The Religious Freedom Report (RFR), produced by pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need, will be launched at a global level on 22 June. The report’s findings confirm that most of the world’s population lives in countries where religious freedom is severely restricted.
Events are scheduled to take place in over 10 countries on three different continents, with the participation of a variety of public figures and social media campaigns in different languages.
The report will also be presented at a high-level event in the Italian Embassy to the Holy See, with the presence of the Italian minister of foreign affairs, Antonio Tajani, and president of ACN International, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza.
Following a greeting by the Italian ambassador to the Holy See, Francesco Di Nitto, the audience will hear a video message from Italian prime-minister Giorgia Meloni. There will also be addresses from Antonio Tajani, from Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, from the secretary of the Italian Council of Ministers Alfredo Mantovano, and from the president of ACN Italy Sandra Sarti before the main findings of the report itself are presented by Alessandro Monteduro, director of ACN Italy.
Bishop Théophile Nare of the Diocese of Kaya, in Burkina Faso, and Tabassum Yousaf, a Catholic Pakistani lawyer at the High Court of Sindh, in Pakistan, will give testimonies of their own experience facing systemic persecution.
Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez, a Colombian missionary, was abducted and kept by Islamist militants in Mali for four years and eight months. Now free, the Colombian missionary was asked to write the forward for the RFR, and will be speaking at the presentation in Bogotá, along with an interreligious panel which includes the director of the local mosque.
Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Lisbon are some of the places where the report will be presented at press conferences organised by ACN on 22 June. Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Panama will also be hosting events to present the report, as will South Korea, in Asia.
The RFR has been published every two years since its first edition in 1999 and is the only non-governmental report in the world that covers all countries and does not distinguish between religions.
