Welcome to the premier Internet site for researchers seeking information related to freedom of conscience, religion, or belief:
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Oxford University Press has announced publication of the first issue of The Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, with a formal launch at Regent's Park College, Oxford, on 19 April 2012. The new journal was "introduced to the Oxford Journals collection in response to the recent proliferation of research and writing on the interaction of law and religion cutting across many disciplines." Online access to the first issue is available here.
From the Press Release: "The journal aims to redefine the interdependence of law, humanities, and social sciences within the widening parameters of the study of law and religion, whilst seeking to make the distinctive area of law and religion more comprehensible from both a legal and a religious... more
Due to the importance of the issue of State recognition of religious and belief communities, we publish the conclusion of the report prepared by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, Heiner Bielefeldt . In this report, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief addresses the theme of freedom of religion or belief and recognition issues. He thinks over the concept of “recognition” concentrating on the extent of the requirements for religious groups to obtain the status of legal personality, which they may need... more
Donald B. Holsinger, Ph.D. & Ellen S. Holsinger - Geneva
The United Nations Human Rights Council concluded its nineteenth regular session 23 March 2012, adopting 41 texts ("resolutions") on a wide range of issues, including appointing a Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations... more
Photo from the Pew Forum Website
24 February 2011 - The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
According to a study recently released by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, events and controversies related to Islam dominated U.S. press coverage of religion in 2010. Much of the coverage focused on the plan to build a mosque and Islamic center near the site of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. Also in the news was a Florida pastor's threat to organize a public burning of the Koran and commemorations... more
Washington, DC — On the heels of a months-long heated debate on religious liberty, a new national survey finds that a majority (56%) of Americans do NOT believe that the right of religious liberty is being threatened in America today. Roughly 4-in-10 (39%) believe religious liberty is under attack.
The new PRRI-RNS Religion News Survey, conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service, allowed those who said religious liberty is under attack to explain in their own words why they felt the right of... more
Freedom of Religion under Bills of Rights
Edited by Paul Babie and Neville Rochow
Foreword by The Hon Sir Anthony Mason AC, KBE, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia
University of Adelaide Press 2012
Chapter 1 Paul Babie and Neville Rochow, Protecting Religious Freedom under Bills of Rights: Australia as Microcosm
Chapter 2 Ngaire Naffine, How Religion Constrains... more
Faith on the Move, a study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, published on 8 March 2012, focuses on the religious affiliation of international migrants, examining patterns of migration among seven major groups: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, adherents of other religions and the religiously unaffiliated.
About 3% of the world’s population has migrated across international borders. While that may seem like a small percentage, it represents... more
10 December 2011 - Washington, DC
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has published recommendations for international standards for religious freedom protections. The recommendations are available online in the 10 December 2011 issue of the Yale Journal of International Affairs... more
Religion isn't dying, nor should it, said Tony Blair in a 2 January 2012 blogpost "Faith in a Globalized Age," published on New Europe Online. The former British Prime Minister note that "for years, it was assumed, certainly in the West, that, as society developed, religion would wither away. But it hasn't, and, at the start of a new decade, it is time to take religion seriously." To that end Blair has created a Faith Foundation, "to create greater understanding between the faiths."
In a companion post, "Taking Faith Seriously," published the same day,... more
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has announced results of a demographic study of more than 200 countries, tracking the size and distiribution of the world's Christian population. According to the study, released on 21 December 2011, "there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion. Christians are also geographically widespread - so far-flung, in fact, that no single continent or region can indisputably claim to be the center of global Christianity." For more... more
31 December 2011 - HRWF Brussels
Human Rights Without Frontiers International (HRWF Int'l), an independent nongovernmental organization, has released a 62-page report that documents the abduction and confinement of Japanese citizens for the purpose of religious de-conversion, and the failure of Japanese police and judicial authorities to investigate and prosecute those responsible for such cases of domestic violence.... more