Coalition for Religious Freedom Update for June 22, 2012

Capitol Hill. Thanks to the great work of Jim Gavin, Kathryn Porter, Michael Jenkins and our Capitol Hill team, plans are firming up for a delegation to travel to Japan in August. We are in the process of finalizing commitments and getting necessary paperwork done.

UPF London. UPF and WFWP held their joint human rights conference from June 15-17 in the House of Lords. Peter Zoehrer moderated a session at which Willy Fautre presented Human Rights Without Frontiers’ findings on Japanese human rights. Many other political and human rights leaders attended.

In Jin Nim Returns from Japan. IJN came back from Japan and immediately began mobilizing second gen members in the US to help with the Japanese human rights problem, especially the persecution of UC members on campus.

Congressional Briefing. There is growing support in Congress and the NGO community for a public briefing that would include our issue. We plan to focus on countries allied with the US, such as France, Japan and several other countries. The basic idea is that the US has a better chance to influence friendly countries than adversary nations.

‘Married to the Moonies’. A version of this documentary about the Blessing will soon be shown in the US on the Learning Channel. Although the content of the video is considered basically fair, the title is problematic. Rev. Jenkins reports that he is engaging the Learning Channel through clergy about their use of the word “Moonie.” ICRF and other groups are also planning to engage.

State Department Human Rights Report. This report, which was issued this month, has unfortunately stopped including religious freedom as a separate section in each country-report. Many in the religious freedom community believe this has the effect of downgrading religious freedom as a priority. Instead of a section on religious freedom, there is a link to the State Department’s Religious Freedom Report main page. We are working in coalition with several NGO’s to reverse this policy.

Kook Jin Nim’s Freedom Society Tour. Several of our team members went to New York recently to meet with key HQ staff and project leaders. Our purpose was to discuss KJN’s upcoming tour of several cities in the US where he plans to talk

about his vision for a “Freedom Society.” KJN’s talks will stress the idea of limited government to encourage freedom and responsibility. We are hoping to help incorporate the idea of religious freedom as the cornerstone of good constitutional government.

OSCE and UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs is hosting a Conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on the subject of combating hate crimes against Christians. It will be held in Rome, June 26-27. Peter Zoehrer and Mr. Fautre will attend and work to educate participants about our issue.

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