Knox Thames:    Sure.  India is a country that we have been following for sometime but we do not release our chapter on India this year for two reasons.  One is, we’re hoping to go and we’re in communication with the Indian government currently about a trip that would occur in about two and a half weeks and we’re advised that releasing our chapter that will talk a lot about the violence that occurred in Orissa in late 2008 where the Christian community was brutally attacked and people being killed and 50,000 internally displaced persons.  Releasing that chapter now would not help our attempt to get visas and the commissions never been able to go to India and the other consideration was the May 1 due date for our report was in the middle of their month long election cycle where the congress party in power and that did ultimately win the election was in a tight race with the BJP which was an Hindu nationalist party and we were concerned that releasing our chapter in India which would be critical that gets into BJP activities and activities of Hindu nationalist would give them fodder to wave in the faces of voters and we didn’t want to be a player in the Indian election basically.  So we’ve made clear that if we’re not given visas, we will then release our chapter and in the determination we might make about them being on the CPC or watch list but we much rather be invited to come to the country so our commissioners could see first-hand, can visit Orissa, can visit Gujarat where there is several thousand Muslims killed in 2002 and no one has been brought to justice; and then we can see first-hand and engage and dialogues so we have a better understanding of things are and have the respect of the Indian government which we don’t have right now.  So I’m hopeful that it will work out so we can go and then we’ll release a report on India then.

Woman1:    This is my last question.  In regards to diplomacy and to your work and, you know, you’re working for the government and also speaking about religion and the separation of state and religion here in the US, I know but this can be an issue for diplomacy and it is an issue that’s on the table of State Department currently where it’s part of the working group that met recently about this start talking about faith based diplomacy.  Can you talk about your experience as a government employee and talking about religion and how that works?

Knox Thames:    That’s interesting.  The State Department has a reputation of being religion averse, that they don’t want to talk about religion and attention to contrast it with the defense department which has a 2,000 member chaplaincy core.  Our folks out in Afghanistan are like, are rebuilding madrassas, you know, are military which are often our diplomats in very tough places are really engaged in religion are actually diplomats are weary of engaging on it.  For example, the US has never clearly come out and spoken about the headscarf ban in Turkey.  I think because they are afraid of offending the secularist and getting into that complex issue but it is something in our recommendations we think should be done to stay clearly that the women had, she has the right to wear or not wear the scarf and that freedom of choice should be protected and we think the US government should be clearly speaking about that and the United States is a very religious country and with diverse tapestry of faith we are so well-positioned to talk religion with groups in the Muslim world, in Asian world of Buddhist and Hindus to have that commonality to try to achieve our foreign policy goals in a way that’s respectful of what they believe and that it has a common language but folks at Foggy Bottom have…hmmm…they’re not there yet.  And my former employer at the office of international religious freedom, there sort of on the front lines of that when I was there, there was always a tension to try to get religion out front and to try to pull back from a purely secularist’s view which isn’t going to communicate as effectively as if you could talk to the language of faith.  And at the same time we have to be careful because not all Americans are religious and some have no religion at all but I think we can do both in a way that no other country really can, but I feel like we’re sort of trying to engage the world with one hand tied behind her back because we’re not really relying on those resources as best we could…