Defending Religious Freedom Around the World

[Gavel sounds.] The subcommittees on Africa and Western Hemisphere, this hearing called Defending Religious Freedom Around the World will come to order, and I want to welcome each and every one of you here today, especially our very distinguished witnesses. Thank them in advance for not only their testimony but their extraordinary leadership. I do want to express my heartfelt congratulations and thanks to Ambassador Sam Brownback and Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, who are the co-chairs of the International Religious Freedom Summit just concluded here in Washington for an extraordinarily powerful, comprehensive call to action for global religious liberty. With incisive commentary and analysis from a broad swath of faith leaders, we have all been challenged once again to do more to mitigate and hopefully end religious persecution. In the United States, I think as we all know here, but many know it around the world, religious freedom is often called America's first freedom since it's listed first in our Bill of Rights. The founders wrote, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The establishment clause and the free exercise clause protect the right of conscience of every American, that inviolable domain of the heart of every human being. And of course, religious freedom is not at all an American right alone. It's one that belongs to every human being on the face of the earth. Yet all around the world today, religious persecution is festering and exploding. What has been unconscionable for decades and centuries has actually gotten worse in many parts of the world. Billions of human beings made in the image and likeness of God live in countries where the God-given right to freely exercise their religion is severely restricted, many to the point of incarceration, torture, and execution. According to Open Doors 2025 World Watch List, "more than 380 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith." Anti-Semitism is exploding not just in the Middle East but throughout Western democracies, including in the United States. Brutal dictatorships like China, Russia, Nicaragua, North Korea, Belarus, and Cuba, and we had a, I chaired a hearing on Belarus yesterday, and we heard from several very, very important people, many of whom were incarcerated for a long time. In one case, it was the man that would have won the election, his wife did, Svetlana. And in Belarus, they're crushing or trying to crush the church and the faith community under Lukashenko. Brutal dictatorships, like I said, are terrified of their people. It shows an innate weakness. They cannot stand a competition when it comes to the heart, minds, and souls of their people. And so again, we have China, Russia, Nicaragua, North Korea, Belarus, and Cuba and many others are terrified of letting their people speak out and to practice their faith. In many other parts of the world, authorities heavily restrict independent religious activity that does not accord with strict Islamic law. For example, in Afghanistan and Iran, Pakistan, and in many parts of Nigeria, which have death penalty blasphemy laws, and unfortunately increasingly in Syria, where under the new authorities, Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, Druze, and Alawites are facing increasing religious violence. Anything outside of the ubiquitous state, especially the search for deeper spiritual truths that speak directly to the human soul, is automatically a threat to these regimes. In China, and I do chair the China Commission, and I've been on that commission for years and worked on that for many, many years, as has Sam Brownback, people of all faiths are subjected to deplorable treatment by the Chinese Communist Party. As we speak, Uyghur Muslims in China are suffering genocide. Today, they are still brutally repressed. Many are shipped off to labor camps. I've asked them, they told me we have nothing to hide, they being the Chinese, the foreign minister put out a statement. So as chairman of the China Commission, I wrote them a letter immediately, I've been calling them ever since. I said, I want to lead a delegation to go to Xinjiang, to go to the camps. [Crosstalk.] Nothing. They won't get back to us. They have everything to hide, and they are not even close to being transparent. Many are shipped off of the individuals there to camps, their mosques are destroyed, and their children are forced to speak Mandarin instead of Uyghur. When unleashing terror on the Uyghurs, and again, this is the president, or he's not a president, he's a dictator, Xi Jinping, he said, "We will show no mercy." And I've looked at all of those statements that he has made, and despite the pervasive use of torture, murder, and rape, much of the world looks askance and kowtows to Beijing. In May of last year, as part of its ongoing sinicization campaign, China issued a decree effectively banning foreign missionaries from evangelizing within China. That includes the mere bringing of Bibles into the country. And just a few months ago, the Chinese Communist Party began a massive new crackdown to build on the old of Chinese Christians. Today, we have testifying before us Grace Drexel, the daughter of Pastor Ezra Jin, who is one of dozens of church leaders, very brave church leaders, who are now being wrongfully detained, harassed, and horribly mistreated. You know, just in my case, on one trip to China, and I've been there many times, I'm barred from going now, as is Sam, I know, we're on their list, I had the awesome privilege of meeting with Bishop Su Zhimin. Bishop Su is a leader of the underground Catholic Church. As we spoke and then prayed, he had been in prison for about 30 years up to that point. The bishop prayed for the persecutors. I mean, that is right out of our scriptures, to love those who hate you, do good to those who persecute you. There I am talking to a man who bears scars on his body and certainly in his soul of having been incarcerated for 30 years till then, and he was praying for those who did it. I was just, you know, I get mad when I get a bad editorial, as do a lot of politicians. Here he is standing there, sitting there, telling us he prays for them. His witness absolutely amazed me. Love those who hate you, as I said, as Christ did from the cross. Unfortunately, only a few years later, he was arrested again and disappeared. He has not been heard from since. Xi Jinping is crushing people with faith, torture, jailing, rape, and murder, and we must act. Our business community has been complicit in all of this, and we need to get them to say, "Stop it, Xi Jinping." You know, he ought to be at The Hague for crimes against humanity and for genocide, not being kowtowed to by so many. We of course, North Korea has the same kinds of problems, 30,000 Christians are being held in their camps. And then on the topic of Nigeria, President Trump, his country of particular concern designation in October was necessary, long overdue, and bold. In his first administration, with the strong backing of our Ambassador at Large Sam Brownback, President Trump recognized that the mass killings by Boko Haram, ISIS West Africa, and armed Fulani terrorists against Christians in the Middle Belt, which are clearly motivated by ethnic and religious animus, meant Nigeria met the need for being designated CPC and was so designated. Genocide Watch has called Nigeria a killing field of defenseless Christians. And now, you know, the International Religious Freedom Act, brilliantly written by our former colleague Frank Wolf, a true champion of religious freedom, and that bill was opposed vigorously. He got it passed into law in 1988, and it has made a major difference globally, including now in Nigeria. We can't take our eyes off of that. I just want to say to my colleagues, to all of us, I'm deeply concerned that Nigeria has hired the K Street lobbying firm DCI to the tune of $9 million, $750,000 a month. And a Nigerian billionaire has entered into a $120,000 a month contract with Valcour to influence Congress and the executive branch. And Ambassador, you know as well as I over these many years because you have fought this fight, they hire these firms, they come up with their very well-written talking points to say, "Nothing to see here," whether it be Haiti, China does it better than anyone else, or worse really is what it is. We saw it with Romania. I remember during the years of Nicolae Ceausescu, and I led the effort on that along with Frank and you, Sam, Mr. Ambassador, and they always had these lobbying firms to say Ceausescu is a good guy, he has all these churches that he has open, but he was torturing Christians. And the book that got me into religious freedom myself was Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand, who talked about the duplicity and unfortunately how these firms are just so good at advocating for their client. Well, advocate for freedom and religious and end to religious persecution. I have many other things I'd say, but I want to cut it off here. And I do want to thank again all of you for being here, and I'd like to yield to my good friend, Ranking Member Jacobs, for any comments she might have.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all the witnesses for testifying before the subcommittee on this important topic. Freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental human right. This right is universal, and it must be applied equally to everyone, no matter what religion or belief they practice or if they practice none at all. No country should get to cherry-pick what religions they favor or use religious freedom, religious persecution, or even a crisis like the rise in anti-Semitism as a shield to discriminate or as a weapon. So while I'm glad that the Trump administration has supposedly shown its support for this issue, I'm concerned this interest will be shallow and narrowly confined to only a small subset of religious freedom issues that match the demographics of their political base. But I hope the administration proves me wrong. They can start by actually investing in their own institutions, staffing, and toolkit to make this a priority, comprehensive and enduring. For one, we still do not have a nominee for the Ambassador at Large position. And Secretary Rubio downgraded the Office of International Religious Freedom by putting it under the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor rather than keeping it as its own independent office. The department has yet to release the 2024 annual International Religious Freedom Report that was due last May, and it's already behind in writing the 2025 report that is due in a few months. This administration has also completely gutted this toolkit that could help religious freedom defenders around the world. As part of its foreign assistance review, the administration cut millions of dollars worth of foreign assistance related to international religious freedom. For example, Freedom House has reported that the administration terminated its Asia Religious and Ethnic Freedom program that was supporting 4,000 members of religious minority groups facing discrimination and persecution, including Christian minority groups, Uyghurs, and others. And another U.S.-funded NGO shared with my office that cuts left 400 cases of religious freedom defenders in limbo. This means that this organization could no longer provide life-saving assistance to Afghan women who bravely ran for public office following the U.S. withdrawal, or Iranian journalists who were reporting on human rights violations by Iran's regime, or Nicaraguan journalists who have been arrested and forced into exile by the regime, and many, many more. And as I brought up during last year's Nigeria hearing, despite the administration's apparent interest in addressing conflict and religious tensions in Nigeria, it has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign assistance to Nigeria, including assistance to faith leaders and to communities experiencing violence in the Middle Belt. For example, Secretary Rubio terminated a conflict resolution program, community initiatives to promote peace, that trained religious and tribal leaders in northern Nigeria, which was already showing to be extremely effective at reducing violence in communities. The violence in Nigeria is complex, affecting both Christians and Muslims, and the drivers of this violence are multifaceted and cannot be reduced to a single framing. In fact, over-simplistic narratives can further inflame religious tensions in communities. And yet, it is clear that President Trump only cares about Christians in Nigeria, and his only real action to address this problem, military strikes over Christmas, have not even done anything to materially help those communities. So far, it seems to me the administration's interest in religious freedom only goes so far, and it mostly applies to the plight of Christians abroad. But again, I hope the Trump administration proves me wrong and takes the steps I outlined to start prioritizing religious freedom abroad. And I hope today we can have a more nuanced conversation that discusses the freedom of religion or belief more comprehensively and that addresses many communities in need of support, from Uyghur communities in China to Tibetans to the Rohingya in Myanmar to religious minorities in Iran and elsewhere. So I look forward to hearing from all of the esteemed witnesses today to better understand the state of international religious freedom and how the Trump administration can truly champion this issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Chair recognizes the co-chair of this hearing, and I want to thank Maria Salazar for her leadership. She has been an amazing human rights leader in the Western Hemisphere and for religious freedom, and I yield such time as she may consume.

Thank you very much, and I do want to commend you for putting together this hearing and for the witnesses to coming to testify and to you, Chris Smith, for being such a great champion of this topic that is so dear to us, religious people and to the Western Hemisphere. As the chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee within the House Foreign Affairs Committee, it's a pleasure to be here and to be talking about what's happening in our part of the world. And thank you once again. As you said, religious liberty is under attack around the world, and in the Western Hemisphere, there is a very clear example called Nicaragua. I know Nicaragua very well as a news correspondent working for Univision. I lived there, and I saw firsthand how the Nicaraguans along with the Chileans are the most Catholic people in the Western Hemisphere. I remember during one of the elections when Cardinal Obando y Bravo, who was like a rock star for the Nicaraguans, was able to indicate or to guide the people to how to vote when the Sandinistas were trying to steal the elections once again. But unfortunately, the Sandinistas, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, are back in power, and they are trying to substitute God for their regime. And this is what, and I'm not, this is not an opinion, this is the empirical evidence. 260 religious figures have been expelled from just preaching or praying in public. 1,000 Catholic churches have been attacked, according to the Vatican. In 2024, evangelical pastors belonging to this group called the Mountain Gateway Ministries were arrested on fake charges and were sentenced to decades in prison just for bringing the gospel. That is what Ortega and Murillo do to their people and to those who are close to God. In 2025, last year, Ortega threw out the Clarissas nuns, forced them to flee to their convents and with almost nothing. And not only that, the nuns from Teresa de Calcutta or from Mother Teresa, and I visit them, I know them in El Mercado Oriental, they had to be, they had to flee, they had to go because Ortega would not allow them to continue practicing and serving those people who lived in that market called El Mercado Oriental. On top of that, the Holy Week and Lent, those big processions that I covered as a news reporter, were completely banned and they have been gone for the last three years. And on top of that, more than 6,000 faith-based NGOs have been shut down. The good news is that two things: that the Nicaraguan people remain to be a very solid group of evangelicals and Catholic and people that are of great faith. The Nicaraguan people, as I said, along with the Chileans, that's the first situation that the Murillo and the Ortega-Murillo are facing. And the second one is Donald Trump. Everyone saw what happened in Venezuela. Everyone is understanding what's happening in Cuba right now, that apparently we're talking to the regime. These are three tyrannies: Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba in Western Hemisphere that have not allowed for decades for the faith-based community to flourish and to preach in whichever way they want to. So the message is very clear from this dais and from this hearing to Ortega and Murillo, and I will send them a message in Spanish so they can understand it very well, that their game is over, that I think it's time for them to understand that things are changing in the Western Hemisphere and the first thing that they should do is not touch those faith-based communities, the Catholics, the evangelicals, or any other, the NGOs that are helping them. That is very clear that they have to change their tune, otherwise the United States is going to take care of that because there is a new sheriff in town. And not only for political reasons but for religious reasons, for human right reasons. Being free to preach and to go to church and do everything you want to on Sundays is not a prerogative that the government gives you. It's something that the Lord has given you for you to go and pray as long as you want to without any type of interference. So it's a very clear message which I am going to now relay to specifically Rosario Murillo, who is the devil herself and who that's why she is guiding her husband not to allow this type of activities to happen on the Nicaraguan territory. La realidad es que este es un mensaje para Rosario Murillo y Daniel Ortega, los que están dirigiendo Nicaragua en este momento. Sus días están contados y el juego se acabó. Así que específicamente la religión, los grupos religiosos, los evangélicos, los católicos, la gente que quiere rezarle a Dios en el momento que quieran, no los toquen más. Dejen que vuelvan a entrar, dejen que haya libertad religiosa porque los Estados Unidos y específicamente el presidente Donald Trump los tiene en la mirilla. Y sabemos que Venezuela primero, ahí está el ejemplo, después Cuba que ya están hablando con ese régimen maldito y ahora después va a ser Nicaragua. Gracias a Dios que hay un líder en la Casa Blanca. Thank God there is a leader at the White House that understands the importance of the Western Hemisphere, liberty, democracy, free market economy, and religious rights. And we thank you, Chairman, for allowing us to send this message specifically to the Nicaraguan people that have been wanting for the United States to pay attention to them and to give them back those religious freedom, civil rights, human rights that they had for so many years. Thanks again, and I yield back.

Chairwoman Salazar, thank you for that very eloquent statement. And as you know, we did joint hearings on Nicaragua. We pleaded with Ortega, asked, plead's probably too strong of a word. We wanted to go and visit the bishop when he arrested him, and they wouldn't let us in. Where was he? I mean, and we did the same thing with the political figures who are all arrested, so he had no opposition, he being Daniel Ortega, during his election, which was a farce if ever there was one. Mr. Castro.

Thank you. And thank you to our witnesses for being here today to speak on such a critical issue, the defense of religious freedom around the world. Let me begin by reaffirming a foundational truth: religious freedom is universal. It's not the domain of one faith, one region, or one political party. It's a right that belongs to everyone, regardless of whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or belong to no faith at all. And U.S. foreign policy should reflect that principle clearly and consistently. Unfortunately, under this administration, we're seeing something very different. Unfortunately, the White House has increasingly pursued a narrow, exclusionary vision of religious liberty, one that prioritizes Christian concerns to the near total neglect of other persecuted groups. Last February, President Trump issued an executive order vowing to "eradicate anti-Christian bias in foreign policy." Discrimination against Christians, where it exists, should certainly be something our foreign policy confronts. To do so when we ignore anti-Muslim violence or the repression of indigenous spiritual traditions is religious favoritism, not religious freedom. In April, the State Department ordered its diplomats to report any instances of anti-Christian bias. Are similar efforts being made on bias against practitioners of other faiths? The answer is no. At the same time, the State Department made a sweeping overhaul of its work on democracy, human rights, and labor, including explicitly integrating Western values into the mission of the department. When I asked them how they defined Western values, the administration defined it as based on Christianity and Christian theological concepts. This is clearly unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Meanwhile, persecuted minorities across the globe have been abandoned. The administration has deported members from religious minority communities in Iran back to a regime that imprisons and tortures people of faith. It has all but halted public advocacy for the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang, ignoring clear evidence of mass internment, forced sterilizations, and religious repression. And it has withdrawn U.S. support for accountability mechanisms for the genocide of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in Burma, whose suffering has largely disappeared from the administration's vocabulary. Worse, the administration has revoked temporary protected status for Burma and stated that it's safe for persecuted Rohingya to be sent back to the country that has tried to exterminate them. This selective silence is not accidental. It reflects a deliberate shift in priorities, and it undermines both our credibility and our moral authority. It also is in stark contrast to how previous administrations, including the first Trump administration, approached the international religious freedom issue. And despite the rhetoric and prioritization of Christianity, the administration has prioritized other interests over protecting Christianity. How else do you explain the spectacle of Tomahawk strikes in Nigeria in the name of protecting Christians while cutting assistance that would actually address discrimination against religious communities? Or the administration's dismissal of persistent challenges that Christian communities in Palestine face from Israeli settler violence and restrictions by the Israeli government? Christian churches in Israel and the Catholic church in Gaza have been bombed. This hearing was initially intended to have a witness from the State Department, former U.S. Representative Mark Walker, who is now the principal advisor on global religious freedom. Instead, at the last minute, the department notified us that Mr. Walker would not testify. The Office of International Religious Freedom has a serious mission to integrate religious freedom into the United States foreign policy. However, increasingly, the administration has refused to send State Department witnesses even for Republican chairwomen and chairmen. This administration has taken the unusual set of deciding not to nominate anyone to be the Senate-confirmed Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom as required by law and instead named a principal advisor for religious global religious freedom to lead the office. This raises serious questions. The law is clear: the Ambassador at Large has the responsibility to serve as the principal advisor to the president and the Secretary of State on matters of international religious freedom. The administration is over a year late on releasing the annual religious freedom reports and has not designated countries as countries of particular concern apart from Nigeria as required by law. Given these deep concerns with the administration's embrace of Christian nationalist rhetoric and the status of the State Department's efforts on international religious freedom, Mr. Walker should be in one of these seats here today testifying in front of this committee. And Mr. Chairman, I hope that we'll be able to schedule that hearing with Mr. Walker soon. I yield back.

We do have a very distinguished group of people who will testify, beginning with Ambassador at Large, former Ambassador at Large Sam Brownback for religious freedom in the first Trump administration. Prior to that, he was governor of the state of Kansas. He was a United States Senator and a Congressman, so he can't hold a job. He had all three, and he did a magnificent job in each and every one of them. I would point out that when many of us were concerned about what the Janjaweed was doing in Darfur, Sam Brownback was the first lawmaker to do so. I followed a year later as did Frank Wolf, you know, was, but Sam was there and he helped crystallize international and American opinion about the genocide that was taking place under Bashir in Khartoum. So Sam, that was an amazing and brave undertaking on your part, and I can't thank you enough because we all then coalesced around you and began working overtime on that. So I thank you for that. He does serve as co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit, and as I mentioned, Dr. Swett, Lantos Swett, also co-chairs with him, and together in a bipartisan way and in a way that I think makes a huge difference, had virtually every faith denomination imaginable at this summit to really reach out to try to say what can we do to try to stop this terrible repression. We will also then hear from Grace Drexel. She is the daughter of Pastor Ezra Jin, arrested in October of 2025 as part of a brand new, of course ongoing under Xi Jinping, but a sweeping crackdown of independent Christian churches in China. Ms. Drexel has spoken out publicly numerous times to advocate for her father's release and for countless others detained by the CCP for their faith. She has previously worked as a professional staff member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and she now works in the United States Senate. Thank you for being here. Then we'll hear from Stephen Schneck, who served as chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Liberty from 2024 to 2025, the commission, USCIRF. He was appointed by President Biden twice. A political philosopher in training, Dr. Schneck served as a professor, department chair, and dean at the Catholic University of America for over 30 years and received his doctorate at the University of Notre Dame. And again, the full vitae for each of our distinguished witnesses will be made a part of the record. But I yield to my good friend, and I can't thank him enough for the inspiration he has provided to all of us, Ambassador Brownback.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Madam Chairman, Ranking Members. Just delighted to be here in front of you, and thank you for hosting this hearing. We just finished up a two-day religious freedom summit where we had people from over 80 countries, every major and most minor religions there. It's all centered around one theme: religious freedom for everybody, everywhere, all the time. My co-chair is here, Dr. Lantos Swett, just a fabulous individual personally and then also a legacy of Tom Lantos's daughter, and she carries that fire on and just does a spectacular job. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, we are seeing something unprecedented really right now in the world, and I've been in this work and this space for some period of time. There's an alliance... ...of nations that's emerged that see religious freedom as the greatest internal threat to their dictatorial control. This alliance of communist, authoritarian, totalitarian regimes will literally stop at nothing to control people of faith. They see people of faith as a threat. Often they will attack them first, and the people of faith are the ones that will be first attacked and the last ones left standing. This also represents an opportunity for us. If we will look at religious freedom not as some sort of side humanitarian issue or a human right, a boutique human right, but would see it as a major global security issue. This represents the best tool I believe that we have to go at these regimes and to attack them in return. And you just look at how much they spend on controlling their people of faith, it should tell you something that that's an area we should look in. Communist China will spend billions of dollars this year alone to suppress every faith that exists in that country. They'll suppress the Uyghur Muslims, they'll suppress the Tibetan Buddhists, they'll suppress the Christians, and they save their greatest anger and bile for the Falun Gong, a domestically grown group. We should see them as our greatest ally. These are people behind enemy lines that will stand up to the regime, that will stand up to the oppressors because they overcome their fear with their interior faith. They will fight even if it means their life, and often it does mean their life. The amount of Christian killing around the world is at an all-time high for Christendom. And that can be repeated, I could repeat that statement for a number of faiths now. Why? Why now? Why is this so much at this point in time? But that the community of faith has become the target of this dark alliance that we're facing off against, and China's the puppet master behind all of it. They have developed and invested billions of dollars in creating the most sophisticated surveillance technology mankind has ever known by far. And then they freely share it with other dictatorial regimes that are willing to use the same tools. And we should be deeply concerned about those issues because that equipment then we're going to face in multiple sets of countries, and they're going to use that to maintain the dictatorships, the authoritarians that are standing against us that want to remove the United States leadership and the Western leadership. This is unprecedented. It is really unprecedented, and it's a dark hour. The U.S. and other freedom-loving nations must rise to this challenge that we're facing today. And this is obviously far beyond any sort of partisan interest. We heard people in various countries represent and talk about this at our summit the last two days, and I could give you a hundred different examples from every faith community that you would want to hear about of this. In a quick survey of some in the world, you'll see Moscow, I mentioned China, you see Moscow is allied with Russian Orthodox Church leadership. I don't go with the Russian Orthodox membership, but the leadership working with it to persecute other faith traditions inside of Russia and certainly in the occupied territories that they have of Ukraine. Vietnam is oppressing its Christian population and disfavored Buddhist communities. Even in a country like South Korea, we've seen out-of-favor Christian groups and the leader of the Unification Church have recently been jailed by the government. Japan has some similar limitations. Iran's Shia clerical hierarchy is persecuting harshly and lethally all other faiths, especially targeting Baha'is, Christians, and Jews in Iran, and even attacking Muslims of other schools of thought. In Pakistan, we see the Ahmadiyya Muslims are often violently attacked, as are Christians attacked there. Nicaragua, the chairwoman has mentioned and knows it very clearly, kicking out Catholic and evangelical clerics. And in a move reminiscent of the old Soviet days and the former Cold War that we're entering a new one, you cannot bring a Bible into Nicaragua now. Well, I thought that tactic had been left 30 years ago, but it's back, and they brought it back in Nicaragua. The new administration in Syria is purging religious minorities, threatening and killing them. These groups must be allowed to maintain their own security forces, or I guarantee you today a genocide will happen in Syria like happened in Iraq to the Yazidis and Christians. And this is a particularly important moment for Syria, for us, to say that these minority communities must be allowed to protect themselves because if they don't, you will get a genocide will happen in Syria of these minority communities. Burma has seen increased Christian persecution along with the ongoing Rohingya genocide in that country. Early warning signs of a Muslim-on-Christian war are brewing across Africa. This one's going to be a big one, ladies and gentlemen, if we don't get out ahead of this. It's starting in that Lake Chad region, but it will spread throughout that continent. Nigeria is now the deadliest place on the planet to be a Christian. At the same time, the Nigerian government is seeking and receiving support from countries I previously named: China, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. I wonder why. In India, communal violence against Christian and Muslim communities is increasingly commonplace. Many other cases of persecution exist as well. North Korea has no religious freedom at all, none. The same is true of Eritrea and Afghanistan, where a number of people fled after the Taliban came back into power. Saudi Arabia continues to be the only country on the planet without a single church, an ally of ours. Religious persecution is actually a symptom of a closing world, a new iron curtain against faith drawn not just against nations but against conscience itself. Its antidote is religious freedom, a medicine we must insist upon before it's too late. Religious persecution is not an isolated human rights concern, it is a warning sign that freedom itself is under siege. When regimes crush faith, they are rehearsing the suppression of every other liberty that follows. History teaches us that appeasing these repressions does not bring stability, instead it invites greater aggression and deeper violence. We know this. On the other hand, religious freedom is a stabilizing force, a catalyst for civil society and a foundation for lasting peace. Mr. Chairman, Madam Chairman, ranking members, the United States has both a moral authority and strategic interest. And I really want to drive that point because this is actually a very strategic issue we must embrace and we need to lead on this issue. We must insist on religious freedom consistently, unapologetically, and urgently before the space for belief and dissent and human dignity closes further for everybody and before the cost of inaction becomes far greater than the cost of leadership. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Ambassador. Grace Jin Drexel, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much, congressmen and women, for this opportunity to testify and share my story. My name is Grace Jin Drexel, and on October 10, 2025, my father, Pastor Ezra Jin, was arrested by the Chinese authorities along with 27 other pastors and church leaders from Zion Church. 18 remain imprisoned today. This represents the largest crackdown of an independent Christian congregation in China since the Cultural Revolution, a sweep so brazen it has drawn international condemnation, including from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Many were seized in front of their young children, and my father and several older leaders suffer from health issues, and we fear for their well-being. I urge the Chinese government to release all these Zion members immediately and unconditionally. My father founded Zion Church in 2007 with the simple mission to remain faithful to the scripture and to serve families and communities. The church grew from just two families into China's largest urban house church with more than 1,500 members. Yet to understand why my father is in prison today, you must understand that China under Chairman Xi Jinping has embarked on a systematic campaign to achieve total state control over religious life beginning in 2016 with the so-called sinicization campaign. This applies to Christians, Catholics, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, and other religious groups. We are all persecuted. In 2018, Zion Church became a target because its leadership refused to install 23 facial recognition cameras inside its sanctuary. When they refused, the response was swift. Authorities harassed hundreds of members, threatening job loss, evictions, denial of children's education, and even the seizure of parents' retirement accounts. Many congregants suffered these consequences for maintaining their faith. On October 9, 2018, hundreds of police seized the church building and confiscated assets. My father has been placed under an exit ban, separated from our family in the United States for over seven years. Yet even repression cannot extinguish faith. When Zion Church lost its building, my father and the congregation developed a hybrid online-offline model, and beyond anyone's wildest imagination, when COVID hit in 2020 and all gatherings were forced to a halt, Zion Church's online model allowed our church gatherings to explode, launching 100 new church plants in 40 cities, and the church grew to its largest size ever, reaching 10,000 individuals daily. Starting in 2025, a new and more severe wave began, clearly coordinated at the national level. Earlier this year, several Zion Church gatherings in dozens of cities across China were disrupted during Sunday services. Over 150 pastors, elders, and church members have been taken into police stations for harassment, threats, interrogation, and brief detention over the following months. The multi-city arrest on the weekend of October 2025 was a coordinated takedown that could only come from centralized government planning. These are also not isolated cases. In May, Pastor Gao Chunfu of Light of Zion Church was detained on fabricated charges. In December, authorities demolished the Yuyang Church in Wenzhou. And last month, the Public Security Bureau detained another handful of leaders from a prominent house church, Early Rain Covenant Church. The Chinese government claims that this is about sinicization, making religion more Chinese. Yet this is propaganda designed to obscure repression. Let me be clear: Chinese Christians have been Chinese for generations. We use Chinese Bibles translated by Chinese scholars, we sing indigenous hymns composed by Chinese believers, our house churches were led by Chinese pastors. My father is Chinese, his congregation is Chinese. Sinicization in practice means removing crosses and replacing them with portraits of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong. It means replacing hymns with propaganda songs. It means rewriting sermons to align with party ideology. It means facial recognition cameras monitoring who is worshipping. And it means the government selecting church leaders and dictating theology. What they actually mean is a complete subordination of religious life to Communist Party control. The 'party-fication' of religion is more apt. Church leaders detained in recent months are not opposed to legitimate government authority. The churches seek to enrich society and live by the principle of rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's, but they cannot render unto Caesar what belongs to God alone. They ask only to be free from the party's control over sacred matters. Like faithful Christians everywhere, they hold firm: 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' Since I began advocating for my father, my family has experienced transnational repression. China's practice of threatening critics beyond its borders. My mother received threatening phone calls from individuals impersonating federal agents. Her tires were slashed inside her garage. And I've been watched and followed in Washington, D.C. My husband has been targeted by several hacking attempts. China wants the world to know that speaking out carries consequences, even in America. I am sometimes fearful. Yet as a Christian, I believe we are called to courage, trusting that God stands with us. Similarly, I urge the leaders here today to continue to use your voice and influence in whatever sphere to speak the names of my father, Pastor Ezra Jin, and many other church leaders who have been unjustly imprisoned. Call for the Chinese government to release all Zion Church members immediately and unconditionally along with other religious prisoners of conscience. Do not accept China's trampling of this universal human right with silence. If left unchecked, Beijing's wave of repression will reverberate around the world. What is happening in China is not merely a domestic matter but a global threat to religious freedom and human dignity. Authoritarian leaders from around the world will only be emboldened by our silence. As a Christian, I also draw strength from knowing that my God is a good God, and despite not knowing why this is happening, I believe that these darkest moments will be used for a larger purpose. As my father wrote in prison, God has indeed used His power to uphold us. I believe God is also testing us during this time like refining silver, painful but full of love, and that God has not abandoned us. Thank you.

Thank you so very, very much, and your father would be so proud as to how you so tenaciously advocate for his freedom and the freedom of all those who are unjustly detained. So thank you so much. Dr. Schneck.

Thank you, Chairman Smith, Chairwoman Salazar, Ranking Member Jacobs, Ranking Member Castro, and distinguished members. It's a privilege to be here to testify on these important matters. Since my written testimony is extensive this morning, I will just make some critical points. Most importantly, as you just heard from Ambassador Brownback, we face an unprecedented global crisis for freedom of religion. Many millions of people around the world are being denied the freedom to practice their faith and are persecuted because of what they believe or what they don't believe. The crisis is inseparable from the retreat of liberal democracy and the global rise of authoritarianism. The crisis is also driven by the political weaponization of religion by religious nationalism. Likewise, it is associated with the erosion of the multinational world order based on human rights, international laws, international organizations that has been led by the United States and its allies since the end of the Second World War. And that erosion is a key factor in the increasing number of failed and failing states unable to protect the religious freedom of their citizens. Distinguished members, since 1998, the United States framework for protecting and promoting international freedom of religion or belief has been the IRFA Act. That bipartisan act, drafted amidst the triumph of liberal democracy and the multinational world order following the collapse of Soviet communism, reflects more than ever the vision that is today needed to promote and protect religious freedom around the world, holding up as it does the ideals of universal human rights, international law, and international cooperation. I worry, however, that the current administration may be looking for a different approach. Let me be specific about my worries. First, international religious freedom has been subordinated to a transactional foreign policy which emphasizes bilateral deals and economic leverage over values-based diplomacy. Too often, we see governments with poor records on freedom of religion around the world face limited pressure when they are viewed as strategic partners. Effectively protecting freedom of religion around the world depends on what was once called nation-building. I believe nation-building has few advocates currently. Second, as of this writing, the State Department has not yet released last year's 2024 IRFA report, now nearly a year overdue. Ostensibly, the 2025 IRFA report should be released in May, but will it? Moreover, the administration has not made its designations of countries of particular concern, special watch list, or entities of particular concern. And President Biden's 2023 designations have, of course, now lapsed. Let me note as well that two Republican seats on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have remained unfilled for more than a year. Third, at variance from the IRFA Act, it appears the administration will not name an ambassador at large for international religious freedom. While I welcome the appointment of former Congressman Walker as principal advisor for global religious freedom, without the title of ambassador, the authority of that office is unclear. Likewise, it is unclear at this time if a special advisor for international religious freedom on the National Security Council will be named, as is outlined in the IRFA Act. Fourth, institutional support for advancing religious freedom has been uneven. While senior figures enthuse about international religious freedom in speeches, the issue has not consistently translated into coordinated action across the State Department, National Security Council, and foreign assistance agencies. Where religious freedom mechanisms do exist, they often lack sufficient authority, staffing, or integration into broader foreign policy decision-making. DOGE cuts decimated many important programs and staff supporting international religious freedom. Finally, the administration's approach has focused overmuch on religious freedom interests of particular religious constituencies, especially Christians. Although Christians face really unbelievable persecution in many regions, freedom of religion cannot be construed to mean only a subset of approved religions. International religious freedom, as defined in human rights law and treaties to which the United States is a signatory, is universal. Selective advocacy undermines both effectiveness and legitimacy. Distinguished members, the prescient vision of the framers of the IRFA Act recognized the responsibility of the United States to lead the international community in promoting and protecting freedom of religion or belief. Today, that freedom is in crisis around the world. Millions are persecuted for what they believe or what faith they practice. Given the current crisis, the United States must rededicate itself to the vision of the IRFA Act. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Chairwoman Salazar.

Thank you to three witnesses and specifically to you, Madam Drexel. May the Lord help your dad while he is in jail and to endure whatever he's going through. May the Lord give him strength and, you know, how noble and laudable the fact that he is in jail because of his faith and his religious beliefs. So our prayers go out to him. And to Ambassador Brownback, I love what you said about the fact that one of the best tools that the Chinese are using in order to maintain themselves in power and to repress people is by taking away their rights to preach or to go to church or be in the faith-based space. So I would like you to share with us, you know, how much are the Chinese spending? Who are they sharing that technology with? Has that technology arrived, let's say, in Nicaragua or in the Western Hemisphere? Can you just expand a little bit more on how—you said that they have the best surveillance technology to repress religious freedoms in the world. So that means that they have brought this to scientific levels where people forget God in order not to die. So please, thank you.

Thank you for the question. And literally, it's a war on God. That phrase came out at our summit this week, and I thought that's actually what's taking place. There's a whole Psalm on that says God laughs, but I'm not laughing. I've got a book coming out in May on this, on China's war on faith. When the book had been written, it was in 80 countries, the various surveillance technologies in various iterations of it. They, under Chen Quanguo—just a brief history—Chen Quanguo was the party chairman over Tibet initially 20 years ago. He's the guy that they first sent to implement these sort of techniques of suppression of a religion. They did it on the Tibetans first. He was so effective they moved him to Xinjiang, which is East Turkestan, the Turkish people population, and said, 'This is going to be tougher,' and they gave him more money. And he combined old and new techniques there, both a digital gulag and they actually had gulags in prison camps that they've now transitioned to labor camps. The actual number of the amount of money spent, I don't have in front of me. Adrian Zenz would be a great source for this; he works for the Victims of Communism Foundation, has been one of the best researchers. But it's in the billions that they use this with. The thing that concerns me about it the most is twofold. One is they literally now can find a needle in a haystack. They can find that one person out of a hundred thousand that will actually lead people against the regime that's driven by their faith. They can pinpoint that person and get him or her. The second is the ability to target ideology. Now you can really drill in and teach people the lie on a very effective targeted basis. So you get these two together and then you give them to a whole bunch of other authoritarian regimes, they can take out the problem and they can drill in the lie to people on a broad basis with the—and no new technology needs to be invented. That's why I'm saying that we've really got to act on these things now. But you act through these people that are people of faith and back them. Have the Vice President, the Secretary of State go to Dharamsala, India, and meet with the Dalai Lama and say, 'We are behind you guys.' Bring the head of Falun Gong, the gentleman that brought Falun Gong out, who is now exiled in the United States, bring him here and laud them for what they have done in standing up and trying to bring ancient Chinese civilization back. Recognize that Tibet has never been a part of China. It has not—there's a book just out now, it came out last week, NED backed it, it's 1,100 pages, all off of Chinese imperial records that say Tibet is not part of China. And the only sourcing is Chinese imperial records. It's not a part of China no more than Kazakhstan was a part of Russia. And East Turkestan is not—these are not Chinese. I think we've really got to start just pulling the layers off and calling it what it is.

What about the Western Hemisphere? What type of influence have you seen from the Chinese brought to and then with that—

Ortega got much worse when he walked away from the relationship with Taiwan that Nicaragua had and embraced PRC. I don't know the money he's getting, I am certain he's getting money, and that's when they started really going after the Catholic Church and the evangelicals.

What about technology besides the money? Any new technology that you have seen in Nicaragua that you have not seen or any other part of the Western Hemisphere that you did not see before being used to really repress to scientific levels religious freedom?

Yeah, I don't have the specifics that I can give you on that today. I know the relationships are there. I know that has changed attitudes because the Ortegas used to be kind of okay with the Catholic Church and the evangelicals. They're not anymore. Thank you. I yield back.

Ms. Jacobs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I want to start first with our foreign policy toolkit. Over the years, USCIRF has included in its annual recommendations to support civil society in countries of particular concern to promote religious freedom. I agree with this recommendation. Unfortunately, the Trump administration's foreign assistance review terminated millions of dollars worth of programs supporting defenders of religious freedom. Dr. Schneck, can you share what you've observed over the years as the U.S. has supported religious freedom defenders abroad, whether it's in Afghanistan, Iran, Burma, elsewhere? What kind of impact does this have on religious freedom globally?

Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I don't have the specific numbers at my fingertips, so I can't speak at the level of numbers. But I can say that the programs of USAID, programs at the Department of State, some programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, I mean even programming, for example, by Voice of America, these programs, nation-building programs frankly, have been a critical component of the United States' effort to promote religious freedom abroad. You see that—I for example have visited the horrible Rohingya refugee camps on Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. You know, the funding for those camps through UNHCR and IOM and so forth, that funding largely came from the United States, and that funding of course is no longer present at the amounts that it was available before. And if you look at these camps, these are situations, dire, dire situations. And frankly, from the perspective of U.S. foreign policy concerns, these are radical populations that are capable of radicalization without the kind of support that was coming to them before. So around the world—I use this camp in Bangladesh as an example—so around the world, the funding that the United States government has been providing for humanitarian assistance, for the development of civil society, for the promotion of interfaith relations, that money has largely withered and dried up as a result of the DOGE cuts that we've seen. ...so I'm very concerned about what that means for the future of our efforts in those areas.

I appreciate that. I want to turn now to Nigeria. Our subcommittee's held multiple hearings over the past few years on the topic. As you know, in November, President Trump threatened to deploy the U.S. military, quote, "guns ablazing" into Nigeria to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists there, stating that if we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet. And as you know, over Christmas, the United States conducted strikes in coordination with Nigerian authorities against supposed ISIS terrorists in Sokoto State in Nigeria. Dr. Schneck, in your view, do you believe the strikes over Christmas effectively improved religious freedom challenges in Nigeria? Why or why not?

No, I do not. In fact, it occurs to me that the cost of the Tomahawk missiles that were sent probably exceeded the amount of money that had previously been going to Nigeria to improve interfaith relations and provide humanitarian assistance. So it's very concerning to me, in fact. I suspect, really, that strikes like that, to the extent that they have any effect at all, would likely drive some of these more militant organizations together in greater unity and perhaps mobilize them in the future. So I think that the strike was a mistake.

Thank you. And could you talk a little bit about what you see as the primary drivers of religious freedom violations in Nigeria and how the United States should most effectively work with the Nigerian government to address those drivers?

It's a very complicated situation, to be honest with you. There are a number of things happening. One, of course, we do have terrorist organizations operating on the ground in Nigeria, Boko Haram and ISWAP. We have Fulani herders being driven out of the Sahel essentially, moving their cattle into agricultural areas that are displacing farmers and driving farmers into IDP camps. We have extraordinary amount of banditry going on, we have organized crime going on, and we have a corrupt and frankly a failing government in Nigeria that's incapable of providing the basic police services and judicial services that are necessary to maintain order.

Thank you. I yield back.

Let me just ask a couple of questions. You know, my friend Mr. Castro talked about the fact that we do not have an Ambassador at Large, but Mark Walker was nominated in June of 2025. And we all know how frustrated we get with the United States Senate. They put holds on various nominees as well as on bills and legislation. I am the one who wrote the law to create the Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism, and the Ambassador at Large there, Yehuda Kaploun, he was held up for, and it was a bipartisan bill I did, he was nominated and he sat over in the Senate for seemingly an eternity before he has been confirmed, so he's now on the job. So there is that problem of the Senate. I know, with all due respect, Sam, you served there, but one person could put a hold on it and then that can have the capability of just stopping everything in its tracks. So, you know, I think Congressman Walker would have been a great Ambassador at Large. I do hope that there's a replacement for his nomination ASAP. I would also point out that, you know, I was here in this room when we did the bill, the law, the Frank Wolf bill. I held all the hearings on it right here in this room, occasionally in 2200, but mostly in this room. The Clinton administration was very much against it, but thank God he signed it at the very, very end. You know, it was like some of his advisors, I'm sure, said, you know, this is a good thing. And there have been good ambassadors, of course Sam Brownback, in my opinion, is one of the best of the best that we've ever had. And, you know, Rabbi Saperstein was also a tremendous ambassador. We had many hearings with him during the Obama years. But during the Obama years, we did not get for several years recommendations for CPC. And I would say it says you got to do it, Mr. President. And Rabbi Saperstein, I'm sure, you know, didn't want to cross his boss, but he was all in accord with that as well, that send up... so we are asking the administration to send up designations for CPC. USCIRF continually makes very, very good recommendations as to who should be on it. Nigeria has been on that list time and time again. It was ignored during the Biden administration. Matter of fact, they reversed what was done vis-a-vis Nigeria to take them off. And I asked our Secretary of State under the last administration, what's the criteria? You know, we've got Christians who are being slaughtered. And when you focus on Christians, it's never at the exclusion of everyone else or even anyone else. You know, I've been all over Nigeria, as have many of my colleagues. I've met with many imams there. They get targeted if they're non-radical. So, you know, it's almost like Hamas. You know, you wonder why it's a child soldier factory, because when you're very young and being inculcated in terrorism, you then act on it. But, you know, try fighting against it, you know, in that closed space. Same way, and I had imams tell me, and I'm not going to name them because they'll probably be firebombed if I do, by Boko Haram and by others, that if they speak out, they will be firebombed just like the Christian churches. I went to five churches that were firebombed in Jos, Nigeria, with the bishop there, Kaigama. And when we talked, when I talked and he was there with many of these survivors, they were targeted because they were Christians. Ditto for the Fulani. Anyone who doesn't think that, yeah, there are other mitigating or other circumstances contributing to it, but there's no doubt that there's a bias and a hatred for Christians by radical Muslims, by jihadists, not by non-radical. They have... you know, I've worked very closely with a number of leaders in Nigeria who were Muslims when they were at the United Nations, and they're tremendous people. One guy named Sarki, who was just a tremendous number two over at the embassy. We know that. But we got to call out the bad guys. And when you get Open Doors, which has itself been... you know, they have stood up for Christians all over the world, particularly in the Soviet Union. You know, I remember working with its founder who wrote, you know, God's... when he was a... he used to bring Bibles into the East Bloc and into the Soviet Union. You know, I'm... we, I, you, Sam, all of us, we speak out for every one of the groups, every single one of them, with no exception. And I resent when anybody suggests that we do otherwise, because we don't do otherwise. We believe the Christians need to be... I mean, I've had 107 congressional hearings on human rights in China. We've had them on Tibetan Buddhists, we've had them on the Falun Gong, several... I had the first resolution on the Falun Gong. You know, because we all know in a past in the House because they were being targeted by the Chinese dictatorship for elimination. So we just... but we can't leave out the Christians. And that's been part of the problem. They have been left behind for far too long. There was a... again, this was Rabbi Saperstein, a good friend, really tremendous leader. He went to Vietnam and there was a pastor, Pastor Chinh, who was incarcerated from 2011 to 2017. Just a tremendous pastor. His wife met with Rabbi Saperstein. She was beaten to a pulp. Very serious consequences. And she had to sign something with the Vietnamese Communist Party renouncing and saying that her meeting was illegal. Rabbi Saperstein told us all about it. You know, I'm trying to get Vietnam on the CPC list for years. Three times the Vietnam Human Rights Act have passed. It's my bill, totally bipartisan with my friends on the other side of the aisle, and always was blocked over in the U.S. Senate with a hold. But right in that, it calls for CPC designation for Vietnam. They are going, you know, forced conversions, all the other things that they do there. I met with the top Buddhist in Saigon. I can't call it Ho Chi Minh City, in Saigon. And he's under pagoda arrest. And we spent hours talking. And he said, "If I walk out this door," meaning him, the Venerable Thich Quang Do, "the police that are right across the street will go in there and they'll punch him and they'll push him back in." I mean, we've constantly, as did you when you were ambassador, Dr. Schneck, we speak out for everybody. But we can't exclude the Christians who have been targeted very, very horrifically. So I just want to... I do want and hope we get that list of CPC countries yesterday. It's got to come. But again, Mark Walker, who's a pastor himself, would have been a great ambassador and, you know, more needs to be done. No doubt about it. Finally, I did say it, but I'll say it again. I had hearings with Obama, with his people. After three years, we still hadn't got the list of CPC countries. I said, "Please send them up. You know, why aren't they here?" You know, you may disagree on who should be on the list. That's your call. But please send up a list, and they wouldn't. So we got to all do a better job. And Sam, if you could just speak again, Mr. Ambassador, to some of the outcomes of your conference, because that is why we wanted to have this meeting especially, this hearing. You know, calls to action, what we need to be doing, maybe some of the missed opportunities that we need to double down on, if you could.

There was a lot of calls to action. There was some nice announcements of action. Pepperdine University announced that they're working with a series of African judicial leaders, these would be chief justices in various African countries, to come up with an alternate dispute resolution mechanism between people of faith. So to get moderate Muslims that would be willing to negotiate with Christian leaders to try to start an alternate dispute resolution process. Going great. That would be fabulous if we could get see that work because you're going to be in a full-scale war zone in middle of Africa before long with militant Islam attacking the Christians that's taking place there. It has already started. It's in Nigeria. That's really what you're seeing right now, and it is Huntington's Clash of Civilizations that you're witnessing there right now. We just had an announcement today that will come later today that the administration with Hungary Helps that does target particularly Christians, but not exclusively Christians, for aid in various places around the world, that there will be an announcement of the United States government joining in certain areas of ways that they can help as they, I think, start to reconstitute the aid programs and what they're going to do with that. That was just announced, took place this morning, was one that they came forward with. The other thing that I really want to draw your attention to that everybody's behind, we've got an advocacy day today, is the transnational oppression. Virtually everybody, not everybody, everybody that was there, most of the people that were there at our summit, know somebody or they themselves have experienced transnational oppression as Grace Jin Drexel and her family has. This is highly common anymore, and it's really something we've got to get on top of. Dr. Tang, that you would know and a number of people, at the beginning of our conference was announced by the Vietnamese government that he is an international terrorist and they are putting out an arrest for his a warrant for his arrest, and if he travels in a country that they have agreement with, that he's to be arrested. This has to be stopped. This has to stop. And then one other thing that was coming forward, the Mexican government in working with and too much influence by cartels in Mexico is threatening the Catholic Church when they help people and they lift up folks that have been missing. They're now over 100,000 people, 120,000 people officially missing in Mexico, and the church tries to help the family, and they were going to be coming here to testify to speak about it, and the church was told not to come, not to come. And you're going, this has to stop. This has to stop.

Mr. Castro.

Ambassador Brownback, the International Religious Freedom Act requires the State Department to publish an annual report on international religious freedom. And I want to ask you, you used to lead the effort to compile and publish these reports. Can you walk us through how important they are and why they are essential?

They are an essential report. It's the primary factual setting and basis for much of the world on religious persecution that's happening throughout the world. I believe the administration will get it out soon. It isn't unusual, Representative, for it to be late. That's a pretty common thing.

It was due on March 1st.

I know. And we used to see it, it'd be late six months a year. I'm not excusing it. It needs to get out. I hope it will get out soon. And it's an important document.

All right. Thank you. Dr. Schneck, I had a question for you. For the last few years, I've been concerned by increasing pressure on the Christian community in Palestine, including in Jerusalem. Christian communities have been attacked by extremist settlers often wearing the IDF uniform or at least supported by IDF as they're committing these acts. Land controlled by churches in and around Jerusalem have been threatened by legal action. And as I mentioned earlier, the one Catholic church in Gaza has been bombed. I've spoken with members of the Catholic, American Orthodox, and Greek Orthodox communities who tell me the situation has not improved. By no means are Christians facing this challenge alone and this threat alone, Palestinian Muslims and others face similar challenges to their continued presence in Palestine and the continued practice of religion. So how should the United States approach this situation? It is a situation that doesn't get much discussion in Congress. In fact, some of the strongest voices for religious freedom are absolutely silent on this issue. And do you believe that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is doing enough?

Thank you for the easy question, Congressman. You know, it's just recently the Christian patriarchs of Jerusalem in fact issued an extraordinary statement indicating their great concern about the situation facing Christians, particularly in the Jerusalem area and areas in which settlers have a significant presence. So I'm of course very familiar with the situation as it relates to the Christians there. And I know, like all of us, about the, I think it was the shelling of the Christian church in the Catholic church in Gaza during the IDF operations in that area. I do think that it's complicated to talk with an important ally like Israel about the situation where we find Israel itself not being sufficiently active in protecting the rights of minority religions within its territory. But if we can't talk to our allies, if we can't make policies to deal with our allies, then how can we say that we're speaking truth to all of the other powers around the world? I think among friends these conversations need to be had and need to be serious and we need to make a statement. As for Ambassador Huckabee, I don't know enough specifics about his actions to say.

Sure. No, and I appreciate that. And, you know, we have made efforts over the years to combat anti-Christianity around the world, antisemitism as we should around the world. But this discussion, particularly around Israel and Gaza and the West Bank and so forth, continues to be a third rail issue in the American Congress to the detriment of many who are suffering. I think that we should be able to speak about religious freedom around the world, including in Israel and every other nation. So with that, I yield back.

Mr. Shreve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the expertise and the time from our witnesses. I am a new member this term from Indiana. Have other freshman members to either side of me. I am not an expert in this area. I haven't applied my career in this space as many of you have and as some of my colleagues behind me do. I represent a district in the middle of Indiana that extends into a number of rural counties, ag counties. But people would be surprised to learn that in my home county, I've got 35,000 Burmese Chin neighbors, many of whom left Burma in the '70s, persecuted Christians, mostly Baptist, that cannot go home and that very much remain threatened. And these are neighbors in my backyard. We think of them as citizens, neighbors, friends, but they're refugees in that they are disconnected from their families and those families remain prosecuted. Burma's on the CPC list and it has been for a very long time. As a new member, I had the opportunity to go to Nigeria six weeks ago. Representative Jacobs and Representative Huizenga, who were with us earlier, were on that trip. Edifying for me, sobering. Sobering in the sense, in part, that 36 hours after we left, missiles came into the country. Met Nigeria's president, Christian, his wife, the First Lady, is on the Hill today. So, you know, it's a diverse country, was on the CPC list in the first Trump administration, off in the Biden administration, I believe, Dr. Schneck, back on again. My very candid, not leading question for any of you is as I look at the way that the CPC designation works or more over doesn't seem to me to work, if I look at the very long-term challenge with folks in Burma, as I see that designation added, removed, added again this past October in Nigeria, what's the appropriate potential escalation tool that our government can use, bring to bear with countries that clearly, clearly don't respect religious freedoms from within?

Thank you for raising the Burmese situation because I think this is one that's underviewed and needs to really be addressed a lot more. And the Burmese are being attacked and now they're not only being attacked by the military junta, they're being bombed by Chinese planes as China pushes its way into the Indian Ocean. So this is now a strategic issue. I think it's fine, we should use CPC, we need to put that out. But until you put some bite into it, until you get ahold of the money or you use weaponry or something, most of these dictators, they just going to thumb their nose at you. So you really've got to go at them, use Magnitsky sanctions against the individuals, you need to use targeted sanctions against the government, ones that hurt the areas that the government controls and not others. And then I think you just need to make them really a pariah in the international sphere. Interestingly, in Xi Jinping's parade of dictators that he had in the country last year, he had, I don't know, 23 dictators. Burmese military junta was there. And, you know, if that doesn't tell you something just right on the surface, you... but you got to grab something they actually care about. During Bush era, we had a series of sanctions that we had put on Burma that were pretty effective, and I think those ought to be put back on.

If I could add, unfortunately the CPC designation, as all the designations, really end up being little more than name and shame. We really need to think about connecting real sanctions with the CPC designation. Ambassador Brownback mentioned the Magnitsky Act, things, sanctions of that level connected to the CPC, I think, would be an important addition.

Thank you. My time's expired. I appreciate those responses.

Will the gentleman yield just briefly? The beauty of the IRFA bill, as you know, and Frank Wolf was genius in doing this, including setting up the corresponding organization USCIRF so that there'd be a check and a balance, was to have first the designation and then the meting out of sanctions, which unfortunately, no matter who's in the White House, have been lackluster. I'm happy to say vis-a-vis the Nigeria situation, there is now conditionality on aid, half of it is held back to try to get some compliance with the principles. But there's 18 or so, starting with a simple demarche, but also very serious sanctions that are there in the quiver that could be used, and we're hoping that they will be used. The only time that there was an effort to use one sanction in terms of denying a visa, and that was in the bill, was against Modi in India for his alleged, and I think there was real credibility to it, slaughter of Muslims. So there's these tools that just need to be used. But I thank my friend. And, you know, it was Tom Lantos who wrote the JADE Act in 2008 targeting what the junta was doing, so and then the sanctions that Sam talked about. I'd like to now yield to Mr. Olszewski.

Well, thank you, Chairman Smith, and thank you to our ranking members for holding this hearing. I want to thank our witnesses for joining us as well today. As a man of faith, I feel an obligation to point out the stark moral contradiction that we're facing as a nation. Pope Francis often cited the parable of the Good Samaritan from the Gospel of Luke. A story of a wounded traveler whose life is saved by the compassion and kindness of a passerby. That story captures a vision of a church whose first instinct is to bind wounds, lift the fallen, and stand with the vulnerable. It's a vision that I believe is embodied by the new Pope, Pope Leo, who served among the poor in Peru. For me, that parable is not a metaphor. It's a call to see that every child vulnerable to disease, every mother denied basic healthcare, every refugee without clean water as that wounded traveler. Our mission to alleviate suffering must be rooted in compassion, in service, and a deep moral responsibility to love our neighbor just as Jesus did, no matter where they live, what language they speak, or what religion they profess. That's why I believe religious freedom cannot be separated from our lived experiences. A community that is starving, a health clinic that is shuttered, a generation of children denied quality education is a community where extremism, instability, and persecution is much more likely to take root. While we're discussing religious freedom around the world, we do so against the backdrop of an administration that has slashed the very foreign assistance that helps keep vulnerable religious minorities alive. Reports indicate that the administration has destroyed food and other essential supplies that could have been distributed instead to those in need. An independent study co-authored by UCLA warns that U.S. foreign aid cuts may lead to more than 14 million additional deaths globally by 2030, including four and a half million children under the age of five. These are children of God who will die of diseases we know how to prevent, mothers lost in childbirth, and families devastated by illnesses that could have been treated with basic medicine. Medicine in some cases that we have now destroyed. If we take the call to be Good Samaritan seriously, we must understand that our policy choices can either bind wounds, as Jesus did, or walk past them. Dr. Schneck, I want to open with you. We know that many churches, mosques, and other faith communities overseas are the ones running those clinics, caring for the sick, and comforting families. I'm curious to get your thoughts on how our policies can better support those local faith efforts so that our commitment to the religious freedom we're talking about today is matched with a commitment to the physical well-being of those communities.

Thank you, Congressman. You know, as you know, the programs that you're talking about have largely been defunded currently. And, you know, as a result, organizations that relied on those funds to provide not just humanitarian assistance but assistance to develop interfaith relations, assistance to develop civil society, those things... those cuts, I think, are potentially devastating for the protection of religious freedom around the world. And I think in my own faith as a Roman Catholic, I very supportive of an organization called Catholic Relief Services, which provided humanitarian assistance around the world not just to Roman Catholics, not just to Christians, but to people of all faith. Good number of their programs have been significantly underfunded now because of the cuts that the federal government has made in cooperation with Catholic Relief Services. So I share your concerns that those cuts are in fact a threat to religious freedom around the world, and I very much hope that this Congress will work to restore some of that funding.

I appreciate that. I know that my time is winding down, but I guess I'll just close by reinforcing for me, I find myself wondering how for me as a follower of Jesus, as other religions with similar beliefs, how are we letting that example and letting those faith examples be a guide for how we approach caring for vulnerable people beyond our borders? And I think that this conversation is important, but it's also not happening in a vacuum and then we have to sort of look at the whole person if we want to be able to address this critical issue. I thank you all for your testimony and for your work in this space, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Huizenga.

Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I sorry, been running around a little bit. Actually, this is the second time today I had a chance to talk about sort of religious persecution and what has been going on. I would be remiss if I didn't say hello, Mr. Brownback. You won't remember me, but I was Peter Hoekstra's district director back in the day, who was a very good friend. I sat in many a meeting and on many a phone call as I drove Peter around. So I knew the Ambassador before he was Senator and while he was in the House. So good to see you again, and I appreciate your work over the years that you have done. ...I want to hit on very briefly, I want to hit on Syria and then I would like to also touch on Nigeria and if we have time, Tibet, Nepal actually and Cox's Bazar, that situation. Those all fall under my purview as chair of South Central Asia Subcommittee on the Foreign Affairs Committee. So to Syria here, in the context of mass violence against Druze, Alawite, Christians, Kurdish communities in Syria following the collapse of the Assad regime and the emergence of a fragmented HTS-aligned governing authority, I'm curious, sorry in my mind it's still Senator, but Ambassador, we'll start with you. How would you assess the current religious freedom conditions in Syria?

Very problematic, very troubling. And if we don't get it right, we're going to have a genocide. I think you have to allow those communities to have their own security. They have to be able to provide their own security or you're going to set up for a genocide just like we did in Iraq when we didn't provide that for the Yazidis and the Christians. You had a genocide a few years later. So right now is really key that the United States press the Syrian government, this government that's in place right now, one Syria, we're not talking about breaking Syria up, but the people there, the Druze, the Alawites, the Christians have to be able to provide their own security. You have to be able to be in charge.

And currently they're not allowed.

Not in most of the areas. Now some they are and the Kurds need to be, the Kurds are our best allies. We've got to keep standing with the Kurds. They will protect religious minorities and they need to be able to have their own security. That to me is something we have to push as a U.S. government and you've got to do it now while it's still an active issue.

Many of us struggled a bit quite honestly with the repeal of the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. I did vote yes with the proviso that we would be doing robust oversight and fortunately our full committee is going to be taking a closer look at the post-Assad Syria in a hearing next week. So please continue to give us that feedback and my general take is to take the Ronald Reagan trust but verify and maybe expand it. I would say in this case sort of trust and definitely verify because I think we have not seen a very good track record. So Nigeria, I want to speak briefly and I happened to lead the delegation that was there December 19 through the 22nd. I wouldn't recommend trying to get to Nigeria over the weekend, but we did it. We had to because of what was going on and I'm curious what measures have you seen the government of Nigeria take to address religiously motivated violence against Christians, especially in the middle belt? I may have a little different view of that strike than my colleague who was on the trip as well and I appreciated her input and her time with that, but what do you think the impact has been so far in lowering the threat level?

I really appreciate the attack in that it got Nigeria back on the agenda. The Christians have been getting killed now for years.

It definitely got their attention.

So you finally got their attention. I do not trust this Nigerian government. They've broken their long-standing way of practice where they would have a president that was of one faith, Muslim or Christian, and a vice president of the other faith. When I first went over and traveled there, you had a president that was a Muslim and a vice president Christian trying to balance. This one set up, we're both Muslims and they're behind the Fulani. Now they will say no.

President Tinubu is Fulani, I'm sorry, Ribadu the head of the NSA is Fulani. I don't believe Tinubu is Fulani.

And I just, not only trust but verify, but you've got to now go at putting systems in place to where the Christians are going to be able to be protected themselves or the states can provide that protection instead of the federal entity. Again, it becomes back that fundamental security issue and this government is not given us any reason to, the Nigerian government, to trust them.

My time has expired. I appreciate this. I was hoping to get to Tibet and Nepal and Dr. Schneck had mentioned Cox's Bazar, but I appreciate your work and Ms. Drexel, please send our regards to your father and all those that are under the thumb of the CCP and their efforts to quash those of religious belief. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you. Chairman Smith has actually gone to meet with the President of Congo and in his stead has given me the honor of chairing the committee. So I thank him for that. I'll now recognize myself for five minutes. I believe the greatest threat to religious freedom in the world is the rise of mainstream Islam. And I call it mainstream Islam because I think calling it radical Islam is an attempt to minimize the threat that it exists. The radical Muslims are the ones who don't want to kill us. They do exist. Not all Muslims are bad, but I think that we use that to minimize the threat and I believe it's the largest threat because it is religiously motivated. When China or Russia or other countries persecute religions, they're doing it in the pursuit of political power. When they no longer believe it is good for them to get political power, they will stop. Whereas the rise of mainstream Islam is based on religion. It is a belief that is deeply held and is why we have to fight it. So I and by the way, we see this threat in the United States. The leading civil rights organization for mainstream Muslims in the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, argued in the state of Texas that three Muslim children had the right to attempt to destroy a Christian church because they were practicing their First Amendment rights. That is how they tried to get them out of being criminally prosecuted. So I find it very troubling when there ends up being a focus on Israel, a country that I would note where the Christian population has risen dramatically since the creation of the state of Israel. Whereas if you look at a place like Bethlehem where Jesus was born, the Christian population has dropped from 85 percent to under 10 percent. It is not because Christians did not want to live near the birthplace of Jesus, it was because they no longer felt safe to be there. So I have a question for Ambassador Brownback if you don't mind. I introduced a bill, the PEACE Act, which passed unanimously out of the Foreign Affairs Committee, that directs the State Department to coordinate with our allies to protect the rights of Jews in Europe to practice their faith, a place where we have seen dramatic increases in antisemitism again as we've seen the rise of mainstream Islam come to Europe. Muslim terrorists are openly targeting people because they are quote visibly Jewish. Are you confident in our European allies protecting religious freedom? They seem to be interested in potentially legalizing cousin marriage or banning New Year's Eve because that might offend certain religions, but are you confident in our European allies protecting other religions because what's happening in Europe is certainly very concerning to me.

It's very concerning to me as well. And I, there are a number of European countries I think that do work at it. The rise of antisemitism around the world and particularly in Europe, I'm hearing now of safe houses in Europe for Jews. That was stunning to me when I started to hear that police in some cases telling Jewish congregations we can't guarantee your protection here. I don't think near enough is being done and it's, but it also to me pales somewhat in comparison to what I see taking place in Africa where you've got just a war that now is breaking out in that middle belt of Africa between Islam and generally attacking Christianity in that region. And I don't think near enough is being done across the world. But I also I work with a number of European countries, I don't want to be particularly caustic towards them because it's kind of hard to find allies in this space that will do something. And there are a number of European governments that will work on religious freedom issues. They'll work on them globally and they'll work on them with us. So I'm happy to have the work. I just wish they would do more.

Thank you. And to change topics, I mean obviously I worry about religious freedom of Jews being one, but I'm obviously very concerned about the religious freedom of Christians particularly in China where it is largely driven by governmental and governmental power. China's closing churches, quote unquote re-educating Christians to follow the party line. Ms. Drexel, if you've got any thoughts on U.S. policy, what we ought to be doing to defend religious freedom and how we can do better than have happened in previous administrations to advance that, I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Thank you so much for the question. I think that in China, like you said, that it is very much state-backed and ultimately I think that it is still a religious in some ways motivated, just Xi Jinping wants to be God in this instance. And I think that we I've seen many diplomats from this administration and congressional support from both side of the aisle to support the situation with my father and so many other Christians that are being detained currently and I'm very thankful and I think that this has been tremendously encouraging. The fact that Secretary Marco Rubio mentioned my father's case by name two days after the detention really sent a strong signal and I think that we should continue on that type of pressure. I know that President Trump is going to meet with Xi Jinping a few times this year and if we can continue to rise the heat and the conversations to be had at a higher level, maybe potentially even at the presidential level, that would send an even stronger signal to the situation in China. Thank you.

Thank you. And my time having expired, I want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony today and the members for their questions. The members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for the witnesses and we will ask you to respond to these in writing. Pursuant to committee rules, all members may have five days to submit statements, questions and extraneous material for the record subject to the length limitations. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. [Gavel sounds.]