Boosting religious liberty worldwide could help resolve contentious issues such as the Middle East crisis and the war in Ukraine, prevent genocide and promote democracy, the co-chairs of next week’s International Religious Freedom Summit 2024 say.
Global crises magnify the importance of guaranteeing religious liberty everywhere, said Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice, and Sam Brownback, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.
The two-day International Religious Freedom Summit, which opens Tuesday in Washington will be preceded by a Congressional Advocacy Day. Dozens of Capitol Hill offices will receive event delegates lobbying for increased focus on freedom of religion or belief, Ms. Swett said.
In addition, several panel discussions on religious liberty issues will be held to brief congressional staffers.
Former Vice President Mike Pence and actress/activist Marisol Nichols are two of the 75 speakers expected to address sessions and panel discussions at the summit. Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, and Reps. Young Kim, California Republican, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat, are honorary co-chairs of the event.
Mr. Brownback said the Israel-Hamas war, triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 terror attacks on southern Israel, highlights the need for interfaith tolerance and understanding.
“I think what’s going on in the Middle East really just puts the exclamation point on what we’re doing,” he said. “Here it is again — antisemitism in the rawest fashion showing itself. It’s not dead in the world; it continues. The Jews have often been an initial attack point of people that don’t respect minority religions.”
The American model of government, which has religious liberty at its heart, “is vastly superior to the Chinese Communist Party dictatorial model that sees religious liberty as an existential threat,” he said.
By highlighting “this basic fundamental difference in these two systems that are competing so aggressively in the world together,” the ideal of religious liberty in American democracy “is an ace card for us with the global community,” Mr. Brownback said.
The 2024 summit comes amid rising tensions between China and Taiwan, and the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, as well as in Nicaragua, where the Catholic Church is under attack from the Ortega government.
Embracing religious liberty will “help us reduce, if not eliminate, genocides because 9 out of 10 genocides are [against] a religious minority. … This movement for religious freedom is so central to a number of deep concerns in the world today and foreign policy problems,” Mr. Brownback said.
Ms. Swett, a former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said the summit is “going to have a very significant focus on the appalling and frightening upsurge in antisemitism globally.”
At the same time, organizers are aware that “many of our participants come from the Muslim community, and they have deep and very understandable concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and the tremendous suffering that’s going on there,” she said.
The contrasting perspectives will challenge conference leaders to underscore the importance of standing “in solidarity with one another on behalf of the religious freedom rights of all people,” she said.
Ms. Swett said the summit will feature breakout meetings on violations of religious freedom, the victims of persecution, advocacy and victories in securing religious liberty.
“I’m very impressed with how, how the substance of the summit itself, the actual speakers, and events and panels have come together,” she said. “I think more and more significant players in the broader world of human rights are becoming aware of how central figuring the religious freedom part out [really] is to that broader human rights project.”
This summit will have participation from Freedom House, which says it is “the oldest American organization devoted to the support and defense of democracy around the world,” as well as the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Institute of Peace.
A total of 90 organizations are partners in the event, which includes The Washington Times Foundation and the Universal Peace Federation as sponsors.
Mr. Brownback said another focus of the summit is to expand the movement for religious liberty at the community level.
“This movement has to go grassroots for it to be effective,” he said. “And that is taking place now. We’re seeing many more groups form, doing religious freedom activities.”
“This is the most significant human rights movement on the planet today, for the effort for religious freedom,” he said. “If we can get it moving, it will help the entire human rights project.”
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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