Human Rights

While the United States Senate is often notorious for their differences along party lines, they most definitely agree on one thing—human rights must be recognized on an international scale.

A quiet, tired seamstress whose refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus propelled the U.S. civil rights movement into wide public view, Rosa Parks was also a religious woman whose faith prompted her defiant action in 1955.

When Ben Gilman passed away December 17 at age 94, he had been retired for 15 years from the U.S. Congressional seat he held for 30 years. The district he represented encompassed portions of Orange, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester counties north of New York City.

A recurring theme of extremists, governmental or private sector, who attack religions is that children should be separated from their parents to “protect” them from adopting their parent’s freely chosen religious beliefs.

In 2011, Congressman Frank R. Wolf introduced the first bill to amend and strengthen the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA).

When President Obama signed the International Religious Freedom Act into law today, religious freedom received a significant boost in U.S. Government policy with impact around the world.

Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day in 1948 that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

When members of the United States Congress return to Washington after the elections in November, religious freedom advocates are hopeful the Senate will pass H.R. 1150, the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act

On October 4, 2016, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, called upon the government of Yemen to halt harassment of the Bahá’í population in that country. The full text of the Special Rapporteur’s announcement is below.