AFGHANISTAN: Law and Liberty is leading the IRF Roundtable Afghanistan Emergency Task Force response to the catastrophic effect of the US pullout of troops from Afghanistan on Afghan religious minorities, particularly Christians, who face death at the hands of the Taliban which views them as apostates..
We delivered two letters to President Joseph Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Congressional leadership: on September 3, 2021 asking for 5 policy steps to safeguard Afghan religious minorities and on October 12, 2021 asking for at least 4,000 special refugee slots for Afghan religious minorities who had already managed to flee to temporary safe havens with the help of our partner organizations.. The letters had 86 and 70 signatures respectively. The letters with our policy recommendations can be viewed or downloaded in pdf format to the left of this page.
ARMENIA: The IRF Roundtable has sent a multi-faith letter with 105 signatures to President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking them to take immediate steps to stop ongoing Azerbaijan and Turkish threats to Armenia and to enable Armenians to return to Nagorno-Karabakh, which was seized by Azerbaijan in a lightening attack on September 19-20, 2023 following a 10 month long siege. 120,000 Armenians fled their historic homeland in just one week. Read the letter here:
SYRIA: We have worked since 2014 to defend Syrian Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities that were under attack first by ISIS and now by Turkey's jihadi mercenary army in Northeastern Syria. Turkey has engaged in ongoing war crimes and threats to invade this area, which provides a key US ally in its fight against ISIS, the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Our President serves as co-'chair of the Middle East Working Group of the IRF Roundtable, and we have taken the lead on several letters to both President Biden and to former President Trump asking them to stand firm against Turkey's behavior. On January 10, 2023, we delivered a letter with 63 signatures to the White House asking President Biden to impose strong sanctions on Turkey. A copy of the letter can be downloaded to the left of this page.
UKRAINE: We have longstanding relationships with Ukrainians devoted to religious freedom under the rule of law dating back to the early 1990's. One of the untold stories of Russia's horrific invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 is its focus on closing Christian religious organizations that are not affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate. It also has abducted, tortured, and in some cases killed their leaders and destroyed their churches. We work closely with the Kiev based Institute for Religious Freedom and with Mission Eurasia to get the word out and ensure that US policy makers are aware of these war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Latest RFI reports presented in the US: https://irf.in.ua/p/102 Mission Eurasia Nashville 2022 Consultation on Ukraine: https://missioneurasia.org/nashville-consultation-on-ukraine/
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