Think about that just
mentally, that you're taking
and persecuting this
individual. You're going to
kill them and then harvest
their organs to sell them.
This is just horrific [what's]
taking place.
The Chinese Communist Party
touts itself as a global
leader. And it is a leader:
it's leading the world in
religious persecution, says
Sam Brownback, the U.S.
Ambassador-at-Large for
International Religious
Freedom. From forced organ
harvesting from Falun Gong
practitioners to forced
sterilization of Uyghurs, the
Chinese regime has waged a
"war with faith," and it's
exporting its repressive model
abroad to the detriment of
freedoms across the globe.
"But authoritarianism
ultimately can't defeat fate,"
Brownback says, "in China or
anywhere." This is American
Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan
Jekielek.
Ambassador Sam Brownback, such
a pleasure to have you on
American Thought Leaders.
Happy to join you. I wish it
was in-person interview, but
this will have to do.
You had an article that you
wrote recently which was,
"Humanity Will Win The Battle
For Religious Freedom."
Frankly, a lot of people, not
just in the U.S. but in
Canada, my home country, and
elsewhere, are not so sure
about this right now,
especially in China which
we'll talk about. Tell me what
you're thinking here.
It is in the innate nature of
the human being to have
dignified freedom. I just
don't think any government
over an extended period of
time can win this fight of
tying people down from their
freedom. Now, if that weren't
in the nature of the human
species, if that weren't in
our soul, in our heart, you
can look at these times right
now and say, "We're just
headed downhill." But it's
within us, it's within our
creative DNA that we want
freedom.
We want to be free, and there
is just no government that
over an extended period of
time can suppress that. What
we've seen taking place
recently, certainly within the
last couple of decades, is
really government's confining
these human rights and the
human dignity, particularly on
religious freedom. But I think
you're starting to see that
breaking out now, too. I think
you're seeing changes
happening really even before
our very eyes that are opening
up religious freedom around
the world.
I also wanted to ask you: you
were actually instrumental, I
think, just over 20 years ago
in some pretty landmark
legislation related to
international religious
freedom, and you've been
following that up all along.
Where does this passion for
freedom of conscience, freedom
of speech, freedom of
religion, for you, come from?
In my own personal search, my
faith is incredibly important
to me. And then early on, when
I was in the U.S. Senate, I
had a staff member that had
worked in this field and
started to tell me about
people that were imprisoned
around the world simply
because they wanted to
practice a different faith
than the dominant beliefs in
that country, and it just
rubbed against me.
And that may be [because of]
my background in Kansas. My
mother grew up on the property
where John Brown would stay
when he was [part of] Bleeding
Kansas and we had the slavery
situation, and so anything
that smacks of slavery to me,
it just rubs against me. And I
carried the original human
trafficking bill. Don Nickles
carried the original religious
freedom bill, but I was a main
supporter of it, and these
have always been a deeply
passionate piece of mine.
I love the days whenever we
get somebody out of prison
somewhere around the world,
that's in prison simply
because they want to practice
their faith, and we can help
get them out and get them
free. Those are just great
happy days.
Let's talk about communist
China. This is actually a
little bit of my background. I
came in from the Human Rights
around China thing. That's why
I ended up working with The
Epoch Times in the first place
as this is an issue that's
particularly important to me.
You describe what's happening
in China as a war on faith.
That's pretty strong words,
and I wanted you to basically
have the opportunity to
extrapolate on that a little
bit.
It is. And they are after all
faiths. I gave that speech in
Hong Kong a year and a half
ago declaring that China was
at war with faith. It is a war
they will not win. It's a war
that the kingdom of man has
tried to win for millennia,
and they're not going to win
this one and they haven't won
it in the past.
And I think you can just look
at all the evidence. You can
look at what China did to the
Tibetan Buddhists and still
[does]: the persecution,
keeping the Dalai Lama out of
the country, and now even
declaring that they get to
appoint the next Dalai
Lama—the Chinese Communist
Party. You can look at
Xinjiang which is probably the
most egregious religious
persecution taking place in
the world today. Million
Muslim Uyghurs in
concentration camps.
And then if you get out of
those, you're in this police
state of a virtual prison by
all the cameras, the facial
recognition systems, and the
limitations on you, the
destruction of the house
church, the desire to control
the Catholic Church, the
persecution of Falun Gong, the
credible reporting now of
taking place of organ
harvesting, and then top it
all off with Hong Kong that's
supposed to be "One country,
two systems" being merged into
"one system, one country," and
the system is what Beijing is
saying.
This is just across the board.
It's everywhere. It has gone
more nationalistic. Instead,
it used to be more at a
provincial level and it's gone
harsher under Xi Jinping. His
main implementer is Chen
Quanguo. He's the party chair
over Xinjiang. He put down the
Buddhists; he's putting down
the Muslims now. And the
United States recently
sanctioned him with the Global
Magnitsky sanctions.
Speaking of sanctions,
recently, a number of Xinjiang
officials were sanctioned by
the U.S. But what I noted in
particular was the sanctioning
of XPCC, Xinjiang Production
and Construction Corps. This
is a massive, massive
paramilitary operation company
in Xinjiang responsible for a
significant portion of its
economy. Some people are
describing these as some of
the first real kind of biting
sanctions on the issue of
religious freedom. I wanted
you to have the opportunity to
comment on that a little bit.
You're seeing the Trump
administration go hammer and
tongs at these human rights
abuses and particularly
religious freedom abuses that
are taking place in western
China. We are going at the
companies that are then used
in the forced labor, that is
being forced by the Chinese
Communist Party. We are going
at the entities that their
technology is being used to
observe and to oppress people.
We really see the future of
oppression being fewer people
in concentration camps and
more people controlled in a
society with 24-hour
surveillance systems on people
and limiting what they can do
in that society. So we're
going at those technology
companies, we're going at the
production companies, we're
going at the individual, and
we are serious about this,
that this is wrong what China
is doing.
They seek to be a global
leader and yet they're leading
the world in persecution—the
global leadership is in
persecution. That's not the
kind of leadership that the
world wants, and the world
needs to see this. We're
putting a big light on it.
Recently, there have been
reports of basically the
Chinese Communist Party
mandating that hospitals in
Xinjiang either abort or even
kill, after birth, Uyghur
babies. I find it even
difficult to talk about this,
frankly. What do you make of
these reports?
I make that they're credible.
I make that they're credible
reports, and they're in the
numbers. We certainly see that
in the numbers of Uyghur
children being born dropping
precipitously. We have
eyewitness accounts of people
that have gotten out and have
testified now regarding this,
and that this is at the
horrific level.
Again, here's China that's
holding itself up, that the
Communist Party is a global
leader, and doing this to an
ethnic group of their own
people. I think this is
completely unconscionable and
it's taking place today.
For years, the world kind of
turned a blind eye to what the
Falun Gong was saying about
organ harvesting. People were
saying, "Well, I'm not sure
this is credible," and yes,
you would see it, you'd look
at it. It was in the numbers.
The circumstantial evidence
was there. Now you've had two
credible institutions outside
of China saying that this
organ harvesting is taking
place.
And think about that just
mentally, that you're taking
and persecuting this
individual. You're going to
kill them, and then harvest
their organs to sell them.
This is just horrific [what's]
taking place.
And I just don't think the
world can now sit back and
say, "Well, we're just not
sure if this is happening."
This sounds like what we've
done in past with genocide,
crimes against humanity,
ethnic purges, whatever
category that you want to
start calling these things,
where we just want to say, "I
don't really want to confront
the factual setting here. I'd
rather just not know." I think
we do know, and I think we
have to act.
These recent reports suggest
to me something on the level
of genocide. In fact, at the
China Tribunal that did the
work on the forced organ
harvesting and established
that it's credible most
recently, they kind of had a
debate in their report, from
what I recall. They said that
because the profit motive's so
big, because they're [the CCP]
making billions of dollars off
this murder for organs,
they're [the China Tribunal]
not quite sure if it's fair to
call it genocide. For that
reason, that just chilled me
to the bones.
It should, all of us. We're
not talking about being in the
1800s or the 1940s. This is
2020 and this is happening.
And it's happening in our
world today. I think it should
be absolutely chilling to
people to think that this is
happening once they hear this.
The other side of this too, I
want to say, if China would
just come forward and open up
their books on their organ
transplant system and show
people everything that's
taking place, be transparent
about it, [we cuold believe
them]. If they're saying it
doesn't happen, they have the
answer in their own hands.
They could answer this
credibly themselves if this is
not happening. They choose not
to and they are not answering
it.
And the same with Xinjiang.
They said these are education
camps. Then open them up, let
people see what's taking
place, and they don't. They'll
take people on tightly
controlled trips, and set up
apparatuses instead of really
open it up, and they ignore
the factual eyewitness
accounts from people that have
come out of these
concentration camps and what
they personally experienced.
Now, Ambassador Brownback, you
made the point earlier that
the world, for quite some
time, was turning a blind eye
to China. The executive
director of the Falun Dafa
Information Center, Levi
Browde, made this observation
recently that the persecution
of Falun Gong has been
happening for 21 years.
Actually, the State Department
marked that in a statement by
Secretary Pompeo, which I'm
sure you also had something to
do with.
But he actually mentioned that
the inaction over 21 years
allowed the CCP to hone these
methods of use of
indoctrination, torture, the
technology development over
decades, now to be applied
onto the house Christians,
onto the Uyghurs, and so
forth. What are your thoughts?
That's been true throughout
history. If you don't stand up
to the bully, they just keep
coming. And too often people
in the past have said, "Well,
that's not my religious group.
Falun Gong is not who I adhere
to. If they pick on them,
that's one thing, but I'm a
Muslim, or I'm a Christian, or
I'm a Buddhist, or religion
doesn't matter to me, so I'm
just not going to pay any
attention to it." And yet
we've seen repeatedly
throughout history, if you
don't stand up to them early,
they just keep coming.
The Communist Party, communism
as a philosophy, has had
trouble with faith from its
very beginning. It's always
persecuted faith. It doesn't
have a space for the believing
in a higher moral authority.
The higher moral authority is
the Communist Party. It's an
officially atheistic system.
They don't abide by an
allegiance to any sort of
other authority and so, they
may come at a smaller group,
but they're going to come
after the next groups, and
they perfect the systems.
I would say that they
perfected in Tibet, what
they're using on the Uyghurs
today in Xinjiang. And it was
the same person Chen Quanguo
that started in Tibet, and
they moved him then to
Xinjiang—gave him more budget,
more police, more technology.
He's got the system in place
now. And then my concern is,
too, they're going to start
marketing and selling these
sort of authoritarian control
systems to other authoritarian
regimes around the world that
want to seek to control their
population through the use of
these advanced technologies.
You mentioned Hong Kong
earlier and so are you seeing
the encroachment on freedom of
belief since the advent of
this national security law in
Hong Kong? And if so, how is
that playing out?
I'm not getting reporting on
it yet. I look for it to
happen soon. Hong Kong, the
people of Hong Kong, have been
very brave and standing up.
They have a guarantee, an
agreement, that they're to
have a "two systems" for a
50-year time period. Their 50
years isn't up, and yet
they're being brought into
this maw of the Communist
Party and being run.
So I anticipate, you're going
to start seeing that
persecution taking place
there. But I haven't had a
series of reports coming in
yet and maybe even this
interview will stir people up
to start sending things in
that they're seeing taking
place now.
We'll definitely make sure it
gets to the right people in
that vein. Ambassador
Brownback, you have initiated
these ministerials on
religious freedom, of which
there have been several. I
wanted you to speak a little
bit on the purpose behind them
and what the impact now has
been, because it's something
that you seem to have found
that has some sort of positive
effect hence it's being
repeated. How is this working?
What is going on with these?
Two things. One is we wanted
to really motivate, and really
urge, and move forward
governments around the world
that are interested in
religious freedom and get them
to make it a bigger piece of
their portfolio, because
there's so much religious
persecution that's taking
place and if we don't get on
top of this issue of religious
persecution, persecution of
religious minorities, you're
going to see a lot more
security problems, a lot more
fighting, a lot more violence
around the world.
So we're really trying to
motivate governments first to
just stand for everybody's
religious freedom, everywhere,
all the time. That's the
standard. And we're seeing
more governments step up and
say, "Yes, this is a key piece
of us moving forward on human
rights writ large."
The second is we want to
really create a grassroots
movement around the world of
religious freedom, that this
is an inherent part of who you
are as a person. And we want
people to be able to practice
their faith freely and to do
that, we need to see people
all over the world stand up
and say, "Look, this is my
right. This is my right as a
human being. It's my right
under UN Charter." My view:
It's your God-given right that
you are given by the Creator,
and that happens to be in our
Constitution in the United
States.
So we really want to do both,
get that grassroots movement
going. We have a series
of religious freedom
roundtables now starting around
the world. We hope more come
where religious adherence of
 all different stripes and of
none at all, atheist as well,
come together to stand for
each other's religious 
freedom. And then we want
governments at the governmental
level to become far
more active in pushing 
religious freedom. And so far, we're
seeing a really swift
uptake in this idea.
Now, I noticed in your article
that I mentioned at the
beginning of the interview,
you actually mentioned that
the freedom to believe and not
to believe, that is actually
ultimately the freedom of
conscience, as I understand
it.
It is. It is, and that's in
the UN Charter, it's in our
Constitution, it's in many
countries' constitutions, but
it's the individual human
being's dignified choice, and
no government has a right to
interfere with that. That
person gets to believe
whatever they choose to
believe as long as they're
peaceful, or not to believe
anything at all.
And a number of people in the
faith community look at this
as God's freedom that He gave
us, to choose whatever we
wanted to choose, and we could
choose Him, we could choose
not. But that was such a key
part of us being dignified
creatures, again, in my
estimation, created in the
image of God. It's that
choice; it's that free will.
Any particular success stories
that you would like to draw
attention to for the Office of
International Religious
To really stand out right now,
one is Sudan—first country in
Freedom?
the world that's repealed
blasphemy laws. And this is a
country that overthrew a
radical Islamist government
that had previously house
 Osama bin Laden, and they'v
repealed it all. They sai
 that you're free to do wha
you choose, and it's jus
 amazing what they've done.
And Uzbekistan in Central Asia
is a country that really has
broken with more of a
heavy-handed police state
past, and said, "No, we want
to be an open free country."
And I predict you're going to
start seeing a lot more open
societies in the Middle East
taking place with the move
that UAE and Israel just did
of coming together on
diplomatic relations. The UAE
is pioneering some of these
fields where they're going in
and saying, "Look, we believe
our faith, we are Sunni
Muslims, but we want to have
an open society where people
are free to practice their
faith without fear of
reprisal."
And you're seeing other
countries in that region
really see that as something
they need to do. They've got
young populations in the area,
that younger people just want
a normal country with normal
freedoms. So I think you're
going to start seeing this as
2.0 of the Arab Spring where
the governments are going to
work with the people more to
let these societies open up
and blossom more.
It was fascinating to see the
news today that the first, i
think, a direct flight from
Israel to Sudan now—the
inaugural flight happened. Not
something I was expecting to
see.
It's really stunning. I've
worked on Sudanese issues for
20 years because the previous
government was just so bad on
persecuting people and now to
see them having flights to
Israel, do away with blasphemy
laws, having an open society.
But they're not the only ones.
I'm hearing a lot of action. A
lot of it's percolating
underneath the surface. But
these countries are saying,
"We've got to listen to where
our people want to go, and
they just want to be free, and
they want to make their own
choices." And that's why I'm
very hopeful.
Aside from communist China,
where are the real pressure
points right now in the world
that your office is focused
on?
Communist China is the big one
because they're really the
biggest enabler of human
rights abuses around the
world, and they walk around
with a lot of money and they
try to bribe a lot of places.
So really, they're in a kind
of a league by their own
because of their status and
stature.
We're also though seeing lots
of difficulties developing in
Nigeria, in northern Nigeria
in particular, where you've
just got a lot of terrorist
groups coming in and wanting
to establish the caliphate in
some of those regions in
northern Nigeria and adjacent
countries. It's a very, very
troubling region of the world
to watch.
Pakistan's been in a lot of
difficulties, and seems like
an acceleration of communal
violence taking place. We're
seeing communal violence
throughout the Indian
subcontinent, really, and in
India as well, not at the
governmental level but more at
the communal level, but a lot
of violence.
That's why we keep pushing
country and saying, "You've
got to stand up for religious
freedom for everybody, all the
time, because otherwise,
within your own country,
you're going to see these
violent explosions taking
place. It's going to be bad
for your society, bad for your
people, bad for your long term
economic growth, bad for the
security of your own people."
You may not agree with
people's theology, this is not
about establishing a common
theology. It is about a common
human right that is
fundamental to the growth of
us as human beings.
Powerful words, Ambassador
Brownback. Any final thoughts
before we finish up?
I hope people will really
engage on this topic on a
personal level, make it
something that they become
educated about, and advocate
to their elected
representatives, to people
that they're around, that they
write about it, because the
human rights projects around
the world have been in decline
for the last 20 to 25 years.
The United States thinks, if
we can start to get some of
these fundamental human rights
like religious freedom, you're
going to see the other human
rights start to flourish
more—the freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly. The other
issues will start to really
flourish more. It's like in
football, you got to get
blocking and tackling right
before you can pass the ball.
This is one of those
foundational ones, and I hope
people will advocate for it
amongst the folks that they're
around. And I hope they'll
pray if they're people of
faith.
Ambassador Brownback, such a
pleasure to have you on.
My pleasure. Thanks for having
me on.
