 Welcome to today's conversation on religious discrimination during crises, a global perspective. I'm Mahan Mirza, Executive Director of the Anzadi Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, part of the Kio School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. We are pleased to host today's event in partnership with the United States Institute for Peace. I'm especially grateful to Dr. Jason Klocek for his work behind the scenes to make this program possible. As global citizens, we are subjected to the rhetoric of potentates and politicians everywhere. Religion is often instrumentalized in the grand rhetorical theater of our politics. But we cannot let legitimate debate of bad actors or of bad policies turn into wholesale xenophobia in the public arena. Criticism of how China treats the Uyghurs, for example, must not feed into anti-Asian sentiment. A critique of al-Qaeda or Hamas or ISIS or the Taliban is not licensed for Islamophobia. Critiquing U.S. militarism does not mean one is unpatriotic. Calling out Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians is not anti-Semitism. And let me be clear on this last point specifically, especially as we see an uptick of hate crimes in light of the escalation of violence in the Holy Land. Muslims and Jews have too much in common to let one conflict in one part of the world. However significant that conflict is, determine their relations with and attitudes toward each other in general. Muslims and Jews in the United States share a history of migration, establishing institutions, caring for the marginalized participation in the struggle for civil rights. And alongside Christians, they share the prophetic and scriptural traditions of Abraham. We are a diverse populations who are far more often allies than we are adversaries. In a recent survey by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, Americans who identify as Jewish score lower on the Islamophobia index than Muslims. You heard that right. So while political and religious debates must continue, we cannot let the voices of hate, Islamophobia, anti-Asian sentiment racism and anti-Semitism prevail. The one big question I have for our panel today is, what do we do when it is in the real world interests of leaders and nations to fan the flames of conflict? To divide rather than to reconcile, to spread messages of hate rather than of love. So with that really big question, let me turn it over to Dr. Jason Klocek. Jason is a senior researcher with the Religion and Inclusive Societies program at the United States Institute of Peace and a Global Religion Research Initiative post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Notre Dame Center for the Study of Religion and Society. His research and teaching investigate the role of religion in conflict, state counter-insurgency and repression, and civil wars and political violence. He received his PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018. And he is the recipient of the 2019 Aaron Vildafsky Dissertation Award for the best dissertation in the field of religion and politics. Jason's work has appeared in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, SAGE Research Methods Cases, and St. Anthony's International Review, along with edited volumes on military chaplaincy and interfaith dialogue. His research has also been featured in the Washington Post and on the Research on Religion podcast. Jason Klocek, take it away. Thank you so much, Mahan, and thank you to all who are joining us virtually this afternoon. As mentioned, we've gathered today to discuss the topic of minority, especially religious discrimination during periods of crisis. And the timing of our conversation is not coincidental. Members of religious belief or belief communities around the world have increasingly faced harassment by government and non-governmental actors. According to the report on religious restrictions by the Pew Research Center, persecution reached an all-time high in 2018, the latest year for which we have global data. And what we've witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic suggests the situation is only growing more dire. Over just the past year, a slew of governments enacted or expanded prior policies that restrict access to places of worship, burial rites, and pilgrimages. Many of those measures were at least ostensibly implemented in the name of public health. For example, the Sri Lankan government made cremation mandatory for those who died or were suspected to pass away from the coronavirus infection. And this posed severe challenges to Muslims and Christians alike, many of which felt this violated central tenets of their faith. Restrictions have also implicitly explicitly been used to silence, target, or harass minority communities. Last March, for instance, the Saudi government sealed off a region of the state that historically has been a flashpoint between the Sunni-dominated government and the minority Shiite population. The measures were said to be put in place because of pilgrims returning from Iran. Intentions between religious communities have also intensified in recent months. In India, we continue to witness attacks against Muslims blame for the coronavirus outbreak there. And in Pakistan, Shiite communities faced backlash last year when returning from pilgrimages themselves in Iraq. Jewish communities have similarly faced scapegoating and harassment, including in the United States and Europe. A new European Commission report shows just how dramatic the spike in anti-semitic content has been on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platform. The primary factor that varies across these countries is not whether or not there was a rise, but just how much of a degree it has increased. So these and other examples are stark reminder of how periods of crisis provide the motivation and cover for the persecution of minority, especially religious communities. And despite being well aware of these trends, many questions remain unanswered. Why do certain communities become targets and not others? Why do governments sometimes support or even initiate this discrimination? And why does scapegoating lead to widespread violence in some cases and not others? These are the questions that bring us together today and we invite us all into a deeper conversation through this panel. Before introducing our speakers, I'll also highlight that our motivation is driven by more than just the headlines. In collaboration with USAID Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the United States Institute of Peace has spent the last year and a half looking at the relationship between religious discrimination, peace, and development. We've used both cross-national data and are currently completing country case studies in Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Sudan, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. We'll be releasing the full results later in the summer or early fall and invite you to look at the United States Institute of Peace webpage as those are released. I'll just flag that one central concern that we're hearing in many contexts and that several of our speakers will bring up today is the role of misinformation and disinformation in exacerbating societal tensions during the pandemic. And finally, I'll simply mention that in other related work with two former colleagues here at Notre Dame, Yen Jung Ha and Nathaniel Grazia Sumoqtoya, I've looked at how political transitions, another type of crisis, often exacerbate religious divisions. In that study, we find that it's those Arab uprising countries that experienced regime change, not simply protests that have had the sharpest uptick in discrimination since the Arab uprisings in 2010-2011. Today, we'll look at three other environments in which crises shaped minority, especially religious discrimination. These three cases, of course, only scratch the surface of the broader trends we're witnessing. But by discussing them, we hope to give voice to all those religious and belief communities that continue to suffer around the globe. So with that said, it's my pleasure to introduce our panelists today. We're going to begin to have in this group, not just those who have thought for many years on this issue, but who also bring a particular expertise in the countries or regions, they'll discuss. I'll introduce each of them now in the order in which they'll present. We'll then open the discussion to a broader conversation, including your questions. Please feel free to submit those questions at any time throughout the panel. First today we'll hear from my United States Institute of Peace colleague Billy Ford. Billy joined USIP in 2019 and serves as a program officer for the Burma team. He previously held positions at the Asia Foundation, Freedom House, and a number of Burmese organizations. His work at USIP focuses on economics and peace building, intergroup bias reduction, religion and conflict, and program evaluation. He holds a master's degree in public policy from the University of California Berkeley, and a bachelor's degree in religious studies from Hamilton College. He'll be speaking and providing up to date observations on the ever changing dynamics currently occurring in Burma. Following Billy, Knox Thames will offer his perspective on the situation in Iraq and South Asia. Knox is currently a senior fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement. Prior to that, Knox spent 20 years in government service, holding positions at the US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, AmeriCorps VISTA, and was also an adjunct research professor at the US Army War College. Most recently, Knox worked at the US Department of State as the special advisor for religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia. Knox received a bachelor's from Georgetown College, a Juris Doctorate from American University's Washington College of Law, and a master's in international affairs from the School of International Service at American University. And then Dr. Sabrina Dent will help shift our focus back to the American context. Dr. Dent is a lifelong advocate of human rights and social justice and currently serves as senior faith advisor at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Before that, Sabrina worked as a director of programs and partnerships at the Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom Forum. She managed several of the education initiatives designed for religious and civic leaders. She led a three-year project funded by the Loose Foundation titled Religious Freedom African American Perspectives. It was conducted in partnership with historically black theological institutions. And Sabrina is also the co-editor and a contributing author of the recently published book produced by that project, entitled African Americans and Religious Freedom, New Perspectives for Congregations and Communities. Sabrina has presented at numerous programs and events, including the St. Louis Ethical Society, Faith 2020s, laying a new foundation for religious liberty in the first 100 days, and Melissa Rogers Faith in American Public Life Book Launch on C-SPAT Book TV. Sabrina was also recently selected by the Center for American Progress as one of the 21 faith leaders to watch in 2021. She earned her Master of Divinity degree and Doctor of Ministry degree from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, and she earned her bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech. She's a native of Petersburg, Virginia, and a proud mother. We're thankful to have all our speakers join us today. And again, we'll go in the order in which I just presented them, first hearing from Billy Ford on the ever changing at Dynamics in Burma. With that, let me hand things over to Billy. Great. Thank you, Jason. As Jason mentioned, I'm Billy Ford from the Burma program at USIP. It's a real honor to be on this panel with such an esteemed group, particularly Dr. Denford, who's done such great work in my hometown of Richmond, Virginia. So it's a pleasure to be here with you today. I will be speaking about the issue of religious discrimination and reconciliation, actually amidst the crisis that's ongoing in Myanmar. I'll do a bit of background and then jump into a few kind of key trends. So, in terms of background, the Myanmar military deposed the elected government on February 1. Since then, the military has really failed to consolidate power despite having killed 863 civilians as of yesterday and arresting more than 6000 people. In addition to the massive mobilization of non-violent action that's taking place across the country, armed conflict has also increased precipitously since February. Fighting is taking place between the Myanmar military and a range of armed combatant organizations, including formal armed groups, many of which represent ethnic and religious minority communities, and have been fighting the Myanmar military for many decades, as well as new militia groups that have emerged since late April. Myanmar has been at war for more than 70 years. Most of the fighting has been confined to areas in the country's periphery that are inhabited primarily by religious and ethnic minority populations. And these families face kind of double discrimination because of their ethnicity and their religion, and have experienced a state of persistent conflict and occupation by the Myanmar Buddhist majority population for many decades. Now, since the coup, the fighting has spread into areas inhabited by the Myanmar Buddhist majority and into urban areas. So there's a transformation in the type of conflict. And as a result, more than 230,000 people have been displaced because of the fighting. From a humanitarian perspective, many hospitals in the country are closed as health workers participate in a nationwide movement of civil disobedience. The hospitals that are open are actually occupied by the military, which is in search of injured or sick opposition figures they hope to arrest. Meanwhile, the Indian variant of COVID-19 has begun to spread rapidly, and testing and vaccinations are virtually non-existent. In short, it's a humanitarian crisis. The opposition movement to the junta is enormous and includes a range of actors with diverse interests, including many groups who were adversaries before the coup, but who share a common enemy in the reviled military. Since the coup the deposed elective government set up what's called the national unity government to lead this opposition movement. It's not the most ethnically diverse government body in Myanmar's history, but it's still led by the Kumar Buddhist dominated National League for democracy. The NUG has worked to build a unified opposition coalition by reaching out to ethnic and religious minority groups, the political parties and armed organizations, but it's really struggled to gain buy-in because of a long history of oppression of ethnic and religious minority groups. And frankly the NLD didn't do itself any favors when it was in power, having perpetuated highly discriminatory policies that further marginalized ethnic and religious minorities. So a couple of key kind of dynamics that have occurred since the coup related to religious and ethnic discrimination. Frankly, I'm not sure if the crisis has exacerbated religious discrimination in Myanmar on balance. It has increased existing vulnerabilities for ethnic and religious minorities, but it's also created an opening for reconciliation. That's kind of unprecedented but let me start before the crisis because there's a key dynamic related to discrimination that contributed to the crisis itself so I would argue that inter ethnic divisions and religious discrimination created an enabling environment for the coup to take place. The military's worked for decades to ensure that it is the most unified institution in Myanmar. It's done this remarkably well by one maintaining internal unity through patronage networks isolating its soldiers and propagating a sophisticated narrative about military or an unsubstituted narrative really about the military is the institution that could hold this diverse and fractured country together, and that they are the protectors of the Mar ethnic identity and Buddhism. It is also done this by by fracturing the opposition and the, the population were broadly along ethnic and religious lines so for example in 2012 as the country was opening up. When it was closed to the internet for the first time it established a network of over 700 internet trolls who propagated narratives of a Muslim takeover and generated fear and hostility towards Muslim communities. This helped create into finance an anti Muslim hate group that led political movements to boycott Muslim businesses and advocate for a set of laws that banned interfaith marriage restricted conversion to Islam mandated birth spacing for Muslim cultures. And even as if support for the military was quite small, the hate group gained fairly widespread support including from prominent monks, and the group even incited inter criminal violence to essentially demonstrate to the majority that they should be afraid of these Muslim populations kind of showing them what they should fear and kind of deepening those fissures and as it built this widespread fear and hatred towards Muslims and created an enabling environment for discriminatory policies and for atrocities and subsequently launched a violent campaign of genocide against the Rohingya Muslims, which further deepened those divides and weakened the governing national lead for democracy. A weaker NLD and a divided society were the essential preconditions for them to launch this to and religious persecution and discrimination was a tool for achieving both goals. So turning now to the moment at hand religious minorities certainly face greater discrimination and heightened risk of violence. Now, because the soldiers who occupy their communities have been trained to see ethnic and religious minorities as outsiders as a threat and even took subhuman, and they're rewarded for killing opposition actors. Religious minorities are also at heightened risk because embedded are exacerbated during times of crisis. Under the NLD that the hate group that I mentioned earlier was, was disbanded, but it's actually been reconstituted by the military under a new name since the coup that operates on behalf of the military as a Bumar Buddhist supremacist kind of paramilitary group that controls communities harassing and murdering opposition figures, but especially targeting ethnic and religious minority groups, and utilizing sexual violence against women as a weapon of suppression and fear. So the human religious minorities now face overlapping vulnerabilities that make them a target for the regime. Before before the coup actually the military undertook a systematic effort of documenting the Hindu population in Yangon, essentially requiring that each Hindu resident report their address phone number and contact information and address for their family members. The objective, I mean this isn't and this is a fairly typical kind of practice by the military to intimidate and highlight the marginalized status of Hindus. The objective in this case though was to was to preempt Hindus from participating in an opposition movement by essentially saying, we know where you live and where your families live. There's been kind of a heightened degree of pressure in that sense the regime is also used discriminatory tropes to characterize the national unity government as being controlled by foreigners as being a threat to Buddhism and spread rumors for example that is always so the NUG's education and health minister is Muslim and disloyal to the nation. Let me conclude just on a more sort of positive note because the, the coup and the resultant opposition has created an interesting opening. It's been a shock to a system of structural racial oppression, and it's created an opening for young progressive voices of inclusion to lead the opposition movement is an incredibly diverse and inclusive coalition. This place is led by young, a young generation of activists, mostly young women who are much more progressive than leaders of past movements and who are unencumbered by social norms and stereotypes about identity. They're coordinating across traditional lines of division, even acknowledging past harms by the majority, but not Buddhist population against minorities. I apologize for not having shown greater compassion towards the Rohingya in the aftermath of the atrocities against them. And just yesterday activists launched a campaign in solidarity solidarity with Rohingya that received more than 330,000 mentions on Twitter. In addition to the effect of the movement on public consciousness. The majority has experienced kind of a painful lesson and empathy as it endures military occupation, much like that which ethnic minorities have experienced for many decades. So direct these direct experiences of atrocities by the military has kind of made it easier for some to believe ethnic and religious minorities when they describe the atrocities that they've endured for the past seven years. Once you see videos of the military burning Buddhist villages it's much easier to believe that they did the same thing to the Rohingya Muslims. These shifts among the opposition has led the NUG to make enormous policy changes that ethnic minorities have been asking for for many years. They've abolished the highly discriminatory 2008 Constitution. They've been drafting a new federal charter, and they've scrapped numerous laws such as the citizenship law that's been used to marginalize religious minorities for generations. Note, these campaigns and this transformation isn't universally or these campaigns are universally supported and some ethnic and religious minorities are kind of frankly skeptical that this transformation is durable given the political that political power has kind of been shifted towards religious minorities at this particular moment. So they wonder what is whether this is purely political expediency. So there are a couple of other interesting points that we can maybe cover in the Q&A related to humanitarian dynamics and houses of worship that are now a target of attack and the role of Buddhist monks in the opposition but I think I'll leave it there for now and happy to explore those other elements in the Q&A. Thank you. Thank you so much, Billy for providing those observations and getting the conversation started. As you mentioned, well, during the Q&A be happy to answer questions about particular countries that we're discussing today, but also across a comparative context. So if you're joining us today virtually please feel free to drop your questions in the chat room at any time, either about specific countries you're hearing or even question about how it might compare to other contexts. Billy, thank you very much for sharing those perspectives. We're going to turn now to Knox Tames again who's currently a senior fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement. I'll turn it over to Knox now. Great. Thank you so much for having me. The consequences of religious discrimination can occur in two ways I want to talk about today. Natural and man made disasters. Now this is coming during a time when while we're suffering from a global pandemic. A pandemic of persecution had already existed around the world where people of all faiths and none were being victimized because of their deeply held convictions. The natural disaster of our time the COVID-19 pandemic, we've seen troubling new examples of religious persecution, exacerbating negative trend lines that were already prevalent in too many societies around the world. We saw how fears of COVID-19 inflamed existing religious intolerance in many countries and caused an upsurge of scapegoating, particularly against Jews and Muslims. In Iran, the state TV broadcast reports accusing Jews and Zionists of being behind the virus. We've seen anti-Semitic content on social media increased many times in many societies around the world. The European Commission just issued a very worrying study, finding a rise in anti-Semitic content in French and German on Twitter and Facebook. We've seen similar findings here in the United States about our own communities as well. Regarding Muslim scapegoating in India, we saw Muslims blame for the outbreak of COVID-19. Now while one group was responsible for an event that led to an early set of contagion, Muslims since then had been repeatedly castigated, assaulted, denied medical care and subjected to boycotts. The hashtag Corona Jihad has circulated widely. Next to her in Pakistan. We've seen activists report about the persecution of the Hazara Shia ethnic and religious minority as they've been unfairly blamed the source of the virus after making a pilgrimage to Iran. Cambodia's Khmer Muslims were accused by the government's Ministry of Health of bringing the virus into the country from Malaysia and that Facebook post led to a plethora of online hate speech towards this tiny population. And regardless of the community that was targeted in many of these situations we've seen individuals face verbal abuse, death threats, physical attacks. During a pandemic experience discrimination and assessing public services including vital health services. Regarding man made disasters we need to look no further than the violence and terror wrought by ISIS in Iraq and Syria that displaced millions of people. When I worked at the State Department, I continuously received reports of Christian refugees who have fled Iraq into Jordan and Lebanon, who felt that they were discriminated against by UNHCR officials on account of their religion. And that resulted in these very vulnerable populations not receiving the assistance they deserved. New ZDs continued to live in IDP camps, seven years after ISIS attempted genocide. A recent campfire further victimized these people displacing 1400 families. And now several hundred thousand new ZDs simply want to return home so that safely and freely but long standing and now exacerbated discrimination and repression prevents those returns from happening. So considering the global decline in freedom and democracy, the pandemic, natural disaster and terrorism and extremism a man made disaster have widened pre existing social cleavages and created marginalization through scapegoating. This social fragmentation has been termed by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as a tsunami of xenophobia. So how do we present this tsunami what do we do to create safe harbors for victimized religious minorities and whatever society or communities they live in. Well, there are some clear rules that government should follow. International standards are explicit that everyone has freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This freedom includes the ability to hold any faith or none to change faith to meet a loan and community with others or by yourself for worship or other activities. This is called under international law, a non bearable human right states cannot touch the right to the internal belief system of their citizens. The states must also be non discriminatory and assisting those in need, and also ensure that everyone has fair access to public health services. So it can't be picking winners and losers and having favorites, any measures enacted in response to cover 19 should never be used as a justification to silence target or harass members of civil society. Even during pandemics governments are accountable for their freely undertaking international obligations and commitments that they have made to respect human rights like freedom of religion or belief. So what does this look like. What, what steps should government take. Since implement measures in response to cover 19 that limit public gathering, including for worship. They should only do so to the extent that these restrictions are established by law and necessary for public health. That's a two prong test established by law necessary for public health. In many instances we saw that standard not mad when governments would seemingly implement limitations on the practice of religious communities in in ways that violated their international standards here in the United States. We saw how these are very difficult decisions for our rights respecting country like our own state and local officials had to make tough calls while while information regarding the virus is still emerging. But we know that government should never close places of worship in a discriminatory manner, allowing some to remain open while closing others or limit the freedom to manifest one space. And some call to protect public health that's past the point of necessity. Now the UN mandate special mandate holders have spoken to this in the spring last year. Four of them issued a call urging governments to respect their UN obligation. One of the mandate holders was a UN special repertoire for freedom of religion or belief. In addition, other nations spoke out the International Religious Freedom or belief alliance issued a statement by 18 of its members. I played a role in helping stand up the alliance when I served in government. I'm pleased to see that a very diverse group of countries encouraged nations to ensure that the practice of religion could be could continue during the pandemic as long as safe local health and safety concerns were met. The nations that issued the statement were Albania, Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Columbia, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States. They called people North, Global South, Christian and Muslim, and they call for the full respect of human rights to freedom of religion or belief in line with international standards during the pandemic. They urged governments quote, governments elected and appointed officials and religious leaders to avoid language that scapegoats certain religion and belief communities. They will quote, encourage governments to take proactive steps to ensure individuals and minority religion and belief communities are safe, protected and receive health services and equitable and non discriminatory manner and quote. That was an encouraging statement to see countries come together around finding that that that middle way to where you can protect communities from the dangerous pandemic while also respecting their ability to congregate and meet their worship needs. But at the end of the day, you can't legislate away this problem. It's going to take elected leaders, religious figures, faith actors all coming together to protect the vulnerable to speaking up and promoting social inclusion and solidarity, and also combating incitement to hate. And just to castigating those in a community who say hateful things who start tropes who mislead a community. We need everybody to speak up for the vulnerable government leaders faith leaders civil society, media, the general public, people's neighbors. They all should speak up to reject hate and exclusion. And during this pandemic provide support and solidarity to those who might be victimized at this difficult time. Billions of people could do this together, billions of people would be helped. So I hope that today we can contribute towards by this conversation today. Thank you very much. Thank you Knox for the challenge you presented and between our two speakers so far I think we are all starting to hear about both conditions that help explain why crises intensify discrimination whether that crisis be a pandemic or man made disaster. And also, as Billy mentioned to these enabling environments, and we'll discuss more that after we hear from our third speaker. Again, feel free to add your questions at any point as you're listening to our discussion. And if you are joining you are one of 125 or so other people currently on the call I know we always never know who else is listening so it's a great large group today. Yeah, let me turn now to our third speaker Dr Sabrina Dent, who again is currently a senior faith advisor at Americans United for separation of church and state. Thank you so much for being with us today Sabrina. Over to you. Thank you so much Jason I appreciate the opportunity to present today. And thank you to my fellow panelists who set the tone for this conversation and talk about our responsibility to humanity and Knox you already gave us a call to action. Thank you for that. So with that in mind. I'm Jason, I just want to thank the Ansari Institute as well as the US Institute for peace and Notre Dame School of Global Affairs for hosting this conversation, because I find it especially important to really give a domestic perspective when we're talking about international religious freedom. And so with that, I'm going to frame my remarks around the impact on racial religious minority communities here in the United States. So first of all, I'm going to say that the timeliness of this conversation is very perfect and incredibly significant. One of the things that we must realize in this conversation is that one, we're observing the second week of pride, which is the time when people of the LGBTQ plus community can celebrate how far they've come and boldly claiming and professing their identities in society, not to mention remembering the events that took place in 1969 at the Stonewall end, which was a catalyst to LGBTQ rights and the movement here in America. Also, just this past Saturday we observed Levin day, which is only 54 years ago when the Supreme Court decided in the in the case Levin versus Virginia, that was about making interracial marriage legal here in the United States. And so before that the union of Mildred and Richard Levin was considered a violation of what was then the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. This is significant to the conversation. And again, recognizing the role of actors. So Walter Plecker, who was a devout Presbyterian also son of a Confederate soldier and medical professional instituted what was called the one drop rule. And from his religious perspective, it was damaging religious beliefs that suggested that God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah due to race mix and that occurred. And so this white supremacist ideology helps shaped some of the medical practices that happened here in the United States, which had major impact on the human dignity of black and indigenous people. And I think it's important to note this just to give context for my place in the world in the state of Virginia. This is significant because Plecker was the first, the first registrar for vital statistics in the state of Virginia for the Bureau of statistics. And so he was responsible for assigning people's racial identity on their birth certificate from 1912 to 1946. And so, keeping in mind, again, the role of actors and the role they play in the United States in the way in which they show up in society that this is not just of the past. And that's in terms of the practices of discrimination towards racial religious minorities, it still happens in the United States today. And so one of the things that I also want to highlight is this coming weekend will be observed in Juneteenth, which is an annual election that marks the end of slavery, when Union soldiers arriving Gaviston, Texas to announce that President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 19, excuse me, 1862 to declare that enslaved people would be free. The only thing about this is the executive order took effect January 1 1863. However, it was only to it was two and a half years later that the people in Texas would then learn that they were, they were actually emancipated. So, those of you watching might wonder what does this have to do what does pride Juneteenth 11 day have to do with international religious freedom, and I would suggest everything. If you've never been in the shoes of a marginalized person or community, you may struggle to grasp with how these issues are interconnected, as it relates to the so slow progress of religious freedom for many in the United States today. Thank you so much for your time for this program. I thought about all the issues that we champion in support of the First Amendment, as well as the UN Declaration of Human Rights specifically article 18 that states that a person has the constitutional and human to freedom of conscience and belief, and the right to change one's mind about their religion. And just recently in the report that was released by the US State Department for International Religious Freedom President Biden actually stated that the work of protecting religious freedom for people of all faiths and none is never finished. And so whereas that is happening around the world that is still here in the United States. And so he stated further that we must be vigilant against the rise and tide of targeted violence and hate from home and abroad and work to ensure that no one feels afraid to attend religious service school or their community center or walk down the street wearing their symbols of faith. And I think this is very significant that the President stated this, and I'm grateful for his approach to address a religious discrimination that emphasizes the right to religious freedom is one component of the greatest human rights agenda. And this means that we also must protect it from being politicized. So, but the reality is that there are many people groups and religious and non religious groups that experienced the threat of discrimination here in the United States. So it's important that we have this conversation, even further looking at some of the hate crimes that have occurred over time. So one of which is in 2015, we know that the Charleston student happened and in Charleston, South Carolina and the annual AME church, where non innocent black Americans their lives were taken as they they exercise their right to practice their religion and Bible study. Then we have to look at the recent events that took place in San Jose, as well as Indianapolis claiming the lives of sick Americans, and even the 12 lives that were taken that the tree of life massacre. So, I want to also raise that the hates crime division also reported that in 19 and 2019, excuse me, there was a California woman that pleaded guilty to committing a religious based hate crime by threatening to bomb a Catholic school, when they stated that they will begin publishing same sex wedding announcements and their alumni magazine. So let's look at these issues comprehensively and see how they have major impact and implications for people in the United States. But I also want to zone in a little bit more zoom in a little bit more to think about the impact on children. So in 2015 the Hindu American Foundation released a report and is called the classroom subjective bullying and bias against Hindu students in American schools, and one of three respondents stated they were bullied for their religious beliefs, one in eight of those respondents again reminding you these are children reported that their teachers made sarcastic remarks about Hinduism in their in front of their class. This is also reported by the sick American legal defensive education fund, and their 2020 national seek American survey that 58 of the respondents reported being bullied or harassed because of their seek identity and 63% of them of the respondents who were reported being discriminated for where one and that included in their workplace. I also want to highlight that it's important to note that religious discrimination has been experienced by non religious secular free thinkers and atheists and agnostic communities. In 2020 the American atheist released the report reality check being non religious in America, and found that due to their non religious identity more than half of the participants, 54.5% had negative experiences with family members, and nearly 30% of them had negative experiences in education, and one in five of them had negative experiences in their workplace. And of those who experienced the discrimination within their families, there was a 73% higher rate of likely depression. And so it's important to highlight this, because not only does racial religious discrimination cost physical harm to people, but it causes moral injury in the community. So I raised the question how do we begin to address religious discrimination in public. First, as not suggested, we must acknowledge that this is the work of everyone, it is everyone's responsibility to address these issues. In every religious and non religious community. There is a belief or ideology that affirms that we should treat one another with respect and dignity. And some people dependent on their tradition referred to this as the golden rule, but what it simply does is it stems from an individual's ethics and moral obligation to care for humanity, and exercise that cat compassion. And as not to mention, we saw a lot of this happening during the height of the pandemic last year and even now, a lot of communities have prioritized listening to the concerns of racial and minority communities, especially when you think about the events that have happened to impact the Asian American community and Pacific Islander community as well as the black community, people are being more committed to doing the work to prioritize everyone. The last thing I want to say is because I'm being mindful of my time is education. I believe that education is the next part to addressing this issue that there must be education about religious literacy in the United States and around the world. Also, there needs to be education as it pertains to legal literacy and advocacy in this country. I'm very fortunate in the work that I do it Americans United, which was founded in 1947 by religious leaders that we prioritize that and a lot of the work that we do. So keep in mind that the religious landscape in America is changing and continues to change that that we have a responsibility to care for everyone that is a part of the landscape of America, and that contribute to the fabric of our success as a country. And so in doing so, it's important that we understand the impact of religious discrimination or religious and non religious people, and that and that includes religious people that identify as members of the LGBTQ community. So, and close it I just want to highlight two pieces of legislation that we've prioritized in our work at Americans United, and that is the equality act as well as the do no harm act. This is a narrative that is out in the public square that sometimes suggests that there is a contradiction between one that is that identifies as LGBT Q member, or as a religious person. And the ground is that there's data that shows that over 76% of individuals that identify identify as religious in the United States are also LGBTQ individuals. And so, there is no contradiction in terms of that. One of the things that we can do to help prioritize the people that we say we love and we care for that we're in relationship with and our religious communities is to think about pieces of legislation such as the equality act, which ensures the civil protections for LGBTQ people, but also women and other marginalized communities by making sure that religious freedom is not used or miss or misused to undermine the protections of these individuals, whether it's in their workplace, whether it's in the way and getting the healthcare is to make sure that there are federal protections in place for everyone because there are 29 states right now the United States that do not provide those federal tax protections. At the same time, it's also remembering that or knowing that the do no harm act is a piece of legislation that affirms the human dignity of every person by stating that religion should never be used to cause harm to any person. And that that nor should any person be denied access to the basic necessities that allow them to thrive as a human being. So in short, what I would like to suggest is that we have a responsibility as a community, a domestic community as well as global community to care for the people that we love to understand how religious discrimination causes harm to people around the world, and also to think about the role that we play individually, but also the role that elected elected officials play and prioritize of the constituents in which they say they represent. So with that I'm going to turn it back over to Jason I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much Sabrina already knew why but is only reaffirmed where you're one of those 21 faith leaders in 2021 to watch. Thank you so much for your comments for the challenge that everyone's presented today. We're going to move now into and we have plenty of time for this because our wonderful speakers have all kept to the time that was requested. We have a good. Almost 2025 minutes to take questions and have discussion as questions are rolling in. Also, say, I really appreciate some of your remarks at the end is also kind of bring us full circle, both that the larger trends that I and Knox had mentioned. Bringing it to specific events and it's, you're absolutely right there are many reasons we wanted to hold this event this week. It's been outlined, but also Mahan's question the executive director of the Ansari Institute for engagement with religion, which is, how do we move from sort of what we see empirically and what we're studying as social scientists into this normative framework and what do we do about it. A few other common things I heard and then we'll move to question will start with a question from a audience member on the role of social media. I've also heard across all of our speakers today is that we need to think about the environment in which we're operating that there are certain enabling conditions that Billy called them that sometimes exacerbate these tensions or lead to action where maybe there weren't have been action beforehand. But then as you're saying Sabrina it's not just what people do it's how people feel or made to feel. And I think that is maybe a little bit of a tension between what we've heard from Knox and Sabrina, not, not a great tension but not sort of emphasize you can't legislate our way out of this. And I think Sabrina would you can tell me if you disagree with that it sounds like you agree but that there are also certain points of legislation we could highlight to move forward. So there's a couple of themes that I'm hearing. Again I'm going to invite everyone please feel free to add your questions, but we'll start with with this one and I think Billy will go ahead and respond to it and then other panelists can respond someone asked, especially since we've talking about not just going in the on outside the US what's going on in the US as well. The question is what can be done on both national and global levels to prevent the weaponization of hate speech through social media. That's one part of the question. And the second question is what can the US do to what can it do or should do to regulate social media, both within the country and abroad. So Billy if you wanted to tell the first how what do we do about the weaponization of hate speech and how do we respond to it. That's great and thanks for the question I think this is a very important one of course. One thing that I often get frustrated by is that the narrative around social media's role in Myanmar is the discussion is about how local communities are don't have adequate digital literacy to manage these platforms or to engage in a constructive market. The onus is entirely on communities and consumers, rather than on the platforms themselves, which is, I think, kind of misses the point, which is that alienation discrimination and violence in Myanmar and elsewhere is is an externality of Facebook's and other social media platforms ad based business model which rewards content that sparks rage and fear. So it's really interesting right now in Myanmar that the opposition movement. It often faces efforts by the Myanmar military to fracture the opposition through information campaigns. Those campaigns have been very weak. But the, the opposition has failed to unify just because of the nature of media and online discourse by itself I mean I think this is not a free speech issue this is, this is a, this is an externality of a business model that's built on rage and fear. And I think it kind of links to a finding of the recent report by the National Intelligence Council that essentially said that our governing institutions in general but particularly just the institutions we look for to address these sorts of issues are just ill equipped to address the challenges of today including regulation and management of social media, and just trying to promote kind of interpersonal reconciliation and cohesion. It just feels like our institutions are kind of failing us in that sense so thank you for that question. It's really helpful Billy thank you so much. I'll just pause it Sabrina or Knox did you want to offer any reflections as well in this question about the role of social media, and what the US could or could not do. I can offer a word or two I think it. It is the new battle space, you know what information what is reality. How is it packaged. The United States we are an outlier globally and the protections we provide for free speech, you can say a lot of things here that are illegal elsewhere, but the bright line for us, which is a bright should be bright line for every society is instigation to violence like using social media to urge violence against other people. There's no place for that that should be prosecuted criminally. We've seen this happen in places like Sri Lanka where Buddhists use Facebook to go after Muslims we've seen this countless countries around the world. This is where I think law enforcement and the Internet providers can be working more closely together to ensure that the weaponization of speech doesn't lead to actual death or harm. I agree with Knox, in terms of thinking about the role that law enforcement plays as well as Internet providers and the social media platforms their ethical responsibility to all of their users in addressing them and flagging hate speech that ultimately leads in some cases, unfortunately to action on the part of others but I go back to thinking about because I'm more of a grassroots girl. So I think about also the responsibility that we have in terms of building a community of care for people where people don't feel isolated so if I feel, if I keep myself in isolation and I'm only looking at one particular news outlet or particular place where I gather information that provides a false narrative of what's really happened in society, then that leads me to shape, make a very harmful beliefs, and then take action. But if if I become a community with others and build relationships and so for me it's all it's all about in a grassroots perspective, thinking about the relationship building that needs to happen in spaces where people are like trying to present a different narrative than what the news is telling them. And so there is a responsibility that even the news media has, and how they report about certain racial and religious communities as well and so the responsibility is on all of us but as you mentioned, like we are very privileged in the United States to have protections in place and to be able to have a free speech, but I think we also as individuals have a responsibility to, to, I would say this, intersect, as far as right now you hear about bystander trainings that are happening that if you see something present a different narrative that's counter to what the person is saying, and which will hopefully, not all the times hopefully leads to a positive dialogue that will help that person reimagine a different way of thinking. Thanks so much everyone for thinking more about the rural social media. I would just add one observation as well which comes from the study I mentioned at the top of the program that I've done with a couple Notre Dame colleagues, looking particularly at where there were regime transitions during the air following the Arab uprisings. And one thing we noticed as well there is that when you have this political competition, but with weaker institutions, there's a tendency for misinformation and disinformation to spread. There are particular candidates who are running. And so there's also a question I think about the conditions where are we more likely to see this happening, where are we more likely to build the relationships Sabrina that you're talking about we're just more effort and time to be put in. So, I'll add that and we'll turn to a second question here that's been posed. And this question goes to grassroots level. So, they're asking about the role of faith communities in what role can they play in terms of preventing or responding to minority discrimination. And I guess we could think about this and how do they interact with the government but also how do religious communities on the ground interact with one another. And again I think we'll hear some different perspectives here because of the context in which we're considering Sabrina if you wanted to first. And religious communities play an incredible role in this work and shifting the narrative. One of the things that I am grateful to see is that the Biden administration has been intentional about working with religious communities here in the States and addressing some of the issues that have come up and I know I noticed from personal experience because I attend the weekly faith and engagement call but also the intentional ways in which the report that rolled out last year to the Americans Institute where Melissa Rogers penned this document as along with EJ Dion to talk about what religious freedom should look like in America and embracing a pluralistic society and making sure that in the work that is also prioritizing the people that are impacted by the issues. And so in my work, we've done a lot of faith or faith outreach and organizer and mobilizing religious communities around issues as I mentioned earlier the Equality Act and in getting religious communities to say, Hey, you know, there is no contradiction as it pertains to one's sexual gender identity as it relates to their religious beliefs that they can coexist, and they do coexist, but also in in addressing other issues that impact religious discrimination in this country. Right now one of the things that I've done in my work at AU is that I'm hosting right now AU summer series for seminarians, because seminarians are a group of individuals that are already in that process of inquiry and thinking about and reimagining the role of religion and their theologies in their lives and how they're going to care for community. So this is a good opportunity to introduce those individuals as well as lay leaders that are doing the work and not every religious community has like religious leaders, but to be involved and to ask questions about what is religious freedom and then where we're saying what is religious freedom. I ask you the question, who's religious freedom to because we have to look at some of the policies that have gone forward, as well in terms of whose religious freedom has been prioritized. So, in short, religious communities play a huge role in that. And I think also Mahan made a comment earlier on and the at the top of the program and talking about the relationships that we have with people that do not religiously that those those relationships, even in times of crisis need to be remembered need to be valued and prioritize and helping us continue in our work so in essence responded to the question that Dr Charles Haynes always used to say is how do we find common ground is remembering the relationships and the people that you say you care about, and then again doing the work to provide a different narrative. And so again that goes back to religious literacy is important just as much as legal literacy is. Thank you Sabrina. And I wonder if Knox or Billy if you had any thoughts on this as well so as we think about how do you build those relationships in different environments different contexts, particularly I'm thinking here Billy about in Myanmar Burma where there's more political uncertainty let's say then in the US at the moment. The role of religious communities is enormous right now and religious institutions in particular which are kind of uniquely positioned for a moment like this and of course this isn't in our first two or crisis. And so this there's a long history of religious institutions stepping in this in this, these sorts of moments, and part because they have physical and human infrastructure they have convening power they have moral authority they have motivated around common values. I mean they're just kind of uniquely situated to to provide value and support in a moment like this churches in Myanmar are now schools hospitals safe houses. But that also means that they're being targeted. The southeast part of the country churches have been been bombed recently by the military, so there's heightened vulnerability there as well. But faith communities and institutions are critical at this particular moment and they're really for those in the international community trying to support people in Myanmar they're also a mechanism through which we can channel that support, because there is that sense of solidarity and institutional infrastructure that we can leverage. And I just want to add that, when you're looking to address human rights violation. Having the voice of religious leaders is key, but also laity. It doesn't just have to be generally old men with tall hats can be youth women lay leaders. So in context look to the great leadership of Reverend Martin Luther King who did so much to help overcome institutional racism of our country. You know, and his work was deeply rooted in his own Christian faith and the belief in, and so how God use everyone as inherently valuable regardless of what they believe or how they look. It's really important to individuals to think about, you know what can you do in your neighborhood to reach out to people who look, think, believe, or live differently than you do. You know we shouldn't. Maybe we don't have a platform like Dr Martin Luther King did but we have neighbors, we've got relationships we've got family members, and I think it's coming upon us to take. If everybody took one small step towards the other to ensure that their civil rights are respected the human rights are respected if we urged our governments have a strong voice to protect religious minorities overseas. I think we see more progress gained. And to push the conversation even further now, we have a challenging question. I think you're from a participant who's asked the citizen can use the names of Sierra Ali from Syria, who is really challenging us to ask a question which I'll say in a moment and then it ties to us. So, the question, the first question is, are there generational differences. And this person is really challenging us to think, particularly in the Syrian context or other contexts are older generations a lost cause or can we do something to bring everyone together and maybe another way to think about it is are there ways to reach out to people from different generations, but then also different locations. Someone has also asked about, is there an interplay between how we think how we frame discrimination in the US, and how we see it abroad, or how it's reported on abroad, and how it's then reflected in the US. So maybe two dynamics that in the last five minutes we can introduce again we can't unpack these as much as we'd like, but how do we think about generational differences and differences across geography. So big questions who's going to be bold step in first. I can jump in on the second part of your question. I know when we were at the height of grappling with the coronavirus, and a lot of state and local officials were closing places of worship, and I heard from my own Christian community allegations well this is Christian persecution here in the United States. And, you know, as someone who's worked exclusively on these issues internationally. I felt that was off base and I was fortunate enough to have an article in Christianity today sort of to my own people, pointing out that, you know to use the word persecution that is the heaviest term and it involved violence involved a lack of any kind of hope for accountability. There are examples of like the genocide against Uighurs and Rohingya and China and Burma. What's happening in the former Soviet Union where churches and shut commandos go in arrest everyone and bulldoze the things of the ground like there's just a different level. It's not to say what we were experiencing here wasn't hard. I mean our church was closed for a long time it was inconvenient. There were cases it was found to be illegal but there was a process that played through to ensure that American civil rights were respected so I think we just need to be very careful about comparing apples to oranges when, while we certainly have problems here in the United States. In my experience, you know there the challenges for religious minorities in other countries are often life and death in a way that they aren't elsewhere. That's not to say there's not problems in North America we just saw the horrific killing of the Muslim family in Canada like cold blooded, but I feel confident that Canadian justice system will bring that person to accountability. And that's often the missing component a lot of parts of the developing world. Thanks. Thanks, Sabrina. Did you want to on generation or geography. Yes, so generationally yet there are differences generationally and we have to think about the ways in which young people today are much more vocal about not to say people before us more seasoned in life we're not vocal, but young people today are very vocal about their positions on certain issues. I mean, I'm just thinking about in the interfaith context that I'm a part of where we're committed to moving our interfaith dialogue and collaboration to a point of, again examine the policies that need to be prioritized that speak to the humanity and the human dignity of everyone. At the same time, to Knox point I agree. I read the report, especially the section on the suit on Sudan, and what's happening in Sudan and comparison to what people are experiencing here in the United States there are major differences being persecuted to the point of death or flogging versus not having the opportunity to gather in your place of worship for a public safety reasons right is not persecution. So, so there are really different ways in which people need to understand the language and experiences of people in the United States versus the people and, and other countries, and I by no means engage in oppression Olympics because one atrocity that impacts one person is way too many. And so we have to make sure that we get a better sense and understanding of what's happening internationally but also not dismiss the things that are happening here in the United States and so what I find is in some spaces and historically speaking, the religious freedom world has been a very, a very white male dominated world and so I find it very interesting that I'm the only woman that's represented on this call today to have this conversation, but that I believe that is changing and my hope in terms of the change that will happen in terms of generationally is again more young people are getting involved now. Shout out to my colleague Alicia Johnson, who works with our youth organizing fellows, which are young people across the country that are trying to get a better understanding of religious freedom and church state issues that are happening now. So these young people these youth leaders are going to be much more progressive in their efforts and, and hopefully effective in their efforts as time continues on, but generation, generationally they have been differences, because the older people sometimes were silenced and told not to speak up, whereas now you know we're encouraged to say something to speak up and then see how it was the thread that binds our humanity together and for us to address those issues that and so yeah they're major differences geographically, as well as generationally. Thank you so much and we're moving towards the end of our time so I'll start to wrap us up but I, I appreciate your comments there Sabrina as well because it's a reminder and something I was going to add at the end was that one of our panelists unfortunately had a last minute scheduling the reference Susie Hayward. And so we very much appreciated the way of echoing my appreciation also for Billy for jumping in here to speak to us about what's going on in Burma, but also then to echo I think what you're saying Sabrina which is that that one thing this conversation is hopefully doing is highlighting both the all the voices that we need to be thinking about all the voices that are part of this conversation. And I would encourage those who are joining us to visit the institutions that we all are representing today and so the United States Institute of Peace you'll also see that our research project on religious discrimination is in trying to broaden the voices that are also in part of this conversation. Since we're nearing the end of time. If any of our panelists wanted to offer a very brief final remark, I would welcome that. Otherwise we'll close did anybody have one last thing they really wanted to say I don't want to cut you off to abruptly. Jason, the one thing I wanted to add as far as my last remark is I want people to understand that generations should not compete with each other that generations should work together. Because there is the wisdom of the past and the wisdom of the present that needs to work together to move us towards a better future so it takes all of us to do this work. Perfect thank you and a nox or Billy anything it's absolutely fine. Thank you for hosting us today and it's been a great discussion and really appreciate the insights of my co panel. A very quick point is kind of going on this narrative of cross international kind of narratives is, I think it's important for us to kind of avoid the, the single story bias that our media kind of points us towards that when there's only the one story of a place like Myanmar which is a place of tremendous suffering or that one story. There's no possibility of feeling a more complex emotion than pity. So I feel like trying to understand the, the complexity and avoiding this single story kind of bias is, is really important to that process of understanding and compassion and transformation so I'll just conclude with that. Thank you again to all of our panelists Billy Ford knocks teams and Sabrina Dent. Thank you for joining us and spending the last 75 minutes with us. As we've emphasized, we hope this conversation invites additional discussion we hope this is the beginning of not an end point. And, as I mentioned at the top of our discussion that we are representing or discussing set of context today in the hope of raising awareness of a broader set of voices and so I'll just end by also mentioned that part of this discussion will carry on here at the University of Notre Dame where Asma will be presenting her work on religious freedom as part of a conference on June 29. You can look at the Ansari Institute website more for more information. Now also echo again that the United States Institute of Peace we're continuing. It's not just the work what we're doing but the collaboration with people you're seeing represented today the institutions with which they work, and the communities in which we're discussing. We hope to have future events that would bring in those voices from those countries. It was a little difficult to do that for this presentation, because of some of the infrastructure problems we for example would hope to bring in our partners from Sudan but stay tuned for that information and those discussions. Thank you for joining our cosponsors again the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and the United States Institute of Peace. Again, thank you for joining us and please feel free to reach out and touch base or follow up with any of the speakers you've seen today. Thank you very much we look forward to continuing the discussion.