Panelists at the International Religious Freedom Summit discuss religious freedom hopes for President Donald Trump’s second term on Feb. 4, 2025. From left to right: Moderator Brett Scharffs, director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University. Panelists: David Beasley, former executive director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme (2017-2023); Annie Boyajian, co-president of Freedom House; Scott Flipse, director of policy and media relations for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the International Religious Freedom Summit
Washington D.C., Feb 4, 2025 / 16:25 pm (CNA).
Two weeks into Donald Trump’s second presidency, religious freedom advocates are urging the new administration to prioritize the promotion of religious liberty globally in its foreign policy agenda over the next four years.
The International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit kicked off Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., with a panel discussion on how foreign aid, deterrence measures, and strong relations with foreign leaders can promote peace, security, and religious freedom throughout the world.
Several hundred people from dozens of countries who represent many religions are attending the conference to discuss ways in which faith leaders, lawmakers, and others can end religious persecution.
The conference’s speakers will include Vice President JD Vance, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, faith leaders from various religions, and religious freedom advocates.
The major faiths represented at the conference include Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. Several smaller faiths who face persecution, including members of the Baha’i faith, the Yazidi faith, and the Falun Gong religious movement, also have a strong presence at the summit.
“[We are at] a moment of tremendous challenge and a moment of tremendous opportunity,” Annie Boyajian, the co-president of the human rights group Freedom House, said during the opening panel.
Boyajian was joined on the stage by Scott Flipse, the director of policy and media relations for the Congressional Executive Commission on China, and David Beasley, the former director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
Boyajian expressed cautious optimism about the new administration, saying Trump “did a tremendous job” on religious freedom during his first term as president. However, she also conveyed her concerns about the White House freezing grant programs from the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
“A lot of programs benefiting religious freedom and folks of all faiths have been … put on hold,” Boyajian said.
Boyajian urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “not to throw the baby out with the bathwater” when reassessing State Department grants and to expedite the review of paused grants that have religious liberty implications, emphasizing: “Lives really are on the line.”
“It is incumbent on us to help protect others who are targeted,” she said.
During the panel discussion, Flipse, the panel’s China expert, shared his confidence in Trump’s pursuit to “be a peacemaker” and argued that the defense of religious liberty is directly connected to the president’s security and peacemaking goals.
“[Creating] social stability between religious groups in places where there is conflict,” he said, helps “create paths for peace.”
Flipse underlined the importance of staffing the State Department, emphasizing “getting people into positions who know what your priorities are … [and] what common sense in foreign policy is going to look like.”
Similarly, Beasley, of the U.N.’s World Food Programme, said officials “can’t just come down with a hammer” when negotiating with foreign leaders who restrict religious liberty, adding: “You’ve got to have time to touch the heart.”
Beasley spoke about his negotiations with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Houthi leaders in Yemen when leading the World Food Programme, saying many of those leaders are “victims of their own propaganda a lot of the times” but that “respecting [their] religion” and appealing to religious leaders in their faith to discourage religious persecution is an effective strategy.
“I can’t tell you how many problems we’ve solved by just respecting someone else [and by giving] them a chance to be heard,” Beasley said.
However, he also said using deterrents like the threat of cutting off aid can also push leaders to scale back religious liberty persecution.
The IRF Summit is organized by 90 partner organizations. The summit is led by the Religious Freedom Institute and partners include The Catholic University of America, the Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom International, and In Defense of Christians.
In conjunction with the 2025 summit, the partners also published a seven-page paper that listed some of the organizers’ top priorities for the Trump administration.
They urged the administration to guarantee humanitarian funds are targeted toward religious communities under persecution and to restore the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program with a prioritization for religious minorities. They also requested that the White House use foreign aid to promote religious freedom and impose stronger sanctions on governments that violate religious liberty.
The organizations also jointly called on the Trump administration to closely watch religious freedom in Syria as the country establishes its new government after rebels ousted former President Bashar al-Assad. They also urged close monitoring of religious freedom in Iran.
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