the debate over renewing normal trade status for China.
Unlike the yearly human rights reports, which also address religious persecution, this report tries to describe actions taken by the United States to promote religious freedom and to "eliminate religious discrimination, intolerance and persecution throughout the world, with a particular focus on the situation for Christians, as requested by Congress."
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has also instructed Amer-i-can embassies to give more attention to questions of religious freedom in their reports and to stay more closely in touch with leading religious figures, both those at risk and others, around the world.
In Russia, the Interfax news agency said Yeltsin was expected to weigh up the draft law "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Association" on Tuesday at the Volzhsky Utyos resort where he is on holiday.
Supporters of the law expect it to facilitate a clampdown on "nontraditional" sects. Critics say it violates the constitution by giving a few major denominations big advantages over minority religions.
Pope John Paul II says the law threatens the Roman Catholic Church's survival in Russia, and the U.S. Senate has threatened to withhold funds worth about $200 million if it is approved.
A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed discomfort at the mandated focus on Christians alone, as did some of the 20 members of the Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad, which Secretary of State Warren Christopher established in November 1996.
The advisory committee, which includes members of most major faiths, was established as a response to growing criticism by Christian groups, most of them politically conservative, and similarly minded representatives in Con-gress.
Nina Shea of the human-rights group Freedom House has joined with other activists, like Michael Horowitz of the conservative Hudson Institute, to press the issue with conferences, articles and lobbying.
Shea said the report "is a very good thing, and it underscores a serious human rights issue that has been overlooked." Anti-Christian persecution "is massive and vastly unreported," she said.
"But few Christian Americans even know about it," she said, adding that no president or secretary of state has ever given a major speech about it.
"There's a bias among some of our political elites, that if you are willing to die for the Bible, you're a fanatic, but if you die in front of a tank, you're a hero," she said. "The great lesson absorbed by the tyrants of the world from the collapse of the Soviet empire is that it was the churches that contributed to the democratization and collapse of the empire. So you see a pattern of persecution in places like China and Saudi Arabia."