Religious Freedom Annual Review 2020: Reports on the Sessions


Jane Wise, an Associate Director of the International Center of Law and Religion Studies, has provided summaries of the three sessions of the 2020 Religious Freedom Annual Review.

Opening Session 1, Wednesday 17 June 2020 

“I am a person of faith. I fundamentally view the world with a lens that accounts for mercy and love and compassion, and I view power in that lens as well,” said Dr. Alaa Murabit at the beginning of her address, and I started to love her.

Dr. Alaa Murabit, physician, new mother (“I’m not getting enough sleep” she smiled), Canadian, Muslim, UN High Level Commissioner, and one of seventeen eminent world figures appointed by the UN Secretary-General to advocate and mobilize action on the Sustainable Development Goals was the first speaker of three sessions for the 2020 Religious Freedom Annual Review. (more…)

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Racial Justice Requires Religious Freedom


This guest post by Brian J. Grim, Ph.D., President of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, is gratefully reprinted, with permission (Original here).  Brian is a leading expert on how faith and business build a better world.  

Shock, outrage and calls justice over the heartless murder of George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer continue to grow across America and the world. Communities of faith are at the forefront of the growing movement to address racial prejudice. It is cutting across party lines, as was seen when Republican Senator Mitt Romney joined a march this weekend organized by Christian churches in the Washington area, carrying signs that based their call for racial equality in the Bible.

Photo: Washington, DC, USA – June 5 2020: Street sign at the newly designated Black Lives Matter Plaza, with the steeple of St. John’s Episcopal Church in the background

And as Reuters reports, it is cutting across faith lines too. Conservative and mainstream religious leaders are joining with Black churches, progressive Catholics and Protestants, Jewish synagogues and other faith groups in calling for police reforms and efforts to dismantle racism. (more…)

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The Rule of Law and the Place of Religion: Lessons from the Pandemic

Andrea Pin is Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law, University of Padua, and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law & Religion Emory University

This post is part of an ongoing Series about Religion and the Rule of Law.

The 2020 pandemic has been a challenge for the rule of law as well as for religions. Perhaps even more importantly and sadly, it has made them clash with each other.

During the pandemic, many states have seen religion as a threat. These states have behaved accordingly, limiting or even preventing many religious practices in ways that go beyond just affecting human rights to even, some might say, overstepping the boundaries between church and state. For example, the Italian Government temporarily permitted temple visits but prohibited religious celebrations, including liturgies such as the Eucharist for Catholics. In other words, it did not simply recommend that religions respect social distancing—it told them and their believers what they could or could not do. This comes at a price—for religions and states alike. (more…)

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