8th December 2017
London, UK
The right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) is often misunderstood and dismissed as special pleading by the religious, when in reality, in its fullest form, it protects the right of all people to live their lives according to their deepest convictions, whether or not they have a religion or belief. It must be […]
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25th January 2017
Holy See
January is traditionally a time for New Year’s resolutions and for planning ahead, so it seems a good moment to look at what the year may have in store for the UK and the Holy See. My starting point is Pope Francis’s address to the diplomatic corps, in which he set out how he sees […]
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20th October 2016
Holy See
I am back in London this week with the Holy See’s Monsignor Antoine Camilleri for the Foreign Office’s conference on how freedom of religion and belief can help counter violent extremism. The discussion has been persuasive. I was particularly struck by the following points. US Ambassador Saperstein argued that you cannot have stability without religious […]
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18th October 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
Violent extremism is of course nothing new, but today we are confronted by the rapid growth of a particular form of it which is linked by its perpetrators to the tenets of one of the world’s great religions, Islam. It is worth just pausing for a moment to consider that violent extremism is not new, […]
Read more on FCO Conference on Preventing Violent Extremism: How Freedom of Religion or Belief can help | Reply (1)
31st March 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
After recent days, we can now add Brussels, Lahore and Istanbul to the growing litany of places directly affected by extemist violence. This was committed apparently in the name of religion, against targets variously identified by the perpetrators as Christians, Israeli tourists, and ordinary “secular” citizens, going about their normal lives. The words “religious” and […]
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19th February 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Most of the world’s population lives in countries where freedom of religion or belief is restricted in some way, and over a third where such limitations are extreme. Some 60 countries retain on their statute books laws against blasphemy, or apostasy, with often draconian punishments for those who transgress. And yet, as long ago as […]
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10th December 2014
London, UK
For Human Rights Day Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Tobias Ellwood, blogs on Freedom of Religion or Belief in the Middle East and North Africa (to see this post in Arabic, click here: ow.ly/FJHxS). Today – exactly sixty six years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human […]
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14th October 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The question of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB in the international jargon) is a challenging and sensitive one. It is a fundamental right, touching the conscience of the individual, underpinning many other rights. As we focus on the issue of equality on Blog Action Day, we must ensure that FoRB remains at the top […]
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27th June 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Earlier this week I was in London to address an in-house training programme of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on religion and foreign policy. The course is aimed at British diplomats, but also public servants from other government ministries; there were a number of participants this week from the Ministry of Defence, and on […]
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19th February 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Baroness Warsi is the first ever British Minister for Faith in a British government. She is also Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In both roles, at home and abroad, and with the strong support of the Prime Minister, she has made religious freedom a personal priority: promoting and protecting people’s […]
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