The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) offers guidelines on the issues of registration and recognition of religious or belief communities. Published on February 4, 2015, these guidelines were created to help ensure that those involved in drafting and applying legislation in the area of the freedom of religion or belief, including[…]
Today, October 27, is International Religious Freedom Day. This year it commemorates the 17th anniversary of the enactment of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA). The International Religious Freedom Act was passed by an overwhelmingly bipartisan initiative in the U.S. Congress to promote religious freedom as a foreign policy of the United States, and to[…]
October 26, 2016. In his article entitled “Defending Freedom of Religion and Belief as a Matter of Principle,” Dominic Zoehrer summarizes the FOREF presentation at the OSCE gathering in Warsaw. One topic of concern to human rights watchdogs is the infiltration of “GONGOs”—government-organized non-governmental organizations. Mr. Zoehrer writes that these “NGOs that are fully financed[…]
Government-sponsored anti-religious hate groups were spotlighted at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw in September 2016. London-based attorney Alessandro Amicarelli, spokesperson for the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB), warned delegates of the activities of FECRIS—the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Cults[…]