On Thursday, May 3, a press conference was held in Washington, D.C., at
the National Press Club’s Bloomberg Room in hopes to address religious
freedom and the dramatic increase in the persecution of Christians.
According to reports, nearly 70 percent of the world’s 6.8 billion
people live in countries with little or no freedom of religion,
including many countries in the Middle East and Africa.
About 20 print and broadcast media outlets, and others, gathered to
hear from Dr. Carl Moeller, president/CEO of Open Doors USA; Nina Shea,
director for religious freedom at the Hudson Institute; Rev. Dr.
Katharine Rhodes Henderson, president of Auburn Theological Seminary in
New York City; Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of Interfaith Affairs
for the Simon Wiesenthal Center; who were among the panel of speakers
that addressed the issue of embattled Christian communities. (Rabbi
Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was also
scheduled to participate. However, he was unable to stay due to a family
emergency. Adlerstein shared a statement from Cooper at the press
conference.)
“We at Open Doors USA were here to champion the rights of persecuted
Christians around the world,” said Moeller. “Basically, the thought
behind the whole conference was to demonstrate a unity in regard to
religious freedom.”
He said that the persecution of Christians and the attack on religious
freedom was a major problem around the world. These organizations are
coming together to say that it needs to be stopped. They are calling on
government officials and the administration for help. There are also
tools in place, such as the Congressional Scorecard (available at www.opendoorsusa.org)
to help. Additionally, they are in support of HR 440, a bill that calls
for the establishment of the Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom
of Religious Minorities in the Near East and in South Central Asia.
Proposed by Congressman Frank Wolf, the bill was read the second time on
January 23, 2012 and it has been placed on the Senate Legislative
Calendar under General Orders (Calendar No. 292).
“It is important to everyone involved to come together as a group to
say we are going to call on the United States government,
administration, and the candidates, President Obama and Mitt Romney, to
make our religious freedom a major component of the discussion of our
freedoms here in the United States,” Moeller said.
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