We are deeply concerned by the lack of religious freedoms around the world and the real challenges that many religious minorities have. For example, in northern Africa, the situation among Coptic Christians in Egypt—before the revolution and after—causes us very deep concern. When Roman Catholic priests in China are forced to go underground, that causes us real concern. When the ecumenical patriarch has real challenges in Turkey, that causes us real concern. When the Baha'i community in Iran—which has an abysmal and regrettably deteriorating human rights record—is persecuted, that causes us concern.
So what we wanted to do was to establish an office of religious freedom—we have not done that yet, but we will be speaking to that in very short order—that will serve as a diplomatic tool to shine light on the importance of this challenge. We're very committed to it, and we look forward to speaking to that more in the not-too-distant future.
We have, over the course of the past year, put a significant focus on religious freedoms. We fought hard to get reference to it at the G-8 communiqué. Even on my recent trip to Kuwait, where we met the G-8 and North African and Middle Eastern foreign ministers, we got a statement of religious freedom there. It's a fundamental freedom, which we feel very strongly about.