<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1656622693269,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017a-8cb2-d416-ad7a-beb7278f0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1656622693269,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017a-8cb2-d416-ad7a-beb7278f0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_56605852", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1043888"} }); ","_id":"00000181-b668-d578-a1dd-befe31bf0000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedForeign ambassadors, persecution survivors, government and religious leaders, and a number of civil society organizations gathered this week at the second annual International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C.
The summit, co-chaired by Republican Sam Brownback and Democrat Katrina Lantos Swett, stressed the importance of bipartisan support for religious freedom worldwide. Brownback served as United States ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom under President Donald Trump. Swett, currently president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, was the 2012-2013 and 2014-2015 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom chairwoman.
Remarks were also given via video by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
“If you look around the world, you’ll find America’s allies and adversaries are separated by an important difference: their treatment of religious freedom,” said Pompeo. “In nations where religious freedom is respected and secured, you tend to find governments that are open, democratic, and accountable to their people. In nations where religious freedom is ignored or trampled upon, you find governments that are closed and authoritarian.”
During a panel discussion on national security and religious freedom, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Mary Beth Long said religious intolerance is “almost always coupled with intolerance for basic human rights.”
U.K. House of Lords member David Alton also noted it is a “harbinger of worse things to come” when ignored. He pointed to examples like China, where a crackdown on religious expression has led to forced organ harvesting from religious minorities, reeducation camps, the jailing of Christian pastors such as Wang Yi, and the genocide of Uyghur Muslims.
Religious literacy among policymakers means they often miss the root cause of human rights abuses that have left nearly 70 million people displaced worldwide. When an attack in Nigeria left at least 40 Catholic churchgoers dead at a Pentecost Mass in early June, Irish President Michael D. Higgins attributed the violence to climate change. Alton said these kinds of abuses need to be named for what they are: religious persecution.
Highlighting the crisis, the summit’s Wednesday afternoon panels featured persecution survivors and religious leaders from across the world pleading for recognition of their people’s struggles, along with a keynote address by Rashad Hussain, current U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Hussain said too many governments “remain undeterred” in oppressing their citizens, a point that was amplified as subsequent presenters took the stage.
Speakers from regions facing genocides of religious minorities, such as the Hazaras in Afghanistan, the Assyrian Christians and the Yazidis in Iraq, and the Bahaʼi in Iran, brought awareness to the situation in their homelands.
Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, explained how anti-conversion laws lead to attacks on and the arrest of Indian Christians. His organization tracked around 500 attacks against Christians in 2021, up from 100-200 just a few years ago.
Mariam Ibraheem, a Sudanese Christian, told her story of being imprisoned and sentenced to death on apostasy and adultery charges after refusing to recant her faith. Due to the amount of international attention her case received, she was released in 2014 after giving birth to her daughter in prison. Though apostasy laws have been abolished in Sudan, the country still restricts interfaith marriage.
Civil society organizations also set up booths in the exhibit hall to educate attendees on their work. Organizations represented included summit sponsors BYU International Center for Law and Religious Studies, ADF International, International Religious Freedom Secretariat, the Family Research Council, Open Doors, and Meta. Other organizations, such as the International Christian Council and the Uyghur Human Rights Project, also hosted breakout sessions focused more narrowly on specific issues.
Government restrictions on religion are at their highest since 2007, according to Mary Ann Glendon, a law professor at Harvard. Western countries have not been immune. She noted that restrictions are increasing in less violent ways in countries that pride themselves as “tolerant, open societies.”
In Finland, Parliament member Paivi Rasanen faced hate speech charges in court for a tweet she posted in 2019 containing a Bible verse and questioning her church’s sponsorship of an LGBT event. The state prosecutor claimed Rasanen could believe such things in her mind but could not express her faith in that way publicly.
“I encountered this same line of limited understanding when I was the minister responsible for church affairs and had a discussion with the Chinese minister in charge of religious matters,” Rasanen said. “He said that, in China, you can believe in your mind whatever, but it is necessary to restrict the freedom to express your faith if it increases tensions in the society.”
Many violations of religious freedom are made worse by leaders who lack religious literacy.
In a secular age in which public education “does not equip us to speak religiously,” as David Saperstein, director emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, put it, it’s vital for leaders and international organizations to understand religion. The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights acknowledges that all maintain the right to “replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one’s religion or belief.” Countries that violate this basic freedom must be held accountable.
Education, advocacy, and the partnership of various organizations through events such as the IRF Summit are important steps toward ensuring these freedoms are protected worldwide.
Katelynn Richardson is a Summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
