Activities

Dear Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha:

We represent NGOs and academic research centers specialized in the defense of freedom of religion and belief. We write to you as we are aware of your distinguished career at the United Nations, and appreciate your attention to human rights. We have followed with great concern the problems in South Korea of a new religious movement known as Shincheonji. Some of us have studied Shincheonji for years, and some have produced academic studies about it.

Report to the United Nations General Assembly on Eliminating Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief and the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16)

Dear General Rapporteur:
We are NGOs specialized in defending religious liberty, and scholarly organizations promoting research on new religious movements. We are concerned about discrimination against a Christian new religious movement known as Shincheonji in South Korea (on Shincheonji, see Introvigne 2019, Introvigne 2020).

The Honorable Donald J. Trump
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Trump,
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, are writing to applaud your appointment of the Special Adviser to the President on International Religious Freedom within the National Security Council, and to respectfully request your attention to the situation of religious minorities in Vietnam.

Our federated CAP LC organised an event to be held on March 4, 2020, as a sideline of the Human Rights Council, a conference on Human Rights in the People’s Republic of China. On March 3, the HRC Secretariat announced that all side-events were canceled due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Despite the cancellation, conference speakers met at the United Nations to make their voices heard on human rights concerns in the People’s Republic of China.

"We are scholars, human rights activists, reporters. and lawyers, all with a substantial experience in the field of new religious movements (derogatorily called “cults” by their opponents). Some of us have studied the Korean Christian new religious movement known as Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (in short, Shincheonji).

In 2019, while no one knew the Shincheonji Church outside of South Korea, Massimo Introvigne, Willy Fautré and Rosita Soryté were studying the Shincheonji Church in Seoul, meeting and interviewing the leader as well as members of that movement.

To:
H.E. Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights
H.E. Ambassador Sam Brownback, US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom

Dear President Bachelet:
Dear Ambassador Brownback:

We represent international NGOs specialized in the defense of religious liberty. We are deeply concerned with a growing number of instances of intolerance and discrimination against Shincheonji, a South Korean new religious movement, after a number of its members were diagnosed with COVID-19.

As representatives of NGOs, religious organizations, and citizens concerned about freedom of religion and belief and the dignity of every human being, we call the attention of the political authorities on the dramatic situation of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in China. The CAG is a Chinese Christian religious movement, credited by the Chinese authorities with four million members in China. Since its establishment in 1991, it has been systematically persecuted. Irrespective of its theology, we believe that the CAG, as any other religion, has the right to freely profess its faith.

On the 15^th of November 2019 the All Faith Network, UK based Interfaith organisation that is an associate member of our Federation, organised the annual Interfaith Week event.

As stated on the event poster the initiative "celebrates the richness and variety of different religions", and also "underlines the commonality of basic values that all religions hold".

The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting 2019 organised by the OSCE ODIHR was hosted this year at Warsaw National Stadium from 16 to 27 September 2019.

The HDIM is an annual event gathering representatives of the OSCE 57 participating States and of a number of NGOs registered with the OSCE discussing relevant human rights topics.

During the last OSCE sessions on Freedom of Religion or Belief, we exposed the harmful activities of FECRIS (the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Cults and Sects) in Russia and its integral financing by the French Government. Members of FECRIS and of its Russian branch, the Saint Ireneus of Lyons Centre for Religious Studies which is affiliated to the Orthodox Church, have been waging for years a campaign against non-Orthodox minorities in order to eradicate them from the Russian territory.

Our organisation, the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB) has been attending the Human Dimension Implementation Meetings for the last 5 years, and we are thankful to the OSCE for the space given to the civil society. As a secular entity, member of the International Religious Freedom Movement, we constantly cooperate with other like-minded organisations, both secular and faith based ones, and regularly carry out a constructive dialogue with the public bodies and representatives in different countries.

In this page you can find documents and videos about the activities of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB) and the associated NGOs, concerning freedom of religion and belief and human rights issues, at the Europe’s largest annual human rights conference. It was organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), in Warsaw, from 16 to 27 September 2019.

For the second consecutive year the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom was held in Washington DC, USA, 15-19 July 2019.

The Ministerial wanted and hosted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gathered governments representatives and experts from across the world.

A Letter of the European Freedom of Religion or Belief Roundtable in Support of the Asylum Seekers of The Church of Almighty God

To all members of the EU ParliamentA tutti i deputati del Parlamento Europeo

To all EU States Ambassadors to the EU

The situation of religious minorities in Russia has been a cause of serious concerns for several years. While Russia hosts high-level academic institutes and tolerant intellectuals, it is also home to radicals who believe that the Russian Orthodox tradition should be defended by cracking down on minority religions.

한국의 강제 개종을 근절해야 합니다 : 문재인 대통령에게 보내는 공개서한

Dear President Moon:
문재인 대통령님

We represent international NGOs and scholarly organizations specialized in researching religious pluralism and new religious movements throughout the world, and advocating for religious liberty.

우리는 종교 다원주의와 세계의 새로운 종교 운동을 연구하고 종교 자유를 옹호하는 국제 민간단체와 학술 단체를 대표합니다.

Ten NGOs write to the new president of Kazakhstan demanding freedom and protection for a woman who escaped from China and the activist who defended her.

His Excellency
The Hon. Mr Kassym-Jomart Tokayev
President of the Republic of Kazakhstan

The prominent scholar and expert of religious movements Massimo Introvigne reported in this article the Chinese reactions to the heavy criticisms expressed in the annual report on Human Rights of the US State Department. It is at least paradoxical that the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party reacted by accusing the US of violating human rights. It is not that the United States on the issue of human rights are exempted from criticisms, at least, for example, with regard to the death penalty, which has been definitively abolished only in 19 out of 50 the States but the comparison to China does not hold up.