In this episode, Nadine Maenza talks about religious freedom issues in the Middle East, especially in Iraq where the Yazidis suffered genocide starting six years ago. First, she explains the role of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), of which she is vice-chairman, and how its operations differ from the US State Department. Then she reviews what the Islamic State (ISIS) did to the Yazidis during the genocide and how this group and other religious minorities, including Iraqi Christians, suffer. Maenza explains how the Iraqi central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil treat these religious minorities differently and how those groups feel about the authorities. She also discusses problems other religious minorities there face and how the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) causes problems. USCIRF recommended the US place Iraq on a special watch list, so Maenza reviews what the US government can do.

Then Nadine Maenza and Mark Melton talk about the situation in northeast Syria and some good news in that region for religious minorities. They close out their conversation by talking about other countries that have problems with religious liberty. But they also talk about success stories, specifically in Uzbekistan, whose government came to USCIRF and tried to improve their laws for religious groups. From this, Maenza and Melton conclude by talking about how some countries, like China, have nefarious motivations for why they persecute religious minorities, whereas other countries are either incompetent or don’t know how to use their laws to improve the situation for those groups.

Those who want to learn more can read USCIRF’s annual reports for Iraq and Syria. Listeners can also read Maenza’s recent op-ed about Yazidis in Iraq and follow her and USCIRF on Twitter.

Rough Transcript

Mark Melton
Welcome back to the Foreign Policy ProvCast. My name is Mark Melton. I am the managing editor of Providence. And today I am speaking with Nadine Maenza, who is the Vice Chairman for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. And she is also the Executive Director of Patriot Voices. And she has served as Chairman of the Hardwired Global, an NGO that works with religious freedom advocates in Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria, and other countries. So she is very much an expert on all of these international religious freedom issues. And first off, Nadine, thank you so much for joining us today.

Nadine Maenza
Thank you for having me, I always look forward to the opportunity to talk about these important issues.

Mark Melton
So for those listeners who aren’t familiar with it, could you describe what the US Commission on International Religious Freedom is and what the organization does and your role within that?

Nadine Maenza
That would be great. The Commission on International Religious Freedom: we were created by the same International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, that created the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom with the ambassador. And we currently have Ambassador Brownback who’s doing an amazing job. And so we were created at the same time as an independent agency. And what’s neat about us, is we have a very specific mandate to only consider religious freedom. And so we assess religious freedom conditions abroad, we do our own research, and then we make recommendations to our own government to the President, Secretary of State, and to Congress. So we are very bipartisan, we always say we’re the most effective bipartisan, maybe the only one in Washington, we’re not sure. But there’s really no daylight between the Republicans and the Democrats on our commission. So there are nine of us commissioners who are appointed by the President, as well as the Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. So there are nine commissioners, we have a professional staff of about 20, who are excellent experts on different regions, different countries. And you know, we are able to really speak into events quickly as they happen. Where the State Department has a different, you know, obviously mandate… so when they are dealing with a religious freedom issue they have to consider it with you know, considering the geostrategic and all the things going on with the bilateral relationships, in terms of how to deal with that issue.

So what we do is call out truth. So we basically say, “this country may be an ally of the United States, but we are seeing these conditions in this country,” and we’re able to write about them and speak about them very specifically. And to be honest, we team really well with the State Department there. Sometimes it seems like we’re harsh on them when we’re criticizing or encouraging. But usually, they’re very open, because it gives them leverage to go back to this country and say, “we’re getting a lot of problems, we have a lot of people upset about what you’re doing with either a prisoner or a law or some sort,” especially countries that are allies. And they’re able to use the information we provide in terms of their own work, you know, and sometimes, of course, they have a lot of more complicated things going on, and they don’t move on our recommendations. But either way, it is a way for us to speak right into religious freedom. And I think it was a really wise way that Congress set up for us to be able to make religious freedom a priority in foreign policy.

Mark Melton
And in early August, you wrote an op-ed marking the sixth anniversary of the Yazidi Genocide. And I’d like you to just say that most Americans who were following the news then, probably heard about the Yazidis in Iraq and the devastation that ISIS brought upon them, though I wouldn’t be surprised if many have forgotten about these events or are fuzzy on the details. Could you summarize what happened then?

Nadine Maenza
Sure. So you know, ISIS really despise the Yazidis above all. The Christians had an opportunity -even though they persecuted and killed and enslaved plenty of Christians as well- they often would let them pay a fine or flee. But Yazidis, they did not. They consider them devil-worshippers because of their religion and so they were particularly harsh, and really had a genocidal intent. So they came into Sinjar in August 3rd of 2014, with the intent of committing genocide and eliminating them. And they went in the village of Kocho in particular. Our family became close to a young woman who had ended up escaping from ISIS and her brother, and their whole family was part of this day where ISIS came into Kocho -they divided the men and the women up- the older men and the older women they just killed and put in ditches. And teenage boys were included in that. I shouldn’t say older men; anyone that wasn’t a child basically were killed on the men’s side and the older women. And the children, the young boys were taken to be trained as soldiers, the young women, of course, and the girls were taken and they were sold into slavery.

And, you know, we still have 2,800 girls and children missing that we haven’t been able to account for. It was a horrific crime. The family we’re close to, the girl escaped from ISIS. Her brother climbed out of a pit that day. He was supposed to be killed, but he survived. But three of their brothers, and their mother and their father were killed on that day and put into mass graves.

So that was the trauma that came upon this community. And so many of them went up to the KRG -the Kurdistan Regional Government of the Kurdish government up in the northern part of Iraq, has housed them but very few have been able to come back. Out of the 400,000, only 100,000 have returned. And returned to conditions that are no better than they were six years ago.

Mark Melton
And what were those numbers again? You said only…

Nadine Maenza
So 100,000 have returned, about 100,000 have gone other places. So Germany has taken a whole lot of Yazidis, there’s been some countries that have accepted them as refugees. And about 200,000 are still in camps -IDP camps- up in the Kurdistan Regional Government. You know, it has been hard to return because they really leveled Sinjar. And there’s a lot of landmines. I was talking to one Yazidi leader whose house is still booby-trapped with bombs in it that they still have not removed. So there hasn’t been a whole lot of reconstruction done in Sinjar. So it’s frustrating for us to look at, you know, these strong… every year the community comes together and speaks about the Yazidi genocide. And then every year nothing changes in their homeland. You know, there are 83 countries that were part of the coalition, and yet, so little has been done in their own community. So I’m really hopeful that this year that the international community will take a stronger look at doing more. But really the security situation for both Yazidis and Christians has been part of the reason that there hasn’t been investments and the governments aren’t rebuilding, because it’s not the kind of situation that looks like it could have long-term stability.

Mark Melton
And in your op-ed, you talked about how the split between Baghdad and Kurdistan -so Baghdad being the central government and the Kurdistan or the Erbil government, the Kurdistan Regional Government- and how that is causing problems in Sinjar. Like could you describe what’s going on there with that?

Nadine Maenza
So part of what had happened in Iraq, you know, after the US invaded, it became much more sectarian. And we had a lot frankly, to do about that, in terms of just our actions, and even dividing up communities where it became more and more sectarian. You know, whenever there’s a lack of governance, you know, in these areas is where you see a lot of extremism. I just stumbled upon an article from 2001. I mean, sorry, 2011, before ISIS even entered Sinjar, talking about the disputed territories from I think it was the Institute of Peace, and then how the extremists were taking advantage of it.

So what happened is there’s this area between the Kurdish Regional Government and then the Iraqi Central Government, and it’s an area they both have claimed. So you think in some respects, “well if they’re both claiming the land then they’re both there,” right? But it’s the opposite. Think about land rights, how important they are. When you know land is yours, you invest in it, you take care of it. But if you are on land that someone may take, you’re not going to invest in it. So what you saw, as you saw this whole strip of area, which is where all the minorities lived, is both KRG and the Iraqi Central Government both wanted the land, but they weren’t sure they would have it. So neither invested in it. And so you had this situation where both wanted control, but both wouldn’t invest in it. So you have troops from both of them fighting each other, or you have, you know, no one investing in infrastructure. And so, it’s a situation that during these years, the Sunni extremists took took advantage of and currently, we have the Shia militias taking advantage of.

So there are gaps in the security, gaps and governance, gaps in investments and these extremists are taking advantage of it and hurting the religious minorities. So currently in Sinjar we have a situation where the mayor of Sinjar -a Yazidi- was forced out, currently works out of Duhok, hasn’t stepped foot in Sinjar since 2017. And they were aligned with the Kurdistan Regional Government. But so then the militia, al-Ḥashd ash-Shaʿbī, Popular Mobilization Forces, they have put in their own mayor that’s an unofficial mayor that is answering to Iran even though their salaries are paid by the Iraqi government. And they are sitting in the mayor’s office in Sinjar, running Sinjar. And so you have this situation where the militia presence in Sinjar, filling this gap from this disputed area, even though the Iraqi Government pushed the Kurdistan Government up north, kind of out of the area, but it still left its mark and they still have this standoff going on.

And so we have this situation where there are so many militias…. so, so many of the refugees are displaced are up in Dohuk which is in the Kurdistan Regional Government area in Northern Iraq. It should take a two-and-a-half-hour drive to go down to Sinjar if they want to check on their home or visit family if they’re staying still in the camp. But what we’re seeing is, we’re seeing that it takes about between eight and 12 hours to do that drive because of all the militias. I was told there was over 30 checkpoints. I personally visited not Sinjar but the Nineveh Plains in November of last year. In my drive, I was escorted by security so I didn’t have to stop at checkpoints. But I went through 11 checkpoints between Erbil and Mosul which was a couple hour drive. But it’s far worse on the Yazidi side. So a lot of times these militias will extort money from them, or they’ll turn them back. They just say “no, you have to go back” and not let them go. So freedom of movement is a tough thing. They are harassed and it’s not a sustainable situation.

Mark Melton
And who is, like between Baghdad and Erbil, like who is treating Yazidis better? Because my understanding is that for Christians, they seem to favor the KRG or Erbil and the Kurdistan Regional Government. Is that true for Yazidis? Or am I misremembering things here?

Nadine Maenza
It really depends on who you ask. I spoke to an Assyrian in the Nineveh Plains who told me that he preferred ISIS over the KRG because he was just so angry that some of the decisions they had made and I was confused by that. But the point being is he was frustrated with their government. Personally, and of course with the US commission, we have been… you know, the Kurdistan Regional Government has been amazing in taking all of these displaced people and housing them and overseeing them, but they, you know, have different ways of dealing with the communities that some of the communities aren’t always happy with them either. And when you’re in a situation that’s untenable, where there’s, you know, no security, no infrastructure, it’s easy to be frustrated with governments that you think should have played a role in that. So it’s a little bit of a mix, I think Yazidis… there’s a frustration with both governments that you’re going to hear from both, I think the Christian or the Yazidi communities because things are so bad and there’s so much frustration.

Mark Melton
So the US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommends Iraq for a special watch list. And the annual report says that “despite humanitarian assistance from the US, civilians from religious and ethnic minorities are still at serious risk, including many Iraqi Christians,” and the report also mentions how the lack of security is a particular problem. And you had already mentioned earlier, the Iranian-backed PMF or the Popular Mobilization Forces, these militias are problematic. So could you like describe some of these other religious minority groups? Like I know, Providence we’ve had Assyrians and we’ve had articles about I think Turkmen and other groups. Could you describe some of these other groups? And how do the Iranian-backed militias cause problems?

Nadine Maenza
Right. So really, all the minorities are at the mercy of these groups, the Sabean-Mandaeans where baptism is a big part of that religion; of course, the Yazidis; the Chaldeans; Assyrians are Christians, but you know, the Chaldeans are more of the Catholic… and different ones have different ways of defining their groups. So one Christian group will be defined a certain way, and then they’ll include another group in their description but the other group won’t describe them in theirs. So it’s kind of complicated when you look at numbers. Sometimes you might be confused that they don’t add up. The Turkmen are there as well. And they have a kind of province between an area that they live, between the Christians and the Yazidis. And really all the religions, all the minorities suffer to some degree. Certainly, you know, the Christians and the Yazidis have seemed to have taken special… You know, there seems to be a special attack on both of those, and the Iranian militias have been especially difficult with them. We know that like for instance, in the Nineveh Plains, the Babylon Brigade is a Christian, believe it or not, militia and their leader, Rayan al-Kildani, was actually sanctioned by the US government last year for atrocities against all sorts of people, but certainly religious minorities, and harassment and so forth. And in the areas that they oversee in the Nineveh Plains, I think only 7% of the Christians who returned in those areas… It’s impossible to be a Christian. And it was under this particular militia -and it’s such a sad thing too because they take a couple of seats in parliament that the militia uses that are set aside for Christians. So there are so many ways that Christians are pushed out.

You know, their fighters are Shia Arabs. So they’re not even Christians from the area, even though they call themselves a Christian militia. And when I was there, I saw for myself the posters of, you know, the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, that were up all over the place. So it’s a very difficult place for Christians to live. And, you know, for a while, there’s been a lot of us that have been talking about self-governance in a province where they, Christians as well as Yazidis and the Turkmen too, if they chose to do this, could have a say in their governance. Not as an independent country, of course, but more like a state. I live in Pennsylvania, we have your own security in Pennsylvania, we have our own governance… and have that kind of thing going on there that the Iraqi constitution provides for provinces. It wouldn’t be quite the same as the KRG. They have, you know, a little bit more independence up there, even though they are part of the Iraqi Government. But this would be under the Iraqi central government, or the KRG, there are different ways it could be set up, but the Iraqi central government allows for this sort of thing. That seems to be the only way forward for long-term religious minorities in the country. You know, most experts will just say, it’s not time, it’s a good idea but it’s impossible to do.

It would take the US stepping in and helping and I know that there’s not a real appetite for anything like that at this point in time. But it means probably at some point in time, the Christian and Yazidi population is going to be difficult for them to sustain in their areas with this security situation. And the US and other countries need to put pressure on the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister is in a tough situation himself.

I’ll just quickly tell a story of just what happened to him recently. The new prime minister, in just May, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, was appointed by Parliament to be the Prime Minister. And he had formerly served as an intelligence chief and has a strong relationship with the United States. And so he ordered the arrest of 14 members of Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the largest militias, for launching rockets at US forces. And so what they did is they brazenly drove around his home in the green zone in Baghdad. And you know, none of his forces stopped them. And in the end, they ended up arresting some of the men and then releasing them. But the point being is, it’s gotten to the point that taking on these militias, there would have been a time it would have been easier and now it’s harder. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t sit down and talk through all the different ways it could be done, and that the US and other countries could support Iraq. But currently, it does seem that Iraq in some capacity is almost held hostage by Iran, because of the security forces that are here. And a lot of these militia members are just for hire, it’s a job for them. So I’m not suggesting that all of them are bad. And in the Yazidi areas in particular, they do have some Yazidis that are part of militias, that are part of the system as well. They could easily be turned into a force for Yazidis, that they answer to Yazidis, not to the militia leaders.

Mark Melton
In the report that your organization put out it made some recommendations for the US Government? Do you see any movement on that front with those recommendations? And where are some of those recommendations?

Nadine Maenza
Yeah, so we do appreciate, of course, that the administration has made religious freedom a priority. And, you know, even from a bipartisan standpoint, we’re constantly thanking the government for doing that. But we do see that the recent meetings, for instance, with the Prime Minister, where he met with Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and they had a readout of the event, and it didn’t mention anything about religious minorities in their meetings.

And so we’re hoping that there was some discussion on religious minorities and some of these issues, but none that we have heard so far. You know, first, there’s a way that the State Department ranks countries that either commit atrocities against religious groups or against I should say, religious freedom, or ones that tolerate it. Either one are looked at dis-favorably. So the first would be Countries of Particular Concern, and those are the countries that most of them are pretty well known. Pakistan is a newer one, but North Korea, India is one. So we make recommendations for countries for the Country of Particular Concern of the State Department, then they choose some of the countries and then they’re able to sanction them or sometimes give them waivers; a country like Saudi Arabia usually gets waivers. But it’s a way that they can call out a country for being a violator of religious freedom, and so we have recommended that Iraq be a Special Watchlist Country, which would be the second tier down for tolerating religious freedom violations. The US government has not put them in that category but we do think because they tolerate what we’re talking about, what’s happening in the Nineveh plains, that they should be on this list and the government should be dialoguing with them to move that.

So you know, we’ve made recommendations. One of the biggest ones is what we talked about: the militias, is pulling those in and the Iraqi and the past Prime Minister announced that they were going to pull them in, and then he didn’t follow through. So it seems like every Prime Minister says they’re going to do it, and then they don’t. So one of our recommendations is that they follow through with the recommendation to do that, and the US government help them and also continue with these targeted sanctions. The US government has been very aggressive with targeted sanctions, and it’s an effective way to make ‘at least there’ll be a cost for these actions.’ For instance, you know, when I talked about Kildani, the leader of the Babylon Brigade, you know, a sanction against him means traveling will be difficult for him with a visa ban into the United States and other countries follow suit with us often. So Magnitsky will put… those sanctions will affect his finances so it’s difficult for him to make investments or to move money around internationally. And so, for us, at least, there’s a cost, and of course, pointing the finger and saying this person is violating human rights and needs to be called out for it. So we think there should be more of that. It’s a great way to really make there be a cost and to continue dialoguing with Iraq, about religious freedom, and, you know, to continue to invest in these communities. So we mentioned how there’s not a lot of investment that’s been done in Sinjar. I’m hopeful that this year that will change. There’s been a lot of work done in the Nineveh Plains and USAID has done an extraordinary job rebuilding homes and schools and all sorts of infrastructure in the Nineveh Plains. The problem is these areas, will likely not contain Christians permanently. And so sometimes it’s easier for us, obviously, to rebuild homes, than it is the security situation, but I’d make the case that sometimes we get the cart ahead of the horse. You know, which is like, there was a time a couple of years ago where it would have been easier to deal with the militia situation, and we weren’t focusing on it because either way, it’s always gonna be hard.

So, we’re hopeful. I know the US Government’s doing some work in Sinjar right now and I’m really pleased to hear them being willing to support the community. There’s some really wonderful organizations like Yazda for Yazidi… and others that do excellent work. I work pretty closely with Murad Ismael, who was one of the cofounders of Yazda, who I wrote that article with that you mentioned. We talk a lot about security and education and the different things that we can do to help this community. You know, I think it’s really important myself, I’m a Christian but I don’t live in the Nineveh Plains. I’m not Iraqi, you know, I’m not Syrian. These are countries that are close to my heart, I try really hard to stay in touch with people on the ground and to find out how I can advocate the voices of people who have lived these experiences. Because I think it’s really easy in Washington sometimes, for us to grab onto an idea and run with it and not keep in constant touch with the people on the ground that are going to be affected by it. And I’ve already changed things that I was fighting for, because they were like, “oh, not anymore,” you know? And it’s really their call. And so I really appreciate Murad letting me work with him, because he’s lived, he’s from Sinjar and he’s in touch with them all the time and able to understand how best to help this community. And that’s really what we could do, is stand behind the people in this community and stand for them. And as a Christian, I think supporting all religions is super important. Everyone has a right to believe or not to believe. You know, I do a lot of advocacy for atheists in some Muslim countries. And at the same time, if you don’t have the right to be an atheist, you probably don’t have the right to be Christian. These kind of go hand in hand that you have the right to believe or not to believe. They’re all very interrelated.

Mark Melton
And in the report, your organization talks about the situation in Syria causing knock-on effects in Iraq. So could you describe the situation and especially northeast Syria, and also like, what Turkey is doing and some of those issues?

Nadine Maenza
So, northeast Syria is a very unique situation for the United States, because we have a government there called the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria, that literally has the best religious freedom conditions in the Middle East. And we don’t say that lightly, of course, for those of us that USCIRF. But this government kind of popped up out of nowhere in the middle of a civil war in the middle the fight against ISIS. So we’ve all heard the stories probably about Syrian Democratic Forces which are the US’s forces on the ground to fight ISIS. There’s about 100,000 maybe, forces between 60 and 100,000. And they have never had an insider attack against the United States, have been this really great partner. But when they went around, and they were the ones that destroyed the caliphate in Syria, and when they would go in and liberate the community from ISIS, they would set up governance right away. And they would set up what’s called a commune, it would be kind of, almost like a co-op, and they’d elect a woman and a man -their religious freedom conditions are matched by their equality for men and women. So women leaders, they have as many of them as they have men leaders. So they’ll vote for leaders, and then they would start building an economy, have committees for education, different things, and this would go on, and they did this throughout all of Northeast Syria. And then out of nowhere, they popped up a government that was under the central government’s never meant to be independent, it’s always meant to be kind of like a state. But it’s produced these religious freedom conditions that are really astounding to us.

And so Turkey across the border has not been so happy with them. I’m convinced that they mean harm because there’s a group called the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK. It’s considered a terrorist group. Some people think it fits more of an armed group that’s been fighting for rights for Kurds for years. I mean, for many years, in all these countries, Kurds couldn’t identify as Kurds. They couldn’t use their language, they couldn’t have Kurdish names, their identity was hidden and the PKK really fought for them to have that identity back. But they were designated as a terrorist group. So Turkey has written this narrative that this entire government is against them, which isn’t the case at all. But they’re too busy governing to be able to really be concerned about Turkey. And there’s been no attacks from Northeast Syria to Turkey. But nevertheless, Turkey has invaded a few times, now three times, come in and taken land. And the sad thing about it is when they take land from this area, is they turn it into almost like ISIS and like the caliphate. In Afrin for instance, they entered in 2018, and they have put in Sharia law and there was a lot of Kurdish Christian converts because in the autonomous administration of Northeast Syria, you’re allowed to change your religion. It’s the only place really in the region, you can do that. And so they have a pretty large Kurdish Christian church, evangelicals. And now recently they’ve been going after them for apostasy. And so there’s a couple of people there, one in particular that we’ve advocated for, his name is Radwan Muhammad, who was arrested for having a Christian funeral for his wife. They had converted decades before but nevertheless, he was put in prison and is still there for this. And so it’s disappointing to see Turkey come in with this Islamist militias that work with them called Free Syrian Army and others and institute really horrific claims. And it’s also brought ISIS back up again in the region, because ISIS, when that happened, they looked at the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria, and they thought “it must be temporary, maybe it will fall, we’re going to try to help make it fall.” So then they’ve all kind of popped up and started more attacks. And then of the Iranian militias, Assad’s regime, again, also doing the same thing, which is, you know, “maybe they are not permanent.” And so they have been causing some problems, although, because the governance is so strong, the Autonomous Administration has still been stable during all this entire time. So we have, you know, we’ve made recommendations to the US government to lift sanctions on just the area that’s governed by the Autonomous Administration. They have 80% of the oil, they have the most fertile land in the Middle East, and they don’t need nation-building, they don’t need more troops, they don’t need more money. So we’re normally in a situation like in Iraq, where they need our money they need everything and they just need our help.

The Autonomous Administration is a unique government and their governance is so effective, they don’t really need anything from us, except for us to let them survive. And they want us to back them because they share our values. They don’t want to align with Russia or Assad or anyone else, because they obviously don’t share their values. So we’ve made some recommendations that the US government would also engage directly with the government. They haven’t given them recognition so they don’t engage with them, they don’t fund them. They do fund the Syrian Democratic Forces and work with their army, but they don’t actually with the government themselves. So we’ve also asked the government to pressure Turkey to withdraw. Because Turkey has been committing these atrocities against Christians, Yazidis, in particular, have been a really, again, Islamists go after the Yazidis in a different kind of way, destroyed a lot of the sights, their shrines. In Afrin, I think there were 11 women that were kidnapped, a combination of Yazidi, Kurdish, and Christian, I believe, just in the last month. So it’s really a horrible situation that we’re seeing there. So we really pressure the US government to support this government for doing a good job and also push Turkey back. Because like I said, because of our mandate, we’re able to call these things out the way that they are. Even though Turkey is a NATO ally, they’re nevertheless committing these atrocities against Christians, Yazidis, and others. And now we still have about, you know, I believe 100,000 or so 80-90,000 displaced. So what happened is a lot of the people fled when Turkey came in and so then they put a lot of their fighters and others and refugees from other parts of the country into those homes. So a lot of people have lost everything, and they’re now in refugee camps. And I know the US Government would like them to resettle but until Turkey leaves that will be difficult. And so we’ve also recommended that Syria be a Country of Particular Concern because the government there… clearly the Assad government that oversees the whole country has allowed all sorts of atrocities against religious minorities. He’s pretended, you know, Assad has always said he’s a protector of Christianity but there have been a lot of reports that have proven that he actually during the Civil War would bomb churches, and then come in and pretend like it was the opposition, and then try to be the friends to the Christians. So he uses Christians as a prop but certainly has not offered true religious freedom.

Mark Melton
So we’ve talked a bit about Iraq and Syria. But of course, I know you work with other groups facing religious persecution in other parts of the world. So as we close out here, could you discuss what other situations listeners should monitor?

Nadine Maenza
Sure, one of the biggest, probably news during our annual report that we released at the end of April, was we recommended that India be designated as a Country of Particular Concern because religious freedom of conditions there have deteriorated terribly in the last year. And there was a Citizenship Amendment Act that they passed, the basically provides a way for citizenship for people that are not Muslims, but Muslims are excluded. So you know the lack of citizenship is… taking citizenship away from religions, is a very serious thing. We saw this in Burma against the Rohingyas, another area that we’re very concerned about. And they lost citizenship and then eventually, there was a genocide against them. And now we have, you know, over a million of them in a camp in Bangladesh.

And of course, you know, we can’t not mention China, especially the situation against the Uyghur Muslims being put in concentration camps. And you know, so much of the international community being quiet about that. And it’s really disappointing and disturbing. And of course, Christians and other religious minorities are also persecuted, pretty much all religious groups. So there continues to be a deterioration worldwide of religious freedom. And listeners, one of the best ways to help is to talk about it is to share stories. When you hear a story on the internet, you share it with your friends, or you share it, retweet it or whatever and, you know, find the countries that you care about in and start reading about them and seeing how US policy can help change those things. I think with USCIRF, the one thing that people probably are most unaware of is so much of what we do is behind the scenes. You know, we do our reports, but we also do a lot of private meetings, private letters, private negotiations. I was involved in one with a prisoner release in a country, that was just really an amazing experience. And so we have the opportunity to talk to a lot of people. A lot of governments have people that care about religious freedom in their governments, even if the government themselves aren’t moving quite in the right direction. And so we’re trying to dialogue with them or provide support to those doing the hard work on the ground, like in northeast Syria, where they’re actually governing and fighting for religious freedom -trying to be a support to places like that and to really highlight the important work being done.

Mark Melton
So earlier this year, you spoke for a Providence Social Hour when we weren’t dealing with pandemic stuff and we could actually get more than a few people in a room without masks. And at that event, I remember you talking about some successes that your organization had had where you were talking about putting people on one of these lists -the what are they? Oh, I just lost the name…

Nadine Maenza
Country of Particular Concern or the Special Watchlist. Right? We’re moving people around for sure, this year.

Mark Melton
Yeah, yeah. And so like if I remember correctly, I thought you said something about like, there was a country that was going to be put on the list or be put one of those teams and then they kind of came back and were trying to figure out how they could not be put… like what they needed to do. Am I remembering that correctly? Or what was the situation?

Nadine Maenza
You are. So I think we’re talking about Uzbekistan. So at the time, Uzbekistan was a Country of Particular Concern. The State Department had taken them off, but USCIRF had not. We still listed them as a country… They had moved in the right direction, but not enough and their laws still weren’t good. And we went and visited the country and, you know, were welcomed, given direct access to key people, had hard conversations. It was one of the rare visits to a country where they were truly dialoguing. A lot of times they’ll put on a show for us and try to pretend they’re something they’re not, if they’re a country that’s been violating religious freedom. But this was a country that was like, “no, we’re really trying but, but we’re moving as fast as we can. You have to understand, you know, this is why we’re not moving faster.” And at the time the registration was so ridiculous, there was 11 steps. It was almost impossible for a religious group to get registered. And so it was really a remarkable thing to see them stop enforcing first of all, the rates. Rates completely stopped for the unregistered churches, they registered a bunch of churches, they went through, let thousands of religious prisoners go. They’ve literally gone through… So Uzbekistan is this country that we said, “you know, we need to do all these things and we’ll consider moving you.” And they did, they did all the things we asked them to do. They’re working on a law currently. And I was just last week on a call with several other ambassadors and the repertoire for religious freedom from the UN and their Ambassador talking through what the law looks like. They’ve been having a lot of public forums on Zoom and other places to talk about the law with the international community, but as well as their own community. And it’s been very transparent and very interesting.

So this is a Central Asian country that came from the Soviet mindset. And so to see them move in such a short amount of time. They had a new president, their old former president had died and came in and really wanted to move them towards religious freedom. They still have some struggles ahead. We have them on the Special Watchlist this year, so we moved them down. And so that was really exciting for me, because it was one of the ones I was able to be a part of personally and see for myself, these changes happen right before me. And the other country that really is taking everyone by surprise is Sudan. Again, a change in leadership and the new prime minister recalled apostasy laws and is trying to change the legal framework. There was an attack on his life, but he survived and has worked really hard to try to move the country towards religious freedom. So we also put them on the Special Watchlist from the CPC. So it’s a pretty rare thing for countries to move off. That’s the goal. The goal is that we dialogue with countries that you know, we don’t do diplomacy, the US Commission. That’s up to the State Department. We don’t go in and make deals and say “we’re going to lift sanctions if you do this,” because we don’t have sanctions, right, we only have recommendations. But what we do have, is we have our CPC list our Country of Particular Concern list or our Special Watchlist country. And both of those lists, if you’re a country that doesn’t want to be on them, we’ll be glad to talk to you about the way that we look at… because we only judge by international standards. So we don’t go to a country and say you need to be like the United States. It’s the international standard that we’re comparing them to. And if they’re willing to move towards that standard, in order for us to take them off the list, we’re thrilled to be able to do that. And we’ve had that happen this year. In fact, the Prime Minister of Sudan, visited USCIRF’s office a couple of months back when he was visiting Washington, DC, which sent a huge message which he was serious about making real change. And so it’s been a really interesting time to be on the Commission, because of the time of these countries wanting to change and also the administration being so favorable towards religious freedom, it’s given us a real opportunity to dialogue. And even when we disagree with the administration, they invite us in, and we have a bipartisan meeting at the White House and we’re able to dialogue about these issues and try to see where we can agree and how we can help these areas to be more free. And so I do think that we’ve had a really remarkable year in that respect.

Mark Melton
And one thing is that when you were talking I was thinking about -I’d like to get your thoughts on this- is when I look at some countries like China, and especially this week, we saw the news about the Mulan movie. And I think there’s a lot of problems there with unlike the Soviet Union, China is much more integrated into the world economy today than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. And so there’s different incentives for people to gloss over some of the crimes of China. But within that situation, I see how it’s really kind of a power dynamic it seems like, between like the central government and the local government, and so I find it a nefarious motivation for the persecution of religious minorities. But like, based on like some of the stuff you were saying earlier, it also seems like there is sometimes a government incompetence. I don’t know if it’s the right word, but just the government is unaware of how to implement religious freedom and that they would want to they just don’t know how perhaps. Do you see that dynamic between different countries? Is there a spectrum?

Nadine Maenza
Absolutely. Not with China. I see China looks at any religious activity as being a threat to the state. And so they have definitely clamped down on really I say religious minorities -I’m used to seeing that language- but with China, it’s pretty much all religious communities. And so it’s really in communist areas because we see that in Central Asia as well. These countries like Uzbekistan, a lot of their harshest laws were against the majority religions, believe it or not. Because they were afraid of the majority Muslim community becoming extreme. And as we know, once you start clamping down, that actually doesn’t help the situation, it has the opposite effect on extremism. And so some of their Soviet-type policies clamping down on the majority religion, which is Muslim, had the opposite effect. So I do think that there are times where it can be incompetence in the sense that, you know, moving away, there aren’t a lot of models to do that. That’s why these countries are remarkable that they’re trying to figure out how to move away, and there’s no one way to do it. And I try when I’m talking to ambassadors, like the wonderful Ambassador with Uzbekistan, to say you know, we always want them to move faster. But having said that, they have to consider their own country’s needs and we have to give them some respect in that timing. Now, we may keep them on the list longer than they want to be on it. But we know that what we want is long-term change. And I think with foreign policy, when you look at US Foreign Policy, in Iraq and Syria, for instance, since we’ve talked so much about those two countries, you see a lot of starts and stops, right? You see surges and then withdraws. And a lot of it is based on election year-type situations. And unfortunately, what you see is with us, sometimes making decisions that way for foreign policy, but you see a country like China, you see a country like Russia, making long term decisions, and we need to be looking at things long term, and how can we help these countries move long term towards religious freedom, not just trying to get a quick fix, that isn’t maybe going to backfire? And that’s the harder thing to do when there’s so many different opinions. But I think having conversations and trying to think outside the box and how to support countries that are trying to move in the right direction is one of the most powerful things we could do.

Mark Melton
Well Nadine, thank you so much for joining us on the Provcast today. Fascinating conversation. I think it’s always good to talk about these different groups in the Middle East especially because I think so many Americans think of this region as monolithically Arab even though there’s a kaleidoscope of cultures there. So thank you for discussing this, and hopefully, our listeners will be able to go follow your organization and learn more about these issues.

Nadine Maenza
Sure! Thank you for having me on. I appreciate the interest and I’m so thankful people want to hear about these topics. Uscirf.gov is a great resource to learn about these countries. We have annual reports, it’s just a 2 page on each government with a key finding that’s just a couple of paragraphs. We try to make it really simple for people to just jump on and take a look. We’ve had some hearings, we had a hearing on northeast Syria that goes through all the details I talked about. We had one about Iraq. You can read about both of those hearings and see the data. And I’m Nadine Maenza on Twitter and weigh in a lot on these issues but would love to connect with any of the listeners and appreciate the interest in these topics.

Mark Melton
And I’ll be sure to add all of the Twitter and I’ll add the articles and whatnot to the show notes.

Nadine Maenza
That’s awesome, that’d be great.

Mark Melton
Thank you.

Nadine Maenza
Thanks so much Mark.