Voice of America, 3 November 2015

VOA – A United States official has urged the State Department to take steps against China and other nations that violate human rights and religious freedom. Robert George wants the State Department to identify all the violators as “countries of particular concern” in its yearly country-by-country reports. Mr. George ischairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He spoke to a Congressional subcommittee earlier this week.

The Commission on International Religious Freedom is an independent organization within the federal government. Its purpose is to defend the right of freedom of religion overseas.

The group’s chairman urged the State Department to list the worst offenders of religious freedoms. In addition to China, the eight other countries he named are Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Mr. George told the committee that China needs to show “greater respect for the rights of Tibetan Buddhists, for the house church members, for the Catholics, for the Uyghur Muslims, for the Falun Gong.”

He continued by saying “the flowering of religious freedom (in China)” is still not happening.

Congressman Curt Clawson is a member of the subcommittee as well as the Republican Party. He questioned the Obama administration’s statementsabout making religious freedom a top concern.

“Of all the countries that you mentioned, there is a lot of Nike shoes made in Vietnam, and all the toys and electronics are coming from China. They’re thefactory of the world. And whether they abuse folks’ religious freedom or not,seems to matter not to the bottom line,’ he said.

But the State Department Ambassador-at-Large for International ReligiousFreedom, David Saperstein, disagrees. He said the United States placesgreat importance to supporting religious freedom worldwide.

I’m Mario Ritter.

Yang Chen reported on this story for VOANews.com. Jim Dresbach adaptedthis story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/us-to-push-china-on-religious-rights/3029628.html