On April 6th nearly 100 million people in India voted to elect 475 assembly seats across four states and one Union territory: Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Counting of assembly elections will take place May 2nd. The campaigns leading up to the election have been contentious with a focus on faith and religion issues, along with development …

David Eubanks of Free Burma Rangers shares this disturbing story. We walked into a small jungle clearing to see children sitting under the trees reading their lessons. They were intensively focused on their books and learning their subjects. One little boy was reading an English lesson and one girl looked up from her reading and gave us a big smile. …

Yazidis have a long history of religious persecution. The most recent horrors happened in August of 2014 when the Islamic State (ISIS) began an organized campaign against them that involved ethnic cleansing in the form of mass executions, enslavement, forced conversions and recruitment of child soldiers, and sexual violence. These crimes resulted in the massacre of thousands of Yazidis and the …

The United States of America has led the world in holding the perpetrators of the most heinous human rights abuses accountable. From the Nuremberg Trials, to the creation of the Genocide Convention in 1948, to the declaration of ISIS’s recent genocide against the Yazidis, Christians, and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, Americans have given voice to those who …

2020 is a year we will not soon, if ever, forget. Each of us has felt the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic, but none more than the world’s religious minorities. Pew Research reports that 80 percent of the global population lives in nations that restrict religious freedom. Those restrictions have been amplified and persecution intensified during the pandemic. Ambassador-at-Large for …

Due to COVID-19, many of us have had to stay away from church, unable to gather normally as the body of Christ as a dangerous virus threatened the lives of many. This has been strange for us, and yet, it is too often the daily life for fellow Christians around the world. Even after the danger of the pandemic passes, …

Internet freedom is the next frontier of human rights. Free expression on the internet is under assault. Although technology and information have spread across the globe, there is a dangerous trend of governments limiting internet access. In 2019 Freedom House published a report documenting that law enforcement in 47 countries arrested people for posting political, social or religious speech online. …

In Xinjiang, authorities have detained more than 1 million Uyghurs in detention camps. It is the largest mass internment of an ethnic-religious minority group since World War II. A new report issued by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute states that between 2017 and 2019, more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred from the Xinjiang autonomous region to work in factories across …

There are continuing acts of intolerance and violence based on religion or belief against individuals, including against persons belonging to religious communities and religious minorities around the world, and the number and intensity of such incidents, which are often of a criminal nature and may have international characteristics, are increasing. That is why the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution A/RES/73/296, …

The third annual Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Award celebrates an outstanding leader who is working to advance freedom of religion or belief by standing up to oppression in the pursuit of freedom of religion, belief, or conscience. 21Wilberforce Founder and President, Randel Everett, announced that the award will be presented to Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. Ambassador …