As religious freedom deteriorates around the world, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has brought together a broad range of advocacy organizations and public leaders to consider ways to drive the issue higher on the public agenda.
The 2016 International Religious Liberty Summit, held at the Newseum’s Religious Freedom Center in downtown Washington, focused on what has become a key concern for religious freedom advocates — the relatively scarce media and political attention given to rising rates of religious discrimination and persecution.
The Pew Research Center estimates that some 5 billion people globally face significant religious restrictions, and one in three people live in places where religious freedom is severely restricted.
“There are cries of the persecuted that we are refusing to hear,” said former U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf, one of the keynote speakers at the conference.
Wolf, a leading supporter of religious freedom legislation during his 36 years in Congress, now works closely with the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, an organization that raises awareness of religious freedom violations around the world.
