Freedom of faith can by no means be taken as a right. It should all the time be defended and taken care of. These had been the phrases of Dan Burton, IAPP Co-Chairman and US Congressman (1983-2013).

The clashes between authoritarian regimes and free societies are endangering individuals’s spiritual freedom and human rights in every single place.

The 2nd Convention of Hope, held in South Korea on December 17, and live-streamed to tens of millions of viewers globally, concluded with a name for individuals worldwide to signal a Declaration in Help of Basic Human Rights and Human Dignity:

Convention of Hope Organizing Chairman Dr. Yun Younger-ho opened the occasion by asking the viewers to keep in mind that human rights “deal with the household, the God-centered household,” in addition to the person.

Overcoming Threats to Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Faith. “We name upon all individuals all through the world to affirm this declaration and to uphold the common freedom of thought, conscience, and faith, and to face firmly towards all types of intolerance, prejudice, slander, and hate towards others,” says the declaration.

“Non secular freedom is “the human proper to suppose and act upon what one deeply believes, in line with the dictates of his or her ethical conscience,” mentioned Bishop Don Meares, Senior Pastor of the Evangel Cathedral in Higher Marlboro, Maryland, US.

“Freedom of faith is freedom of thought and is an important basis of democracy, alongside the freedoms of speech and meeting,” mentioned Amb. Suzan Johnson Cook dinner, Ambassador-at-Massive for Worldwide Non secular Freedom on the US State Division (2011-2013). 

“No nation can exist with out faith or human rights,” mentioned Hon. Nevers Mumba, Vice President of Zambia (2003-2004).

Audio system recounted reviews of persecution of non secular teams—Muslim Uyghurs, Tibetan Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Ahmadis, Bahais, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Yazidis, Rohingyas, Falun Gong, and, extra lately, the Household Federation of World Peace and Unification, previously the Unification Church, in Japan.

Regimes that veer towards totalitarianism see faith “as a harmful competitor” and search to silence or management it, mentioned Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow on the Cato Institute, who makes a speciality of overseas coverage and civil liberty.

He cited a report from Open Doorways (www.opendoorsusa.org), a company that tracks spiritual persecution worldwide, highlighting the oppression carried out by the Chinese language Communist Occasion (CCP), Afghanistan’s Taliban, the North Korean regime, the Myanmar army junta, and governments in Eritrea, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Laos. 

The Chinese language individuals’s protests towards the CCP and its “zero-COVID” insurance policies are the ”most widespread and fervent” the CCP has confronted since 1989, mentioned Hon. Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State (2018-2021).

The world ought to help these protesters as a result of even when the CCP relaxes its COVID insurance policies, it “will proceed to make use of its instruments of oppression to crush spiritual freedom,” he mentioned, citing the continued struggling of tens of millions of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjang and persecution of 100 million Chinese language Christians, each Catholics, and Protestants.

China can be policing its individuals with cellphone monitoring units, facial-recognition expertise, and digital digital foreign money that the state can management, mentioned Amb. Sam Brownback, US Ambassador-at-Massive for Worldwide Non secular Freedom (2018-2021).

“In the event that they’re coming after each one in every of religion in China, and increasing these applied sciences to international locations all over the world, we’re going to quickly be confronting this in a a lot bigger sphere,” he mentioned, urging nations to face as much as China, politically and ideologically.

China opposes—and fears—Korean unification as a result of it believes a unified Korea would “align with the USA” and “decelerate—and even block—China’s long-term 100-year technique” to be the world’s world superpower, mentioned Dr. Michael Pillsbury, Director of the Middle on Chinese language Technique on the Hudson Institute. The CCP strictly controls each social gathering members and church buildings on spiritual issues, even because it pursues a five-year plan to rewrite the Bible, change Jesus’ acts, and remake Christianity to match the CCP’s imaginative and prescient, mentioned Dr. Pillsbury, creator of “The Hundred-12 months Marathon: China’s Secret Technique to Change America because the International Superpower,” the best-selling e-book about China’s bold quest for hegemony.

In Japan, leaders within the Liberal Democratic Occasion (LDP) as soon as welcomed the Worldwide Federation for Victory Over Communism (IFVOC), based by Rev. Solar Myung Moon, because it helped counter “the threats [to Japan] from North Korea and China,” mentioned Hon. Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the US Home of Representatives (1995-1999).

A number of audio system urged that the CCP and its allies, such because the Japan Communist Occasion, try to take advantage of the tragic July 8 assassination of LDP chief former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Mr. Abe’s accused murderer is alleged to have held “a grudge” towards the Household Federation over donations his mom made to the church within the early 2000s. The murderer’s alleged “grudge” has been utilized by the media and political officers to ignite public and legislative assaults on spiritual donations normally, and the Unification Church specifically.

Mr. Abe “was the mastermind of Japan’s new, strong safety and overseas coverage, pushing for modifications to the pacifist structure, making a protection power that will also be offensive, and forging alliances, just like the Quadrilateral [Security] Dialogue with India, Australia, and the USA,” mentioned former BBC Correspondent Humphrey Hawksley, who has been monitoring the Abe assassination and aftermath.

However that apparent geopolitical agenda has not been raised in Japan’s media, and as an alternative, there was “a marketing campaign” towards the Unification Church, Mr. Hawksley mentioned. Actually, one evaluation of 4,238 main Japanese media articles discovered that “not one gave a constructive angle on the Unification Church,” he mentioned.

In response to Yoshio Watanabe, Vice President of IFVOC, the Japan Communist Occasion has a protracted historical past of clashing with IFVOC, and lately their chairman declared that that is the “ultimate struggle” towards the Household Federation and IFVOC. “I pledge that the Worldwide Federation for Victory Over Communism will put its life on the road to struggle till the top to cease this scheme and to defend Japan’s democracy,” Mr. Watanabe mentioned.

This hostility was brazenly expressed in 2007 when the Japanese Communist Occasion wrote that it wished “the Unification Church to be handled as a felony group,” mentioned spiritual scholar Massimo Introvigne, Founder and Managing Director, of Middle for Research on New Religions (CESNUR) primarily based in Italy. “Those that actually love spiritual freedom ought to get up and defend it the place it’s underneath menace. Immediately, it’s Japan,” he mentioned.

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