Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives

Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives:

" The head of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court is a man who has shown little regard for those who disagree with his hard-line interpretation of Islam. He told those of us visiting Afghanistan that yes, he supports international human rights standards, with the exception of three: freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and gender equality.
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With no guarantee of the individual right to religious freedom and a judicial system instructed to enforce Islamic principles and Islamic law, the new Afghan constitution does not fully protect individual Afghan citizens against, for example, unjust accusations of religious 'crimes' such as apostasy and blasphemy. There are also fewer protections for Afghans to debate the role and content of religion in law and society, to advocate the rights of women and members of religious minorities, and to question interpretations of Islamic precepts without fear of retribution. This could permit a harsh, unfair, or even abusive interpretation of religious orthodoxy to be officially imposed, violating numerous rights by stifling dissent, which is permissible within the Islamic tradition.

It is critical that what happened in Afghanistan not be repeated in Iraq. In the early stages of the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution, the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), the sections on fundamental freedoms and human rights did not include guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi. In response, as it had done in the case of Afghanistan, the Commission developed for senior U.S. policymakers a series of specific recommendations that would ensure in the TAL guarantees to the right to freedom of religion or belief for every Iraqi. The Commission met or corresponded with senior U.S. officials in the Coalition Provisional Authority, the State Department, and the National Security Council to discuss the specific concerns and recommendations regarding the TAL. The Commission wrote to then-Administrator L. Paul Bremer of the CPA expressing its concern about early drafts of the interim constitution, and the Commission also advised on the content of House Resolution 545, introduced by Representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Carolyn Maloney, expressing the sense of the House that the TAL should ensure that every Iraqi be guaranteed the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion"