Executive Director of Jubilee Campaign USA, Ann Buwalda has been officially invited to testify at an open hearing entitled “A Global Crisis: Refugees, Migrant and Asylum Seekers.” The testimony will be rendered before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.
Ann Buwalda’s testimony will highlight the endemic nature of persecution against Christians in Pakistan, Eritrea, and Yemen considering the significant and particular challenges faced by Pakistani Christians and other minorities seeking refugee status in Thailand. The testimony will consider the difficult and challenging living conditions experienced by displaced minorities. It will further address the alarming high burden of proof placed on Christian refugee applicants and the increasing need of resettlement for religiously persecuted persons. “The purpose of the hearing is to review and understand the current international policies governing protection for displaced persons as well as to get a better understanding of practices, and lessons learned.” We encourage you to listen to this relevant and timely testimony.
Members Urge Secretary of State to Respect Congressional Intent and Maintain Support for Crucial Human-Rights Monitoring Mechanism
Washington—Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs; Representative Albio Sires, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere; Senator Bob Menendez, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; and Senator Ben Cardin, Ranking Member of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, today called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to maintain robust funding for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In a letter to the Secretary, the members expressed their concern about the potential consequences of defunding the Commission. The letter is a response to reports that the Trump Administration is considering ignoring congressional intent and cutting U.S. funding for the Commission.
“Cutting or eliminating funding for the Commission at this crucial moment would derail its crucial human rights monitoring processes in countries like Nicaragua and Venezuela,” wrote the lawmakers. “The United States cannot take a back seat when it comes to human rights violations in our own neighborhood.”
Full text of the letter follows and can be found here.
Dear Secretary Pompeo:
We write to urge you to respect congressional intent and maintain strong U.S. funding for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as it carries out its mission to defend democracy, human rights and the rule of law throughout the Western Hemisphere. With human rights crises in Nicaragua and Venezuela, anti-corruption setbacks in Guatemala and additional challenges throughout the Americas, the United States must be able to continue to call on the Commission to hold bad actors accountable and promote our core values.
Cutting or eliminating funding for the Commission at this crucial moment would derail its crucial human rights monitoring processes in countries like Nicaragua and Venezuela. Following the violence that broke out in
