Faith and Freedom Summit IV
24/25 September 2024 | With the support of the
Latin American Parliament &
the Organization of American States
Faith and Freedom Summit IV Objectives
The Faith and Freedom Summit IV will take place in the Latin American Parliament in 2024, bringing together dozens of scholars, human rights advocates, religious leaders and politicians from all over the world through its motto “Practicing what we preach” to fight discrimination and promoting the importance of defending FoRB for everyone, leaving no one behind.
General Objective:
To gather high-level thought-leaders and worldwide committed stakeholders, to highlight the importance of freedom of religion or belief and to further take joint actions to make FoRB a reality in every region.
Specific Objectives:
To create a space where to exchange good practices to further protect FoRB for all.
To highlight the importance of States respecting, protecting, defending, and promoting FoRB to fight inequality and thus help the construction of stable and strong democracies.
To create awareness of FoRB violations and discrimination based on religious beliefs around the world.
To assess areas that need to be improved in regards of religious freedom protection worldwide.
To develop a force of proposal to outline policies toward a greater respect of religious diversity.
To further promote and engage participants with the motto of the Summit “Practicing what we preach.”
The Faith and Freedom Summit is a growing coalition of 19 NGOs which have come together to promote religious tolerance. It is a non-partisan body with no political affiliation but that recognizes the importance of involving politicians, states, faiths, academia and civil society to bring forward this principle.
Attending and speaking in support of the initiative we have had Kishan Manocha, current Head of the Tolerance and Non Discrimination Department of ODIHR/OSCE and Archbishop Thomas Schirrmacher, President of the International Society for Human Rights.
The list of initiatives that the Summit Coalition calls for implemention are:
· MPs to sign a pledge supporting freedom of religion or belief
· Extend the remit of the Special Envoys on Freedom of Religious Belief or belief for each continent.
· Parliamentary Intergroups to investigate and raise instances of discrimination based on religion or belief within each continent, at each regional and state Parliament.
· FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) task force to tackle the topic of discrimination.
· Academics EU and International resources should finance a full research project carried out by academics already known and experienced in the area of discrimination based on religion or belief in the EU.
· Create an open platform gathering members of the FRA, members of the EU Parliament. Latin American Parliament, United States Congress, civil society partners, religious stakeholders, that will be in charge of monitoring discrimination based on religion or belief issues in all countries.
· A Faith and Freedom Award to award MPs and other worthy individuals that are active in promoting various aspects of freedom of religion or belief.
Other key speakers at the Summit were:
Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz (President - Oxford Society of Law and Religion and Commissioner of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom)
Willy Fautre (Director - Human Rights Without Frontiers International)
Massimo Introvigne (scholar and President of CESNUR)
Ms. Ines Mazarrasa (Directora Fundacion Pluralismo y Convivencia - Foundation Pluralism and Coexistence)
Laurentiu Rebega MEP
Alfiaz Vaiya (Coordinator - European Parliament Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup)
Marco Ventura (Professor of Law, University of Siena)
Jan Zahradil MEP (President of ACRE)
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Contact: contact@faithandfreedomsummit.eu