Washington Kurdish Institute
May 17, 2020
The Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI) hosted Vice Chair Nadine Maenza of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Vice-Chair Maenza is a noted speaker, writer, and policy expert with more than two decades of experience as an advocate for working families and a champion for international religious freedom. She has founded the Patriot Voices, an organization focuses on public policies that help working families.
She was appointed by President Trump in 2018 and has represented the USCIRF in delegations to many countries including Iraq and Syria. She has served as a senior advisor to Rick Santorum and other presidential and U.S. Senate campaigns. Her writings on various policy topics have been published domestically and internationally.
Vice-Chair Nadine Maenza brief remarks:
The situation of the religious minorities and groups in Iran
Vice Chair Maenza Starseed concerns about the religious rights in Iran especially against the Christians, Bahis, and Sunni Muslims:
“We’ve been very concerned about religious minorities in Iran. We have been covering the US commission or USCIRF, we call ourselves, we’ve been covering Iran since 2000, recommending it as a country of particular concern. Iran is a home to several religious minorities that are persecuted by their authoritarian theocratic government. Even though they give constitutional recognition to Sunni Muslims, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Christians, they’re still obviously persecuted terribly. We are also very concerned about the systematic persecution of Baha’is, which we documented and not long ago in October 2019 in a special policy brief that we had. And also Christian converts who’ve been in prison. Sufis being put in increased risk in prison during the COVID 19. We’ve asked for them to release prisoners. We know, we have a prisoner of conscience project, at USCIRF where we adopt prisoners and we advocate on their behalf. I’ve advocated for Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani who is a Christian who once was on death row and now he’s back in prison again. They did not let him out for the COVID19 in spite of all the things going on. So we’ve been very concerned about Iran and we’ll continue to monitor the way that they persecute religious minorities.”
Non-Muslims and Sunnis face persecution by the Iranian regime
When asked about whether the Iranian regime also persecuted non-Muslims, she said:
“They are! We find that Sunni Muslim Kurds, I believe it will probably face pretty severe persecution in north because of their ethnicity and their religious beliefs. So absolutely Iran, unless you’re a Shia that’s practicing like a state-sanctioned Shia, there is some sort of persecution for you if you follow any other faith.”
The religious tolerance in the Kurdistan region for the non-Muslims
Vice-Chair Maenza vitiated the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and shared her experience in regards to the religious tolerance in the region:
“We have been so grateful to the Kurdistan regional government for providing a safe haven for so many communities that fled during the Islamic State when they had their Caliphate particularly from I think 2014 and 2017. I know so many are there now, so we’ve been so thankful for them providing that protection. I personally was able to visit Kurdistan I think in 2015 and was astounded how safe it was and how they had taken in so many religious minorities. In just a few hours drive away ISIS has his Caliphate and is continuing to grow at that point in time. They just were that strong stable force for religious freedom in Northern Iraq through it all. It’s just really been astounding.”
In Nineveh Plains, the Pro-Iranian Militias prevent Christians and Yazidis to return to their homes
“The one thing we kept hearing is Christians, in particular, the Yazidis are not coming back. It’s just not safe. So I was able to come back to Iraq in my own capacity in November and I was able to visit Mosul, Talkaif, Hamdania, and go into the Iraqi part of the Nineveh Plains and meet with mayors, the governor, Christian minorities, and political party leaders. The drive from Erbil to Mosul and back, I went through 11 checkpoints. Now a couple of them were probably government checkpoints, but most of them were the Hashad al Shaabi [Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)] or the Iranian-sponsored militias that were shopping to check who was coming through. I can only imagine how difficult that would be for a religious minority for a Yazidi family, for a Christian family. It helped me to understand better what the conditions are like and how really horrible it is right now for religious minorities there.” Full remarks.
The current Administration’s approach to religious minorities
“Well, clearly the US government has put a priority on religious freedom. And I think we, you’ve probably heard this a lot, that the Trump administration is the best administration ever on religious freedom. And they have done so much to rebuild these communities in the Nineveh Plains area. The problem has been the government of Iraq has not been willing to stand up against Iran. So basically the past prime ministers and now we have a new prime minister, and the question is, he had to be approved by a majority Shia parliament, so is he going to stand up against the Iran-backed militias or not? I understand you might not be able to do that immediately, but we are hoping he is.
As for the US government, they’re independent from us. So I’m not quite sure, hopefully, we’re recommending that they are advocating for religious minorities, knowing the way the administration cares about religious minorities. I’m sure they are, it’s a very complicated situation in Iraq. It is more complicated because, I think part of the problem, looking back even previous administrations, because this was long a problem before Trump came in, is that Iraq was looked at only from what wasn’t working, which is ISIS, right. And we’re seeing this even in Syria that the policy is to defeat ISIS. And so the militias were looked at like they were a nuisance and ISIS was the problem. So we’re pouring all this money and all this treasure and time and soldiers into trying to help Iraq when in the meantime, this festering problem of the militias is rising. And now we’re sitting here where that is the main problem. So it’s like they’re finishing what ISIS started against the religious minorities.”
The religious freedom in the Kurdish-led administration of North and East of Syria
“It’s among the best conditions in the Middle East for religious minorities. Christians can evangelize there freely, can build churches. I first heard about the autonomous administration in Northeast Syria actually after I did not hear about them until I joined the USCRIF commission. And I was amazed that this place existed. And as I learned more and more about how they had this freedom of religion or belief and how they’ve built governance. They built a democracy. They have a legitimate government that provides services and they built this during the civil war, during their fight against ISIS. They have a very, as you know, very charismatic, General [Mazloum Abdi] heading the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). He could have easily tried to build a military dictatorship. And that’s not what they did. They built a democracy. So here we go to so many places and we go to places like Afghanistan or even Iraq some extent where we help them. We try to get them to learn how to govern, how to provide human rights, how to have religious freedom, you can’t and it doesn’t work. We’re leaving Afghanistan having failed that. And here we are in a place where it’s working. You can’t make people care about each other. You can’t make them care about religious freedom, care about human rights. And there’s a place that does.”
The Turkish invasion to Syria and its effect on the religious minorities
“I might add Turkey is the only NATO member that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom reports on. In fact, in the USCIRF report on Syria, we recommend that the US government, we pressure Turkey to provide a timeline to withdraw from Northeast Syria because of these exact violations. So we’re really concerned about the free Syrian army and the radical Islamic factions and how they’re going after Yazidis, Christians in other areas. Afrin obviously is the oldest example. So it’s a little bit more work played out. But you see the same thing happening in other areas that they have taken in. They’ve made it very clear President Erdogan has made very clear plans to come back again. So for religious freedom, Turkey is a negative influence on religious freedom, and these war crimes and what some people have even said could be crimes against humanity with a population transfer. And these Yazidi shrines that have been destroyed and the resettlement of the refugees. So you’re right, there are many, many documented, atrocities and violations and war crimes that appear to be coming from these areas.”
The USCIRF is against the US decision to withdraw from both Syria and Iraq
“USCIRF repeatedly called on the US government to prioritize religious freedom in Syria and Iraq. And that we have spoken out in favor of keeping troops in Syria and Iraq in order to protect religious freedom. We are very concerned about the potential if they left, what that would mean, as particularly for Northeast Syria, but even Iraq. I talked about the Hashad al Shaabi in Iraq, but I didn’t really mention that they’ve moved into Syria as well and are backing up Assad and you have so many players right there. I’ll be honest freedom on their border is a threat. So of course, if the US is not there’s no doubt they’re going to try to destroy the autonomous administration of North and East Syria.
The thing that’s so remarkable is this is really quite a great return on investment. There are only 400 US soldiers in Syria right now. That is a really small amount for keeping these guys at bay. So it appears that the Trump administration doesn’t need us to teach them how to govern. They need our support. Certainly, we can give advice. I mean, we’re not suggesting they’re perfect, of course, but they don’t need a lot from us. They don’t need us to provide some of the things these other countries we already provide to them. What they need is for us to just be there so that they can continue to develop their project to be able to expand on all the rights they’ve given to their people to be able to have.”
Erdogan’s support of the Islamic schools in Turkey
“USCIRF has followed it and expressed concern about Turkey’s various education programs for a while and the proliferation of these schools and the conversion of mini secular and other schools to become these Imam Hatip schools is really an obstacle for families and students that don’t want that kind of education. I’ve written about this personally about what we call Islamic fascism, which is ruling by using Islam with violence. I distinguish that by saying most Muslims are not, do not subscribe to this, Right? And in fact, I’d say that ISIS and like Erdogan the way he’s been ruling, Iran, these countries, I mean, Muslims have probably lost more. There’s been more Muslims killed by them than any other religion. So I wish we make a distinction here that, but there’s this threat that’s coming, that we’re seeing, that I’ve written about with Turkey in particular of really forcing this extreme version of Islam.
We were very concerned about the decline of religious freedom by conditions in Turkey. We have found it internally, but it seems like in Syria in particular, it’s easier almost for them. They don’t have the same sort of democratic guardrails that some that exist in Turkey that keep Erdogan from making, maybe the kind of changes he’d want to make. But that’s why when it gets to Syria, he seems to rule so harshly because they’re able to. So to me, that almost shows what his goal would be if you look at a friend. And that’s really dangerous when you see a friend. ”