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Church of Scientology National Affairs Office Joins Letter to President Biden Re: Emergency Protection and Evacuation of Afghan Religious Minorities/Sanctioning Taliban for Religious Freedom Abuses
Please note that this letter was organized by the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, which was founded and is co-chaired by Scientologist and Scientology lobbyist Greg Mitchell.
From the Exit With Honor website:
IRF Roundtable | Exit Afghanistan with Honor/
* *:* * * * BEGIN EXCERPT * * * * *
August 21, 2021
The Honorable Joseph Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Re: Emergency Protection and Evacuation of Afghan Religious Minorities/Sanctioning Taliban for Religious Freedom Abuses
Dear President Biden:
We are an informal participant-led, multi-religious group that advocates for international religious freedom. Despite our extremely broad diversity of theological views and political positions, we are united in our horror at the unfolding events in Afghanistan following the abrupt US troop withdrawal and the swift Taliban takeover. It is clear that most Afghans do not want a Taliban dominated government and are experiencing deep fear and anxiety at what the future holds. Videos of women handing babies and small children to soldiers over barbed wire vividly illustrate the panic sweeping the nation.
We request specific steps to assist non-governmental organizations in the evacuation and safeguarding of vulnerable religious minorities: Shia Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus, Bahais, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, and others. Immediate action is imperative to fulfill the pledge made in your August 16, 2021 speech that: “human rights must be the center of our foreign policy, not the periphery”1 and the many pledges of your Administration, including Secretary of State Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power at last month’s 2021 IRF Summit, confirming its commitment to international religious freedom. We also believe that current Taliban actions warrant reimposition of US sanctions and freezing of funds and future assistance to a Taliban run Afghan government until they cease violating the rights of religious minorities.
We collectively have assembled numerous reports of horrific mistreatment of religious minorities by Taliban militants now roaming freely throughout Afghanistan. Christians and others seeking refuge at Kabul Airport have been murdered, whipped, had their ID documents seized, and their cell phones destroyed. They are being identified via government records and hunted down in door-to-door searches.2 They are receiving officially stamped “threat letters” warning that they have been identified for arrest or worse. Property is being stolen. Women are being seized, raped (“married” in the eyes of Taliban thugs), or killed, and men are being summarily executed or tortured.3 Shia celebrating Ashura have seen their banners torn down, a harbinger of worse to come.4
The Taliban seeks to impose a hegemonic and absolutistic interpretation of Islam in which religious minorities and non-compliant majority group members, must be subjugated or eliminated. The Organization for Islamic Cooperation has called on the Taliban to adhere to “international governing norms enshrined in the UN Charter and resolutions” and to follow “tolerant Islamic principles and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” which includes the right to freedom of religion and belief.5 In contrast, we realistically expect a swift reversion to Taliban policies of the 1990’s when religious minorities and dissenters were jailed, forced to convert, publicly whipped or executed, forced to pay tribute and use distinctive colors on their clothes and homes.
We also believe that the victory of the Taliban creates a world-wide threat to all religious groups that do not share its radical views—as well as a substantial threat to the national security of the United States and our allies. Taliban rule in Afghanistan will likely have swift negative consequences for our efforts to bring religious freedom, peace and stability to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Africa, and other flashpoints. Taliban promises not to harbor or support external terror organizations in its February 29, 2020 agreement with the United States are laughable in light of its own actions (and multi-national forces) and the many credible reports that Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other terror groups are already training and staging attacks from inside Taliban held areas.6
US based NGO’s and others are amassing funds and capabilities to evacuate religious minorities and women to safe havens even as your Administration and our allies are working to repatriate our citizens and those who worked directly for us. Various countries are committed to taking some of these evacuees and the US should do so as well. Yet we are seeing those we seek to save lose their lives trying to get to the airport in Kabul, being too afraid or unable to get there, and facing huge risks in traveling overland to sanctuary nations. Even US and other foreign citizens are now unable to safely access Kabul Airport.
We ask that your Administration take immediate action to:
1. Create a special emergency coordination office for NGO Afghanistan evacuations inside the Pentagon or the State Department tasked with interacting with NGOs seeking to evacuate religious minorities. It should facilitate their communications with countries accepting religious minority Afghan refugees. It should help coordinate flights, documentation, resettlement, and secure escape routes.
2. Create evacuation corridors and refugee assembly points outside Kabul’s airport (including in other regions) and continue evacuations for as long as necessary to get these people out. We envision refuges where religious minorities can go, be protected, be processed, and be transported by air or other exit means in an orderly fashion. This can happen unilaterally or through agreement with the Taliban, which publicly promised to let all those who wish to leave the country go.
3. Establish special visa quotas and priorities for Afghan religious minorities and work with existing refugee assistance organizations that are standing by ready to provide assistance as they arrive in the US and other countries.
4 Work with IRF focused groups to coordinate monitoring and actions by the US, our allies, and international organizations on religious minority rights in Afghanistan, including our IRF Roundtable, our partner Roundtables worldwide, International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religions or Belief, (IPPFoRB), and the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. We want to see strong public statements demanding an end to Taliban oppression of religious minorities and warnings that we will hold them to account, using targeted sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act, existing Afghanistan sanctions regimes and war crimes prosecutions.
5. Freeze all economic and other assistance to the Taliban and recognition of it as controlling the Afghan government, until it demonstrates through actions, not words, that it is complying with universal standards on religious freedom, human rights, and the rights of women and children as codified in the numerous UN conventions and agreements that the government of Afghanistan has signed. We do not suggest that direct humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan be curtailed, but that Taliban not be enabled.
We thank you in advance for your attention to our requests and stand ready to meet with Administration officials to facilitate this effort. #ExitWithHonor
Respectfully,
Organization Signatures:
ALEVI PHILOSOPHY CENTER ASSOCIATION (ADO)
NEZIH DOGAN BERMEK, President
Anglican Persecuted Church Network
Patricia Streeter, Co-Leader
Barrister
Paul Diamond, barrister
Bethany Christian Services
Nathan Bult, Senior Vice President of Public and Government Affairs
Boat People SOS (BPSOS)
Nguyen Dinh Thang, PhD, CEO & Presdient
Bruderhof
Johann Huleatt, Outreach Director
Christian Freedom International
Wendy Wright, President
Church of Scientology National Affairs Office
Susan Taylor
Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience
Thierry Valle, President
Free Yezidi Foundation
Pari, Ibrahim
Healing For The Nations
Brian Wills, President
Hindus for Human Rights
Nikhil Mandalaparthy, Director of Advocacy
Human Right Congress for Bangladesh Minorities(HRCBM)
Preo Biswas, Executive Director
Institut de recherche et d’études stratégiques de Khyber, France
Fazal-ur REHMAN AFRIDI, President
International Christian Concern
Matias Perttula, Director of Advocacy
International Freedom Center
Isa Azzouz, Chairman
International Organization to Preserve Human Rights
Hamid Gharagozloo, U.S. Representative
Jubilee Campaign
Ann Buwalda, Executive Director
Katartismos Global (KGI Global)
Faith Joy Hooper McDonnell, Director of Advocacy
LAW AND LIBERTY TRUST
Lauren B. Homer, Presiden
Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice
Katrina Lantos Swett, President
Muslim Women Speakers
Soraya M. Deen, Founder/President
New Wineskins Missionary Network
Jennifer Noyes, Executive Director
Prayer Pioneers
Lareina Kiser, Communications Director
Revealing Light Ministries
George Parker, Exec. Director
Rumi Forum
Ibrahim Anli, Executive Director
Save the Persecuted Christians
Dede Laugesen, Executive Director
Set My People Free
Hulda Fahmi, International Director
Shai Fund
Charmaine Hedding, President
South Asian Minorities Alliance Foundation
Puneet Ahluwalia, Executive Director
Syriac National Council
The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church of America
Archbishop Andrew, Archbishop
United Macedonian Diaspora
Meto Koloski, President
Vision Cataylst
Debbie Farah, Founder
WINGS FOR CHANGE AFRICA
Kathy Funk Gomer, President
Individuals with Organization Provided for Identification Purposes Only:
Tatiana Letzky
Alan Halls
Teresa Kelley
Mark Marshall
Lay Reader
Reformed Episcopal Church
Quang Pham
Representative
Association for Advancement of FoRB-VN
David Mikho
GPF Kurdistan
Emily Klein
Jais Munoz
Farahnaz Ispahani
Former Pakistani parliamentarian
Religious Freedom Instotute
Bishop Dan Herzog
Rev. Susan Taylor
Church of Scientology National Affairs Office
Sydney Kochan
Special Projects Coordinator
Jubilee Campaign
Susan Astin
Bassam Ishak
DOGAN BERMEK
President
ALEVI PHILOSOPHY CENTER
Dede Laugesen, Executive Director
Set My People Free
Hulda Fahmi, International Director
Shai Fund
Charmaine Hedding, President
South Asian Minorities Alliance Foundation
Puneet Ahluwalia, Executive Director
Syriac National Council
The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church of Americs
Archbishop Andrew, Archbishop
United Macedonian Diaspora
Meto Koloski, President
Vision Cataylst
Debbie Farah, Founder
WINGS FOR CHANGE AFRICA
Kathy Funk Gomer, President
References:
1.
Read the Full Transcript of President Biden’s Remarks on Afghanistan
2.
Taliban going door-to-door searching for Christians, inspecting phones for Bible apps; https://religionunplugged.com/news/2021/8/20/afghani-christians-are-facing-a-taliban-reign-of-terrornbsp
3.
Images of bloodied Afghans contradict Taliban's claims of moderation
4.
The imminent danger for Afghanistan's women and minorities
5.
Final Communique of Meeting on Afghanistan. https://www.oic-oci.org/topic/?t_id=29375&t_ref=18482&lan=en
6.
Return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: The Jihadist State of Play; Congressional Research Service Report,
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10604.pdf; The Taliban Are Back. Now Will They Restrain or Support Al Qaeda?
7.
https://www.ippforb.com/
8.
International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance - United States Department of State
* *:* * * * END EXCERPT * * * * *
/
Please note that this letter was organized by the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, which was founded and is co-chaired by Scientologist and Scientology lobbyist Greg Mitchell.
From the Exit With Honor website:
IRF Roundtable | Exit Afghanistan with Honor/
* *:* * * * BEGIN EXCERPT * * * * *
August 21, 2021
The Honorable Joseph Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Re: Emergency Protection and Evacuation of Afghan Religious Minorities/Sanctioning Taliban for Religious Freedom Abuses
Dear President Biden:
We are an informal participant-led, multi-religious group that advocates for international religious freedom. Despite our extremely broad diversity of theological views and political positions, we are united in our horror at the unfolding events in Afghanistan following the abrupt US troop withdrawal and the swift Taliban takeover. It is clear that most Afghans do not want a Taliban dominated government and are experiencing deep fear and anxiety at what the future holds. Videos of women handing babies and small children to soldiers over barbed wire vividly illustrate the panic sweeping the nation.
We request specific steps to assist non-governmental organizations in the evacuation and safeguarding of vulnerable religious minorities: Shia Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus, Bahais, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, and others. Immediate action is imperative to fulfill the pledge made in your August 16, 2021 speech that: “human rights must be the center of our foreign policy, not the periphery”1 and the many pledges of your Administration, including Secretary of State Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power at last month’s 2021 IRF Summit, confirming its commitment to international religious freedom. We also believe that current Taliban actions warrant reimposition of US sanctions and freezing of funds and future assistance to a Taliban run Afghan government until they cease violating the rights of religious minorities.
We collectively have assembled numerous reports of horrific mistreatment of religious minorities by Taliban militants now roaming freely throughout Afghanistan. Christians and others seeking refuge at Kabul Airport have been murdered, whipped, had their ID documents seized, and their cell phones destroyed. They are being identified via government records and hunted down in door-to-door searches.2 They are receiving officially stamped “threat letters” warning that they have been identified for arrest or worse. Property is being stolen. Women are being seized, raped (“married” in the eyes of Taliban thugs), or killed, and men are being summarily executed or tortured.3 Shia celebrating Ashura have seen their banners torn down, a harbinger of worse to come.4
The Taliban seeks to impose a hegemonic and absolutistic interpretation of Islam in which religious minorities and non-compliant majority group members, must be subjugated or eliminated. The Organization for Islamic Cooperation has called on the Taliban to adhere to “international governing norms enshrined in the UN Charter and resolutions” and to follow “tolerant Islamic principles and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” which includes the right to freedom of religion and belief.5 In contrast, we realistically expect a swift reversion to Taliban policies of the 1990’s when religious minorities and dissenters were jailed, forced to convert, publicly whipped or executed, forced to pay tribute and use distinctive colors on their clothes and homes.
We also believe that the victory of the Taliban creates a world-wide threat to all religious groups that do not share its radical views—as well as a substantial threat to the national security of the United States and our allies. Taliban rule in Afghanistan will likely have swift negative consequences for our efforts to bring religious freedom, peace and stability to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Africa, and other flashpoints. Taliban promises not to harbor or support external terror organizations in its February 29, 2020 agreement with the United States are laughable in light of its own actions (and multi-national forces) and the many credible reports that Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other terror groups are already training and staging attacks from inside Taliban held areas.6
US based NGO’s and others are amassing funds and capabilities to evacuate religious minorities and women to safe havens even as your Administration and our allies are working to repatriate our citizens and those who worked directly for us. Various countries are committed to taking some of these evacuees and the US should do so as well. Yet we are seeing those we seek to save lose their lives trying to get to the airport in Kabul, being too afraid or unable to get there, and facing huge risks in traveling overland to sanctuary nations. Even US and other foreign citizens are now unable to safely access Kabul Airport.
We ask that your Administration take immediate action to:
1. Create a special emergency coordination office for NGO Afghanistan evacuations inside the Pentagon or the State Department tasked with interacting with NGOs seeking to evacuate religious minorities. It should facilitate their communications with countries accepting religious minority Afghan refugees. It should help coordinate flights, documentation, resettlement, and secure escape routes.
2. Create evacuation corridors and refugee assembly points outside Kabul’s airport (including in other regions) and continue evacuations for as long as necessary to get these people out. We envision refuges where religious minorities can go, be protected, be processed, and be transported by air or other exit means in an orderly fashion. This can happen unilaterally or through agreement with the Taliban, which publicly promised to let all those who wish to leave the country go.
3. Establish special visa quotas and priorities for Afghan religious minorities and work with existing refugee assistance organizations that are standing by ready to provide assistance as they arrive in the US and other countries.
4 Work with IRF focused groups to coordinate monitoring and actions by the US, our allies, and international organizations on religious minority rights in Afghanistan, including our IRF Roundtable, our partner Roundtables worldwide, International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religions or Belief, (IPPFoRB), and the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. We want to see strong public statements demanding an end to Taliban oppression of religious minorities and warnings that we will hold them to account, using targeted sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act, existing Afghanistan sanctions regimes and war crimes prosecutions.
5. Freeze all economic and other assistance to the Taliban and recognition of it as controlling the Afghan government, until it demonstrates through actions, not words, that it is complying with universal standards on religious freedom, human rights, and the rights of women and children as codified in the numerous UN conventions and agreements that the government of Afghanistan has signed. We do not suggest that direct humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan be curtailed, but that Taliban not be enabled.
We thank you in advance for your attention to our requests and stand ready to meet with Administration officials to facilitate this effort. #ExitWithHonor
Respectfully,
Organization Signatures:
ALEVI PHILOSOPHY CENTER ASSOCIATION (ADO)
NEZIH DOGAN BERMEK, President
Anglican Persecuted Church Network
Patricia Streeter, Co-Leader
Barrister
Paul Diamond, barrister
Bethany Christian Services
Nathan Bult, Senior Vice President of Public and Government Affairs
Boat People SOS (BPSOS)
Nguyen Dinh Thang, PhD, CEO & Presdient
Bruderhof
Johann Huleatt, Outreach Director
Christian Freedom International
Wendy Wright, President
Church of Scientology National Affairs Office
Susan Taylor
Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience
Thierry Valle, President
Free Yezidi Foundation
Pari, Ibrahim
Healing For The Nations
Brian Wills, President
Hindus for Human Rights
Nikhil Mandalaparthy, Director of Advocacy
Human Right Congress for Bangladesh Minorities(HRCBM)
Preo Biswas, Executive Director
Institut de recherche et d’études stratégiques de Khyber, France
Fazal-ur REHMAN AFRIDI, President
International Christian Concern
Matias Perttula, Director of Advocacy
International Freedom Center
Isa Azzouz, Chairman
International Organization to Preserve Human Rights
Hamid Gharagozloo, U.S. Representative
Jubilee Campaign
Ann Buwalda, Executive Director
Katartismos Global (KGI Global)
Faith Joy Hooper McDonnell, Director of Advocacy
LAW AND LIBERTY TRUST
Lauren B. Homer, Presiden
Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice
Katrina Lantos Swett, President
Muslim Women Speakers
Soraya M. Deen, Founder/President
New Wineskins Missionary Network
Jennifer Noyes, Executive Director
Prayer Pioneers
Lareina Kiser, Communications Director
Revealing Light Ministries
George Parker, Exec. Director
Rumi Forum
Ibrahim Anli, Executive Director
Save the Persecuted Christians
Dede Laugesen, Executive Director
Set My People Free
Hulda Fahmi, International Director
Shai Fund
Charmaine Hedding, President
South Asian Minorities Alliance Foundation
Puneet Ahluwalia, Executive Director
Syriac National Council
The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church of America
Archbishop Andrew, Archbishop
United Macedonian Diaspora
Meto Koloski, President
Vision Cataylst
Debbie Farah, Founder
WINGS FOR CHANGE AFRICA
Kathy Funk Gomer, President
Individuals with Organization Provided for Identification Purposes Only:
Tatiana Letzky
Alan Halls
Teresa Kelley
Mark Marshall
Lay Reader
Reformed Episcopal Church
Quang Pham
Representative
Association for Advancement of FoRB-VN
David Mikho
GPF Kurdistan
Emily Klein
Jais Munoz
Farahnaz Ispahani
Former Pakistani parliamentarian
Religious Freedom Instotute
Bishop Dan Herzog
Rev. Susan Taylor
Church of Scientology National Affairs Office
Sydney Kochan
Special Projects Coordinator
Jubilee Campaign
Susan Astin
Bassam Ishak
DOGAN BERMEK
President
ALEVI PHILOSOPHY CENTER
Dede Laugesen, Executive Director
Set My People Free
Hulda Fahmi, International Director
Shai Fund
Charmaine Hedding, President
South Asian Minorities Alliance Foundation
Puneet Ahluwalia, Executive Director
Syriac National Council
The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church of Americs
Archbishop Andrew, Archbishop
United Macedonian Diaspora
Meto Koloski, President
Vision Cataylst
Debbie Farah, Founder
WINGS FOR CHANGE AFRICA
Kathy Funk Gomer, President
References:
1.
Read the Full Transcript of President Biden’s Remarks on Afghanistan
2.
Taliban going door-to-door searching for Christians, inspecting phones for Bible apps; https://religionunplugged.com/news/2021/8/20/afghani-christians-are-facing-a-taliban-reign-of-terrornbsp
3.
Images of bloodied Afghans contradict Taliban's claims of moderation
4.
The imminent danger for Afghanistan's women and minorities
5.
Final Communique of Meeting on Afghanistan. https://www.oic-oci.org/topic/?t_id=29375&t_ref=18482&lan=en
6.
Return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: The Jihadist State of Play; Congressional Research Service Report,
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10604.pdf; The Taliban Are Back. Now Will They Restrain or Support Al Qaeda?
7.
https://www.ippforb.com/
8.
International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance - United States Department of State
* *:* * * * END EXCERPT * * * * *
/
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