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Transcript: Amb. Seiple on International Religious Freedom
(All faiths should have access to religious sites in Jerusalem) (8000)

During a satellite television program with interlocutors in Jerusalem and Riyadh on September 12, retiring Ambassador Robert Seiple, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, said the U.S. Religious Freedom Report, which outlines cases of religious oppression in 144 countries, reflects U.S. commitment to human rights and freedom of religious expression, and was consistent with those elements of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that call for "mutual accountability."

"What we have found in the last decade is that religion is something that people unfortunately will kill for. And once you see that dynamic unfold in the geopolitical components, we neglect religious freedom as an issue at our considerable peril," said Seiple. He also emphasized that the report was carefully documented, and was put together on the basis of extensive interviews. "We talk with the embassy, we talk with NGOs, we talk to the human rights community" in compiling the report.

In response to a question on the accessibility of Muslims, Christians and Jews to holy sites in Jerusalem, Seiple noted that open access by people of all faiths to is necessary, and that the security of pilgrims of all faiths to these sites must be an integral component of any final administrative arrangement.

Following is the transcript of "Dialogue":

(begin transcript)

AMERICAN EMBASSY TV NETWORK "DIALOGUE"
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of Broadcast Services
Washington, D.C.

GUEST: Ambassador Seiple, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, U.S. State Department

TOPIC: International Religious Freedom

POSTS: Jerusalem, Riyadh

HOST: Maria Siccardi

DATE: September 12, 2000

TIME: 10:00 - 11:00 EDT

MS. SICCARDI: Good afternoon, and welcome to the American Embassy Network. I'm Maria Siccardi. On this edition of "Dialogue" we are going to discuss religious freedom.

Everyone has the right to their own beliefs. However, in some countries human rights violations continue, including the abuse of religious freedom. On September 5th, the second international religious freedom report was released.

Joining us from the U.S. State Department to discuss this report and issues regarding religious freedom is Ambassador Robert Seiple, ambassador at large for international religious freedom. Ambassador Seiple, welcome to our dialogue today.

AMB. SEIPLE: Thank you very much.

MS. SICCARDI: And before we go to our international audience I would like you to highlight for us some of the report that was just released. Would you please?

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, it was obviously very comprehensive -- about 1,500 pages worth of rhetoric covering 194 countries. This year, because it was the second year, we were also able to note improvements in certain countries. So this goes along with the methodology of trying to promote religious freedom as opposed to simply punishing people when it is abused.

So we are delighted that it is out. It is an awful lot of work -- awful lot of people involved. But it's there, and it is now open for scrutiny from other countries.

MS. SICCARDI: Very well. We are going to proceed precisely with that. We are going to welcome our viewers from around the world and our program participants in Jerusalem. We invite Jerusalem to begin our discussion for the first 30 minutes of our program. Please go ahead with your questions, Jerusalem. Jerusalem, go ahead.

Q: We in Jerusalem are very much interested in the sacred places and freedom of religion. This is a basic question in these holy territories. It may be useful now in the present political climate, especially in the area of the shift in the question of struggle between the Palestinians and the Israelis towards emphasis on religious issues, particularly Jerusalem. I believe that this religious dimension is a very important one -- one of the more important ones. But unfortunately it is tantamount to a wound that is bleeding daily, both in Israel and for the Palestinians. Our tragedy is the fact that we are denied the right to worship in our holy places. Our tragedy in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem is that on a religious basis we are denied the liberty to go to al-Aqsa Mosque and the church of the Nativity, and there are many barricades on a daily basis that keep people from going to these places and worshiping there freely. Naturally the U.S. State Department report, although it is very important, ignores much of our tragedy and much of our suffering here in Palestinian territories and in Israel.

AMB. SEIPLE: That is not a question yet, but do you want me to comment on --

Q: Violations of these holy places that do occur? I am willing to listen, sir, to your commentary, to your direct commentary, on these issues I raise.

AMB. SEIPLE: Thank you very much. I certainly understand the importance of the question and the passion behind the question. This is a conflict that has yet to be thoroughly resolved, and it has gone on for so many, many years, and there are some very hard positions here and some very difficult issues. We would hope that, first of all, Jerusalem would be an open city -- open access to the holy sites. We feel that all the major faiths, the three major monotheistic faiths obviously have some claim on the city in terms of these holy sites, and if people are precluded from going to their site that they see most holy, then that obviously is a violation -- it's a distraction -- that is, something that goes against their own sense of religious freedom. So we have to get to a point where those sites are open.

Now, there is another issue of course sometimes folks don't want to hear, and that is the security issue. And these sites have emitted over time a great deal of passion, sometimes passion that has erupted into bloodshed. So security is not an issue that we can totally throw away. So there has to be some sort of reconciliation between the need to have access -- open access, free access -- to those things that are most holy to a person's faith, and at the same time have the security that goes with it. And if you look at it as a microcosm of the entire system, there has to be peace with justice. Justice means security. Justice for all is peace for all. And these two things have to go together, and this is what the participants in this dialogue have to balance. We can comment on that. We can make statements about that. We can facilitate the two sides coming together. But, believe me, if there is a solution to this issue, it is going to take place within Israel, within the people of Israel. The Palestinians and the Jews have to work this out.

The person who is asking the question or making the statement is absolutely right. Without access something is lost from a concept in the reality of religious freedom.

MS. SICCARDI: Ambassador, the whole issue of religious freedom received a lot of notoriety during the last couple of weeks because of the meeting of the religious leaders at the United Nations. This has been an eternal problem throughout the world. What are your thoughts about the ongoing movement to gather leaders around the world and to talk more about this issue?

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, first of all, I think that any time that people can sit down and talk we are making progress. All of the faiths at their best and at their finest we have absolutely nothing to fear. They all have something in common with one another. There is a belief in human dignity, there is a belief in the sanctity of life. All the major faiths have something akin to the golden rule. All the major faiths at least talk about reconciliation. So when you get an opportunity to bring people of faith together to have these discussions, you are making a very substantial step in the right direction.

There are a number of distractions of course with the summit of religious leaders in New York, and the fact that the Dalai Lama was not allowed to be there was a major distraction, and the height of irony because of his own position as the leader of a spiritual movement. And probably the results of that meeting, like most meetings, will be somewhat positive and somewhat negative. But the fact is it took place and people came together. People come together and begin to talk, we hear one another, we listen to one another. We understand there are things we have in common, and as I suggested a while ago these are considerable platforms of commonality from which we can build some common understandings. And religion, which has been too often in our history a problem, a source of destruction, an issue that has created the most volatile passions in people, religion at its best can be also full of grace, full of reconciliation, generating peace, generating justice, and getting us all to a place where this is indeed a better world.

MS. SICCARDI: Okay, Ambassador Seiple, I understand that Jerusalem is back on line. Pleas go ahead with your next question, Jerusalem.

Q: First of all, I would like to express my appreciation for the honesty in reporting. I found the report at least very well balanced and trying to really expose the facts on the ground. As already mentioned, there are some things missing that I would like to maybe draw attention to. But I think it's important to express our appreciation to begin with.

One of the things just in replying to what you have said, ambassador, I don't think security should always take precedence over violations of human rights, because many times our experience has been that under the guise of security many human rights have been violated. So I think we should not accept security as a holy cow and then ignore the deep violations that are taking place here.

One omission that I find in the report which I would like to draw attention is that in the Israeli press, Israeli TV, Israeli vocabulary, they never pronounce the name of "Jesus" in the proper way. You might not be aware of this, that in Hebrew the name which is referred to usually for "Jesus" is a very derogatory name. And I remember that when the pope was here in the country, in all the official media, with the exception of exception of one time that I remember, because I was paying attention to this, that all the media used the derogatory name for Jesus.

Now, I believe that this is very insensitive to those of us who are Christians who respect the name of Jesus and would wish that the name must be properly used, and as well as the Muslims also who respect Jesus and believe in him as a prophet.

Now, the name which is used for Jesus in Hebrew is "Yehshu" (ph) and Yehshu is an acronym that means, "may is name and remembrance be blotted out" -- or more basically, "may God blot out his name and remembrance." Now, this is a very, very basic violation of our right as a Christian community and a Muslim community that have great respect for Jesus Christ. So I don't see this in the report, and I think it must be addressed at one time or another.

May I add just another point? You know, these -- I understand that this report has been coming out for the second year. I would like to know whether it has really made a difference, you know, or how can the United States, which has some very good relations with Israel and probably other countries that are mentioned in the report -- can we go beyond the exposure and reporting to the implementation? You know, what kind of pressure can the United States government place on Israel or these other countries so that they will abide by the importance of religious freedom in their country? Thank you.

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, I appreciate the series of comments and questions. Maybe I could address some of the comments and finish up with a thought or two on whether the report is effective and whether you can see it in the region.

First of all, on the issue of security, this is not a point of view that I am taking personally. This is a point of view that I am saying is reality for at least half of the people who are looking at this issue. And I understand the point of view that you have brought up that security is not something that people should hide behind. Well, religion is also not something that people should hide behind. You're absolutely right -- if these issues are not played properly if they are not -- if we don't have the nuance of discernment if we are not treating them with wisdom, people will use an issue and overplay the issue to the detriment of someone else's rights. This is not the same in every situation. You may have one situation that gets decided for instance in Chechnya one way; one situation with this issue of security in Jerusalem another way. But the fact is that it has to be talked about. It has to be seen as a reality. There are lots of people in Israel who are concerned about security. There are lots of people in Israel who are concerned about economic liability. They may happen to be on different sides of the economic issue, they may be on different sides of a religious issue. But at least each has to protect the right of the other person to have a point of view and to be able to discuss that point of view. So this is part of the difficulty that you allude to.

You mentioned the pope's visit. I think everyone who watched that with fascination, with gratitude, with sometimes awe, with a great deal of respect. I think it was a very good thing for him to have done, and I think the positive aspects of his visit are still being realized and hopefully will continue to be realized.

I am not quite sure of the situation with the Hebrew name and the pejorative connotation as it's offered as you suggest, but obviously this is an issue of respect, and if there is a pejorative connotation attached to the way a name is used -- just like in our country we have people take the name in vain sometimes, which has more of a pejorative connotation that's very offensive. I think we are obliged to talk about those things and bring that to the attention of people who can solve these issues, because they shouldn't continue.

Now, relative to the effect of this other report, the report is one tool. We think it's a large tool. We think it's a very tangible tool. There are a lot of people in the world who are absolutely desperate for hope. And for them to have any kind of hope in the future that something is going to change, they have to see points of tangibility in the present. So when the last remaining superpower creates legislation that is voted on unanimously, essentially because it represents the will of the American people, not that we invented religious freedom, but this is something the American people feel very strongly about, and we make sure that our considerable shoulder is put to the wheel of all the international covenants that already exist to highlight religious freedom in the world. That is a massive point of tangibility for a lot of people in dark places, in difficult places on the cruel edges of the world who this day don't have very much hope. For them to know that in America people are very concerned on this issue, for them to know that in America this is part of our foreign policy, for them to know that in America this is part of our national interests, it gives them something very tangible to hold onto and makes that hope for the future that much more credible. That's one tool.

It comes out on an yearly basis. This is the second year. We have improvements in the second edition that we didn't have in the first. In fact, specifically we list countries that have shown religious improvement. And so you go to the executive summary and see significant improvement in a couple of countries -- Laos and Azerbaijan, and then a host of countries, including Israel. A year ago when we were writing this report there were lots of concerns about the treatment of Jehovah Witnesses, especially inside Jerusalem. And we brought that to the attention of our interlocutors, government officials in Israel. That has been largely fixed. And we say that in the report. That's a positive point. And the report is no longer simply where we point out the problems that people have and countries have -- what countries and governments have done to their people. But we also show the improvements. So hopefully over time not only will the report get better.

And some of the things that you say we left out -- and here you have an annual report -- if you are right we'll get them in next time. We'll get them in the third annual report. In the meantime, we are also seeing incremental, positive movement all in the right direction. Will it happen overnight? Will it happen in a two-year, five-year, 10-year period? This is a very difficult issue. It's a very complex issue. This is an issue where all of our passions come out. And sometimes, as I mentioned earlier, some of those passions are very volatile. But I think there needs to be a shining bright light on governments that abuse religious freedom. I think there has to be an equal shining with a great light on governments that promote religious freedom. I think that's our accountability to the international process when we sign those international covenants that are designed to protect religious freedom. I hope more governments would do this, and hope more countries would see the benefits of such a report.

Q: Hello? Hello? Your Excellency Ambassador, I am -- (inaudible) -- Christian Affairs at PLO. I appreciate very much your presentation, and I want -- permit me to comment on what you have said about justice. Justice doesn't mean only security. Justice means to implement the international resolutions, such as 242, 338, 194 -- the right of Palestinian refugees to go to their homes and property. So I think the Palestinians are adhering to the international resolutions.

As for tolerance in religions, I want to give an example of the Palestinians, how they are directing after taking over Bethlehem. They are controlling and supervising Christmas -- (inaudible) -- processions and -- (inaudible) -- in an excellent way. Before I mean everybody was prohibited to go on Christmas eve to attend the midnight mass. For 40 years Palestinians are carrying out and letting everybody go there freely, and they are looking after the procession and midnight mass. And President Arafat attends the midnight mass for the Roman Catholic, then for the Greek Orthodox, and then for the Armenian Orthodox, and also for the Anglicans. So I mean the principle what the Palestinians are taking is give access to the holy places and giving the right for everybody to go to his site.

For instance, as far as the Christians are concerned there is the status quo -- what governs the three main churches -- the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian and the Franciscan Latin. Then, in addition to that Syrian and the Copts together make one unit with the Armenians. So I thank you very much.

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, you are obviously to be commended for the opening of the Bethlehem site. I have been there myself and it's a site for people of the Christian faith obviously that has tremendous meaning and tremendous joy -- it was a point of great celebration -- and to have it opened and protected as an open site. I think you create a model for others to see that it can be done, and the Palestinian Authority, like the Israeli government, like any government, we have rights and responsibilities. And one of our responsibilities is to create acceptable models that work, and then give them away to the rest of the world. You had done something that works, and I hope that those closest to see Bethlehem on an almost daily basis can do a similar thing with all the holy sites in that part of the world.

Q: Hello, back to you with the same passion you have -- (inaudible) -- your report -- not simply because we don't in Jerusalem and we are very faithful to our holy land and to our faith, but simply because we are maintaining this ongoing dialogue between Muslim, Christians, and Muslim, Christians and Jews. And I see that your report is missing that. It is not only to report about the abuses and violation and the -- (inaudible) -- and not respect the freedom of religion, but as well as to comment who is doing what in order to preserve these things, in order to encourage people to continue with these things. Of course there are so many American organizations I think should be helping and assisting the citizens in Palestine and Israel as well as in the region to build that kind of bridges of understanding each other, accepting the other, respecting the other, and seeing the other as the other would like to be portrayed. But, having said that, I have to focus clearly about when we meet, when we talk, Muslims, Christians, Jews together -- especially here in Palestine and Israel -- we discover how much we are ignorant about each other. We discover how much things are not really exposed. For example, in your report it is there what Israel has been doing to the Muslim holy site the violation of the mosques. And Israel itself is transferring a mosque to a coffee shop or a factory -- they reported about that. They put that clearly. Why your report is not putting it in? Why are the Israelis not admitting that, that it has nothing to do with security? It is not in the occupied territories, it is not between Palestinians and Israelis. This is within the Israeli society itself. You know Israel is a divided society -- you have two million secular Jews, you have two million religious Jews, you have one million Russians and you have one million Arabs. And these one million Arabs are basically Muslim and Christian. And their sites, their mosques, their churches, have been violated, disgraced, and nobody is reporting about it. This is the kind of thing we would like to see. I know this -- (inaudible) -- definitely your report is needed not only to bring awareness of the world on these issues, but to assist and help people to build these kinds of bridges of accepting each other and working with each other. Thank you, sir.

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, I accept your comments and the critical nature of them. I think they are very constructive. Be assured that this program and your question and your comments are being gathered by members of my staff, and these insights that you say might be missing from this year's report will be checked out. Because that's what we do. We monitor, we record, we respond, we visit. We talk to the embassy, we talk to the NGO community. We talk to the human rights community. We talk to the faith-based community. And if there is something missing that we have neglected to put in -- either on the positive side as well as an abuse -- let us know, and we can get that information and make sure that it appears in the next report. Thank you for your constructive criticism.

MS. SICCARDI: Very well, thank you. We now invite Riyadh to begin with their questions and comments. Go ahead, Riyadh. Riyadh, please go ahead with your questions. (Technical difficulties.) Ambassador, we are still trying to connect with Riyadh. But meanwhile I would like to listen to your points of view about the fact that now for the second year we have the United States engaging in this annual international religious freedom report. We have you as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. What does all that mean in terms of the environment of politics these days that require and enable this religious issue to be considered as part of the politics of the country?

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, first of all, in terms of the American sense of all of this, this began basically with the founding of our country. Jefferson referred to religious freedom as the first freedom. So what you see today is not something new as people talk about their faith. They talked about their faith 224 years ago. They made sure that the ability to worship, the ability to associate, the ability to show one's faith, the ability to change one's faith, was all part of our Bill of Rights. These are thoughts and concepts firmly embedded into the documentation of the American experiment, and one obviously the American people feel very strongly about.

MS. SICCARDI: All right, Riyadh, we are going to try to connect with you again. Please go ahead with your question. (Technical difficulties.)

Okay, Mr. Ambassador, I understand also that you are about ready to step down. We would like to hear what are your feelings about the time that you have spent in your position, and what is next for you?

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, tomorrow will be my last day, so you are right about that. I came here with the thought that we needed to lay the railroad tracks for this particular issue. It wasn't embodied in the State Department before. It hasn't been institutionalized by the U.S. government. And as much as possible and as quickly as possible we wanted to make sure that we could create the critical mass and then the momentum for this issue around the world, both in terms of what the legislation was mandating us to do as an office in the State Department, but also as a methodology that we would implement.

Now, I never expected personally to stay in government past that, because I wanted to be part of the building up of it, and I think we have achieved that. And now I turn that over to a good staff and a great deputy, and Tom Farr, my deputy here in the office, and I have every reason to believe that this issue will continue with that momentum.

There are things that governments can do -- and I spent most of my life outside of government, and will go and start a non-governmental organization -- it's called the Institute for Global Engagement. But it will look at this issue in terms of understanding the causes of religious persecution; and, by extension, understanding the long-term sustainable solutions. These take a lot of time. Governments sometimes can't give it he same amount of time because they are interrupted by elections at inopportune times. But a non-governmental organization can. So we will look at this issue. We will do the research that is necessary, because research and scholarship is very necessary to this issue. We will do some teaching on some of the long-term sustainable solutions -- namely reconciliation, conflict mediation. And we will be operative in the field -- we'll look at problems that we can uniquely bring a track II diplomacy approach to or an outside-government approach to, and begin to bring solutions that will endure. And then obviously we will give all that away to people and replicate it where there are problems in the world. So we will stay with the issue, the long and short of this. We will stay with the issue of religious freedom -- I believe that this is a major intervention on the part of people of faith around the world -- but try to take it a little bit deeper, looking at why these things happen, and what can be done to permanently fix what's going on in some of these difficult places today.

MS. SICCARDI: Well, ambassador, you are certainly not leaving the State Department for a non-praiseworthy objective, and we wish you the best. Meanwhile, back to your official capacity, we have Riyadh on the line for more questions and comments for you.

Q: I am -- (inaudible) -- from el-Hayat (ph) newspaper. In a meeting between Chairman Arafat and Secretary Albright, Secretary Albright did not use the name -- the al-Aqsa Mosque in referring to that mosque, and that angered Chairman Arafat. Did the nomenclature that was used by Secretary Albright represent the U.S. position on religious freedom?

And early in September when this report was published, we noticed that this report contains information that is not quite accurate and that it represents an exclusively Christian point of view that does not take into account the sensibilities and sensitivities of other religious identities. Would you please comment on those issues, sir?

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, thank you for the question. First of all, we stand by the report. We do think it is fairly written, objectively written, and written one country at a time. Now, we are all human -- if you feel we have left something out, if you feel we said something in error, we are not above changing the report in year three and making sure that it incorporates fact. We want to tell the truth without surprise. That's the montra of my office -- tell the truth without surprise -- and not to surprise people in our own government, not to surprise people in the host governments, but to make sure that this becomes a very predictable presentation of comprehensive fact and truth as we see it. If you can enlighten us more on what that is, we would certainly be open to that.

Now, relative to Secretary Albright, let me say there is no bigger fan of religious freedom around the world than the secretary. She's the one that created the office for me. I came here two years ago. We had no budget. We were looking at shrinking budgets in the State Department and all around. It wasn't the best time to come in terms of starting something new. But she stood up and stood up and said very publicly this is what we are going to do: We are going to increase the reporting from posts around the world on this issue. And I can tell you when the secretary of State says something like that it gets the attention of all of the embassies and consulates around the world. And that reporting has been very good.

She has also said we need an outreach program to Muslims, and we have done that. You may know we have six million Muslims in America. We have a large and very diverse population. And we have reached out to them. We do something periodically called the Islamic roundtable, and in that roundtable the issues are the issues that our Muslim friends want to discuss. And we continue to meet until those issues are resoled, until there is a sense that we have gone about as far as we can go. But we don't determine the issue. We don't determine the agenda. We just create the meeting place and the space in the State Department to make sure that this faith, this very rich faith that is growing by leaps and bounds in this country, has access to the same governmental models, governmental institutions, as anybody else has. Again, the secretary has allowed that to happen. The secretary has an iftar, or an id or a Ramadan feast, and invites people from the Islamic faith. These are more than symbols, and more than symbols about how she feels about this issue. But she realizes as we all do that this faith has to be reached out to. We want to be clear and right as we present this faith. We try very hard as we write these reports to place them in front of people who can give us the nuance and make sure we are not out of line of anything that we might say or put in that that would be offensive. And, again, if we are missing facts that's why we go on the air and we travel to places like Saudi Arabia and so on, to make sure that we can get the facts straight and face to face.

I was in Saudi Arabia in February a year ago, had great conversations at the highest levels on the Islamic side, on the government side, and we will continue to do that -- if we are allowed certainly we want to return this fall for example, to make sure that as many avenues as we have to understand the nuances, and understand the richness and the depths, and why things are done by governments and may not be done by other governments -- or may not be done by our own government -- to get at those kinds of facts. That's where we will spend our time. That's where we spend our money. And I am grateful if you would give us the facts that you thought we missed this year.

Q: Good evening, sir -- (inaudible) -- newspaper. I have a comment and then a question, sir. It seems to me that the State Department report on religious freedom is somewhat unfair. At the time when the absence of religious freedom is attributed in some countries to certain positions, it also ignores the deliberate desecration of religious sites in Israel. My question -- and I would like you, Mr. Ambassador, to comment on the following -- I would like you to comment on the tightening that is practiced -- or the restrictive treatment that is practiced by Israelis on the Muslims and Christians and their attacks on these religious sites in Jerusalem. Thank you, sir, for your comments in advance.

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, in the half hour preceding, being connected to Riyadh -- we were connected to Jerusalem, and we had many of the same questions. A couple of things.

First of all, if you do feel we have left facts out or we have gotten the facts wrong, we encourage you to let us know. We have all the available means to get information to us from a program like this to email to or friends in the consulate and the embassy there. There are many ways that you can get this information to us.

And then in terms of holy sites, our position is very clear: We would like to have them open. The other issue is that sometimes in the eyes of one group suggests that they should be closed or for security purposes should not be opened. We don't think folks should hide behind security as an issue, but let's assume and let's agree that that is part of the reality in this discussion.

Inasmuch as possible holy sites around the world, regardless of religion, regardless of faith, we firmly believe there should be access to them.

Now, when there are improvements we will also point that out, and we did see improvements -- not just in our situation in Israel last year, but also in Saudi Arabia. We know the restrictions are tight in Saudi Arabia. We know that there are red lines that simply cannot be crossed in terms of proselytizing or in terms of non-Muslim worship. We have had those discussions, and we respect that. At the same time, we also know that there are 7 million people, foreigners, living inside of the kingdom, and they also have a need to worship especially people of faith.

Now, we are grateful that they can do it in a discrete way, as long as it is kept private. Frankly, in the spirit of religious freedom everywhere, we wish that that were even more open. But we also realize, with respect, that these are strongly held positions. And as we discuss these positions with a friend -- and the interesting part of this program today, we are talking about two different countries with a lot in common in terms of their friendship with the United States -- but when you talk with a friend you talk candidly, you put your hopes on the table, and yet you respect at the end of the day where the two sides remain.

So in Saudi Arabia we have some fairly tight restrictions given an Islamic monarchy that has two of the three high holy places for the Islamic faith. And we respect that -- and yet at the same time try to find ways to allow other expressions of faith to have more freedom. We don't expect this to happen overnight. We don't expect progress in this regard even to be linear. But we do hope, however, that the discussions can continue to take place, and where we see some help and some good news that we be allowed to celebrate that in our report, as we have this year, as well as when we think things are going wrong.

Q: This is Edward Katanah (ph), Saudi Gazette newspaper. I wanted to ask you, sir, how you describe religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, but I think you have answered my question in advance. But let me ask you do you believe there is religious persecution in Saudi Arabia, and how do you describe what needs to be done here? And what did you talk about -- how did you discuss this issue with the religious authorities here, and what was the response to the issue of religious freedom?

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, I am glad I answered the question you wanted to ask, and I think I even gave some parts of the answer to the question that you did ask. We are certainly aware of the restrictions that exist. You mention the word, or at least the translation of the word that was used was "religious persecution." That's a very heavy legal term. That's loaded with all kinds of meaning in terms of the international covenants and in terms of our international religious freedom act here in this country passed unanimously by the Congress in 1998.

There's a very high bar for religious persecution. And to be a persecutor means that you have to as a government engage in or tolerate in an ongoing, systematic, egregious way violations against people who want to practice their faith. And the violations can be things like prolonged detentions without cause, tortures, kidnappings, rape, killings. It's a very high bar.

Now, remember, I used three words: systematic, ongoing and egregious. I think that there is a pattern and an intentionality to the way the Saudi government conducts itself relative to religious freedom issues. I don't think the Saudi government, I don't think the clerics in Saudi Arabia will disagree with that. The question is: Do you cross the bar and persecute people, given the definition I used in that sense of the word? And we looked at that, as we looked in every country where these issues come up, and we decided that there was not religious persecution in Saudi Arabia. If there had been we would have been obliged by the legislation to designate the country as a country of particular concern and look at a various list of sanctions that could be applied.

Now, I am glad that we didn't cross the bar of persecution -- at least in our minds. And, again, we looked at this with I think a great deal of integrity, talking to lots of people inside and outside of the government of Saudi Arabia and our own government, and our human rights authorities that write on these issues all the time. And we came down on the side that there were abuses of religious freedom. Again, we talked about that. We would like to see more openness. Of course we would like to see a lot of things in terms of non-Muslim worship. But in terms of being a persecutor, this is not the case as we saw it, and so our methodology and our write-up and the things we did and the things we didn't do are all a product of that determination.

MS. SICCARDI: Very well, go ahead, Riyadh. Please, because of the way we are wired through our audio channels, we would rather you ask your questions in Arabic. Go ahead with your next question.

Q: Mr. Ambassador, I have two questions, and I hope the second one will not be a repeat of the first. The United States talks about religious freedom throughout the world. But what about religious freedom inside the United States? What had your report found in this regard?

My second question. The U.S. efforts that are being directed at promoting religious freedom throughout the world, do those efforts target specific countries to focus on?

AMB. SEIPLE: Thanks for both of those questions. On the first one, my office is the Office of International Religious Freedom, set up by legislation that was the International Religious Freedom Act. And so we don't have as part of our portfolio what goes on in the United States. But let me hasten to add that we have had the U.N. Special Rapporteur for religious freedom to the United States, and he has done his own report on religious freedom in the United States. That report is open to everyone. We looked at it very carefully. It won't surprise you there are things we found we liked, there are things we found we didn't like, and we think there are some parts that were missing -- some of the issues that come up with any report. But we welcome the report, and we do so because in the international covenants because in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and then everything that has really come since that point of view that talks about religious freedom -- basically all international covenants do now -- there is inherent in those covenants this concept of mutual accountability. And so the U.N. or Saudi Arabia is perfectly free within its rights to say we think this is wrong that's going on in the United States, and we want to know why you are doing it and how you are going to stop it -- just as we feel we have the responsibility to hold other countries accountable as well.

Now, the question of targeting countries -- we do not target any country. We do not compare countries. We look at the criteria for violations or severe violations that we have in the legislative mandate. And we look at the facts that come out of what a country does. So we line the two up, and we do that 194 times. And then we write objectively, matter-factly, without passion what we find -- what our findings are in that regard.

So there are obviously countries that fall out at the end of the report in a de facto fashion that look to be having a lot of problems. And we all know which ones they are. But we don't go into the exercise fearing that this is a place that we have to pick on.

This legislation did not target any particular religions, any particular faiths, any particular parts of the world. And the inclusive nature of it is part of the philosophical soundness of it. We look at all countries, we look at all faiths, we look at all religions, and try to bring objectivity to all of that.

Q: We don't have any more questions for you, Washington, thank you very much.

MS. SICCARDI: Ambassador, we hear from Riyadh that they have concluded with their section of questions. I would like to give you the opportunity to give us some closing comments -- not just for this program, but also as a wrap-up to your labor at the State Department during the last two years.

AMB. SEIPLE: Well, you are very gracious. Let me say a couple of things. First of all, what we have found in the last decade on a global basis -- religious freedom, faith issues -- these are things that people will die for. And, unfortunately, what we also found in the last decade is that religion is something that people unfortunately will kill for. And once you see that dynamic unfold in the geopolitical components, we neglect religious freedom as an issue at our considerable peril.

These massive intranational identity conflicts many times --it could start because power has gone awry, they could start because of bad people, they could start because of paranoias, they could start because of political chaos or economic chaos -- but very quickly get implemented along the lines of primary identity. And for many people of the world they identify themselves first and foremost by their faith. This is a very important issue for every nation to have somewhere -- if not the heart -- somewhere as part of their foreign policy.

Now, as we go forward with this issue -- we talk about it in legislative terms, we are talking about it in ideological terms, we talk about it sometimes as an extension of the culture wars. What we can't forget is that behind this issue there are real-live people with personalities, with names, with pulses, faces -- people who this day are suffering because of how they believe, who they believe and where they choose to believe. This is not simply a right that was founded in a particular country. This is a universal right. This is a right that is protected by "divine legislation" -- a phrase I was given when I visited Saudi Arabia. All of the faiths believe in the sanctity of human life. All of the faiths believe in human dignity. And it is incumbent upon all of us to hold one another accountable -- not just to a political position, not just to some sort of geopolitical stance, not just to a particular ideology, but to that issue that transcends governments and transcends countries and transcends national boundaries. And there that issue gets represented by the faces of those who suffer. We need to keep the spotlight on them. We need to remember this is their issue, this is where they live and die. And we can do something about it. We are accountable to what we bring to that particular solution.

I thank you for the time, I thank you for the last question. I thank you for the opportunity to talk about what we -- why we do what we do, and why this is important -- not just to the American people, but to all peoples around the world.

MS. SICCARDI: Thank you, Ambassador Seiple, there is passion in your commitment, and I am sure that we will continue to hear of your work outside of the State Department. Thank you very much for the work that you have done for the two years, because we all know that starting anything is always hard.

Very well. We want to thank also our participants in our program today in this international dialogue. And from Washington, wishing you a very good day, Maria Siccardi.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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