June 4, 2001
Freedom commission slow to fill
___WASHINGTON (BP)--The independent panel established by Congress two years ago to monitor religious freedom has encountered delays in the appointment of its nine voting members.
___The two-year terms of members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom expired May 14, and only two have been reappointed.
___Three members of the commission, established by a 1998 act of Congress, are selected by the president, with three others selected by Senate leaders and three by House of Representatives leaders.
___Commission spokesman Lawrence Goodrich said the panel cannot make further policy decisions until it has a quorum of six members.
___House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R.-Ill., reappointed Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House in Washington, a human rights group. The commission announced Michael K. Young, dean of the George Washington University Law School in Washington, has been reappointed by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R.-Miss.
___At least one news report noted Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, is among potential appointees.
___Until the panel is named, the staff will continue to monitor religious freedom daily and prepare for the new commission, Goodrich said.
___The commission's second annual report, released April 30, made policy recommendations to the U.S. government regarding 10 countries in which religious freedom is considered at risk. In addition to the countries included in its 2000 report--China, Russia and Sudan--the panel reported on India, Indonesia, Iran, North Korea, Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam.
___Five commissioners, including Shea and Young, are willing to be reappointed, Goodrich said. The others are Chairman Elliott Abrams, Vice Chairman Firuz Kazemzadeh and Charles Z. Smith. Abrams is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington; Kazemzadeh is senior adviser for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States; and Smith is a justice of the Washington State Supreme Court.
___Other commissioners were Laila Al-Marayati, founding member and past president of the Muslim Women's League in Los Angeles; Catholic Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Washington; John R. Bolton, until recently senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy in Washington.; and David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington.
___McCarrick, who has become Washington's archbishop and a cardinal, does not wish to be reappointed, Goodrich said. Bolton now is an undersecretary of state in the Bush administration and is ineligible for reappointment.
___Al-Marayati, Kazemzadeh and Smith were appointed in 1999 by former President Bill Clinton.
___The commission's most visible position, the non-voting ambassador-at-large, has been vacant since September when Robert Seiple resigned to start a think tank in Philadelphia. The position, according to the commission, is "charged with promoting religious freedom worldwide, promoting reconciliation in those areas where conflict has been implemented along religious lines, and making sure that this issue is woven into the fabric of U.S. foreign policy."
___Possible candidates that have been mentioned are Abrams and John Hanford, a congressional fellow in the office of Sen. Richard Lugar, R.-Ind. Hanford participated in writing the legislation for the International Religious Freedom Act.
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