Religious Freedom Agreements Draw Near in Eritrea, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia

Three countries, which have been condemned over the past year for their poor religious freedoms records, have been touted as being on the verge of a deal, which would see the state of religious liberty in the Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, greatly advance.

The US, yesterday did in fact surpass a deadline, at which it had previously stated it would impose sanctions on violators of the International Religious Freedom Act. However, yesterday the Bush administration requested that the US Congress extend this deadline for these three countries to demonstrate a commitment towards tolerance to all religions.

An American State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli reported, "We've been actively engaged with all three in working for improvements in respect for religious freedom in those countries. We've made some important progress. We are close to arrangements that respond to issues raised in the report, and we think that, with a little bit more time, we can take care of some of the issues that were problematic for us."

Last year on September 15th, the US State Department submitted its annual report regarding the situation on religious freedom around the world. During that report, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam were added to the countries “"of particular concern" for the first time. The list already included North Korea, Sudan, Burma and China.

From that date, the countries’ governments were given six months to deal with the worrying issues. The deadline passed yesterday, Tuesday 15th March 2005.

Ereli said, "We are at different stages, talking about different actions with each of the three, and I think our responses with each of the three are going to be different."

It was announced that the issues would be finalised within the next few weeks, although it was unclear when the new deadline would be.

Saudi Arabia, in particular has had a tense relationship with the United States over the past three to four years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in which fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis.

Last year’s report in Saudi Arabia stated, "Freedom of religion does not exist. Freedom of religion is not recognised or protected under the country's laws, and basic religious freedoms are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam."

It also reported, "frequent instances in which mosque preachers, whose salaries were paid by the government, used violent anti-Jewish and anti-Christian language in their sermons."

The Vietnam report said, "Respect for religious freedom remained poor or deteriorated for some groups, notably ethnic minority Protestants and some independent Buddhists, though it slightly improved for many practitioners."

However, the US ambassador for international religious freedom, John Hanford recently visited Vietnam and was encouraged by the steps the government had been taking.

The Eritrean report commented, "The government monitored, harassed, arrested and detained members of Pentecostal, independent Evangelical groups, the Eritrean Orthodox Church and Jehovah's Witnesses. There were also numerous reports of physical torture and attempts at forced recantations. There were numerous credible reports that over 400 members of non-sanctioned religious groups had been detained or imprisoned."