Religious Freedom
Freedom of worship—of belief and nonbelief—is an important element of democracy, contributing to social peace, encouraging full political participation, and strengthening pluralism more broadly.
Free religious communities can make important contributions to society, and individual conscience can serve as a last bastion of liberty and a source of great resolve in highly repressive settings.
Freedom House provides emergency assistance to religious freedom defenders, civil society organizations, and survivors of religious persecution in dozens of countries. This assistance has benefitted individuals from more than a dozen different faiths. It covers medical treatment, legal representation, prison visits, trial monitoring, dependent support, and temporary relocation. We also support local initiatives to promote tolerance and proactively address hostility toward religious minority groups and ongoing tensions between different faith communities.
If you would like to interview a Freedom House expert on this topic, please email [email protected].
Free Them All: A Political Prisoners Initiative
Free Them All: A Political Prisoners Initiative is a new Freedom House project intended to help free political prisoners and push back against the jailing of activists as a tool of repression. Located around the globe, the stories of these artists, journalists, and activists illustrate the significant pressures and harms that human rights defenders and pro-democracy activists face in reprisal for their work and why they need our support.
The Battle for China's Spirit
Religious Revival, Repression, and Resistance under Xi Jinping
Controls over religion in China have increased since 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life and triggering growing resistance from believers.
Watch the Video Clip: Genocide in Xinjiang
Asia Society's Isaac Stone Fish and Freedom House's Sarah Cook discuss the situation in Xinjiang where millions of Uyghurs are being held in concentration camps and whether it constitutes a genocide, at a special event hosted by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
Radio Free Asia: Jailed Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti Receives Freedom House’s ‘Freedom Award’
Jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti was honored with Freedom Award in absentia by the democracy watchdog group Freedom House. An outspoken economics professor who regularly highlighted the religious and cultural persecution of the Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority in China, Tohti was charged with promoting ethnic separatism and was handed a life sentence.
Freedom House in the Media:
News & Perspectives:
United States: Freedom House Applauds Passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act
Press release
May 27, 2020
