<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=210 BGCOLOR="#99CC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0448dfc3.jpg"> <div> <B><IMG SRC="375a1190.jpg" border=0 width="161" height="281" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> <B>Main Menu Options:</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="All About Mac"><U>All About Mac</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id99.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Harm Mac"><U>Harm & Mac</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id152.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MACnopsis"><U>MACnopsis</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id212.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JAG Timeline"><U>JAG Timeline</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photos/Articles/Interviews"><U>Photos/Articles/Interviews</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id106.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Catherine Bell "><U>Catherine Bell </U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id49.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Insider Info"><U>Insider Info</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="News/Gossip"><U>News/Gossip</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Episode Information"><U>Episode Information</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Trial Stats"><U>Trial Stats</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U>Links</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Fan Mail/Email Owner"><U>Fan Mail/E-mail Owner</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id363.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JAG DVD Petition"><U>JAG DVD Petition</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id41.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Site Updates"><U>Site Updates</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=102 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0458dfe1esnpes.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#336666" FACE="Arial" ><B>Mac on JAG</B></FONT><B>     </B><B>|</B><B>     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mac on JAG"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id216.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photos"><U>Photos</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id217.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Articles"><U>Articles</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id218.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Interviews"><U>Interviews</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id421.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ET Online Previews"><U>ET Online Previews</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Behind the Scene Photos"><U>Behind the Scene Photos</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Autographed Pics and note"><U>Autographed Pics and note</U></A>   |   <B>Testimony on Religious Freedom</B>   |   <A HREF="id219.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JAGFanFest Photos"><U>JAGFanFest Photos</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=378 colspan=2 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0458dfc3.jpg"> <div> <I>Testimony on Religious Freedom</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Testimony of Catherine Bell</B></div> <div> Actress</div> <div> before the</div> <div> <B>International House Relations Committee</B></div> <div> <B>Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights</B></div> <div> <B>July 11, 2001</B></div> <bR> <div> Madame Chairwoman and distinguished members of the Committee:</div> <div> I greatly appreciate your decision to hold today's hearing, and I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. I will not recap all that has gone before, but I do want to recommend, and indeed, strongly urge, that Congress and the Administration start taking much tougher measures against western European governments, and especially France, that persistently refuse to comply with human rights standards.</div> <bR> <div> As I was finalizing my testimony, I read an editorial in yesterday's <I>Washington Post </I>that ably summarizes the direction French governmental religious intolerance is taking. The author, who teaches on China-Taiwan issues at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, states, "China's communist leaders have finally found a western human rights model they like: France's new anti-cult law making 'mental manipulation' a crime... Chinese officials now triumphantly canvas American academics, touting the French law as partial vindication for China's much criticized human rights posture." And he adds, "The French connection in China's anti-human rights campaign is not new; parallel efforts by the two governments last month succeeded in ejecting the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Commission." It is ironic that the official in charge of Paris's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games cited China's human rights record as a reason the Games should not go to Beijing. The testimony presented today makes clear that not only the Chinese, but also the French government, is in violation of the non-discrimination clause in the Olympic Charter.</div> <bR> <div> The new French law to "Reinforce the Prevention and Repression of Sectarian Groups" is intentionally designed to deprive hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people of their right to worship freely. Essentially, the new law makes it illegal for religions to help those that they have traditionally helped, i.e., the spiritually afflicted. With this law, repressive and intolerant French officials and politicians have engineered the legal instruments to enforce the death penalty on minority religious groups.</div> <bR> <div> The fight against religious discrimination in Europe does not mean, as some French and German officials have tried to argue, that we are demanding official recognition as a religion for all minority faiths. It does mean that we insist that the governments of those countries honor their international human rights commitments to respect a person<FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000080" FACE="Verdana" >’</FONT>s freedom of thought, conscience, religion, belief or association.</div> <bR> <div> Madame Chairwoman, this is by no means the first time that my fellow-artists and I have testified before Congress about such human rights violations. All of us have spoken with the victims of religious intolerance, many of whom are not really equipped to give their grievances a public airing. That is why hearings such as the one today are so valuable. Artists like Isaac Hayes, Anne Archer, Chick Corea, John Travolta and I appreciate the forum to speak out for people, who otherwise would have no spokesperson. We are here to make sure their voices are heard.</div> <bR> <div> France is a leader in Europe, a pivotal member of the European Union and the Council of Europe. If we cannot persuade the French government to uphold standards of human rights, what must be our chances of success when dealing with countries like the Sudan or Iraq?</div> <bR> <div> Much good work has been done over the years to expose religious discrimination in western Europe. In 1997, the Commission for Security in Cooperation in Europe held a major hearing, and the Commission has continued to express concerns about the situation in succeeding years. Last year, I and other witnesses testified before the full House International Relations Committee that discrimination and intolerance continued to worsen in France, Germany, Belgium and Austria. The International Relations Committee has passed two resolutions deploring the abuses, and calling on the responsible governments to return to the principles of tolerance and religious pluralism.</div> <bR> <div> Successive years of U.S. State Department Annual Human Rights Reports have tracked the growing intolerance in France, and the U.S. government has called upon the governments of France, Belgium and Austria to close their "anti-sect" offices. Many congressmen and senators have expressed their concerns to the French government, both through correspondence and in person. International human rights organizations, both private and governmental, have charted the increasing militancy of the offending governments.</div> <bR> <div> These are necessary and valuable measures, and without them, the situation would be even graver than it is. But despite all the well-intentioned efforts of Congress and the State Department, the French government has not softened its policies of intolerance, but has made them more extreme. What sort of message is France, a leading world democracy, sending to emerging democracies about what constitutes acceptable treatment of minorities? What are French officials and politicians communicating to, say, African countries, or to eastern European states seeking access to the European Union? How discouraging must it be to artists whose right to freedom of expression is denied under totalitarian governments, when they see a senior French government official visiting Beijing to discuss how to wipe out minority religions?</div> <div> I believe, Madame Chairwoman, that the time has come for Congress to take firm and unequivocal action against western European governments that fail to comply with international human rights law. We have a responsibility under the International Religious Freedom Act, and as Americans, to protect the rights of minority religious members, especially American citizens. Indeed, the act provides for trade penalties to be taken against governments that engage in acts of religious persecution. The French government has now placed on the books a law that is tailor-made to create persecution, and to deny religious adherents their right to worship in community with others, freely practice their religion and associate with their co-religionists. Within the next few months, we can expect French authorities to move to dissolve targeted religious organizations. I strongly recommend that the Administration and Congress look seriously at applying trade penalties if the French government uses the new law to engage in religious persecution against peaceful religious groups for exercising their right to worship.</div> <bR> <div> And I would like to make one last point. Surely now, with all the evidence in, the time has come for hard-nosed legislation mandating sanctions against foreign governments that engage in repeated and persistent acts of religious discrimination. Tough, uncompromising laws by the United States are needed to drive home that human rights violations such as we have heard today are completely unacceptable, and that the United States will not stand by and permit them to continue.</div> <bR> <div> Thank you very much for hearing my testimony.</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> This text was taken from the following web site: <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.house.gov/international_relations/bell0711.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.house.gov/international_relat"><U>http://www.house.gov/international_relations/bell0711.htm</U></A></FONT></div> </td> </tr></table></body>