Bringing Religious Freedom to the Forefront
What if religions engaged one another across their deepest differences?
Uyghur Muslims detained in concentration-camp-like settings in China. Rohingya Muslims displaced from Myanmar. The worsening persecution of Muslims, Christians, Dalits and other minorities in India. Religious-based attacks fueling the enslavement of Nigerian women and girls. Egypt’s Coptic Christians the target of violent attacks. Blasphemy laws in 84 countries that criminalize religious expression. And the list goes on and on.
Religion-related hate crimes on the rise throughout the world.
Roughly 80 percent of people in the world today live in countries with government or social restrictions on religion. People are being harassed in religion-related incidents in 190 countries. And government restrictions on religion are at a peak, according to the Pew Research Center, which has been conducting a global study of the issue annually since 2007.
Has religion become more of a cause than a cure for the world’s woes? Can the troubling trendlines of religious persecution and discrimination be reversed?
