U.S. House International Relations Committee Adopts Resolution
Promoting Property Restitution for Religious Communities in Romania

On Wednesday, May 18, the International Relations Committee of the U.S. House of Representa-tives voted by unanimous consent to refer to the full House H.Res. 191 urging the government of Romania to recognize its responsibilities to provide equitable, prompt, and fair restitution to all religious communities for property confiscated by the former Communist regime. An additional 19 co-sponsors (see below) joined the measure introduced by Congressmen Tom Lantos (D-CA), Ranking Minority Member of the Committee and Tom Tancredo (R-CA) on April 6.

Today's vote is a major step forward in calling attention to this ongoing violation of religious liberties, the sanctity of private property, minority rights and the development of civil society.

In the two days prior to the vote, HHRF engaged in a vigorous campaign to generate support for this issue, which it has monitored for the past 15 years. The Foundation's detailed reports and a database on the status of 2,140 properties confiscated from the four historic Hungarian churches (Roman Catholic, Hungarian Reformed, Lutheran and Unitarian) are available on its homepage at http://www.hhrf.org/restitution.

Now that the measure is headed for a vote by the full House of Representatives, it is up to Hungarian-Americans and individuals everywhere concerned about human rights to mobilize all available resources and Congressional contacts to insure passage of this long-needed Resolution.