How the Trump Administration Advances Global Religious Freedom

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Heritage Foundation

For Americans, religious liberty is in our DNA. The pursuit of that freedom is what brought the Pilgrims to our shores nearly 400 years ago.  

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, believed so strongly in religious liberty that he authored Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom, and when it became law, he called for it to be translated into multiple languages and widely distributed.

We see that same spirit in the appearance of religious freedom in the very first line of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights—perhaps because our Founding Fathers saw religious liberty as giving meaning to all of our other freedoms.

That’s why the Trump administration has welcomed, listened to, and defended faith communities like no other White House has before.  

Last week, at the second ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, more than 1,000 people from over 130 countries gathered to celebrate that commitment. 

It was a needed show of solidarity. In today’s world, too many people in too many places suffer violence and persecution merely for practicing their faith. 

We see it in Europe, where the old scourge of anti-Semitism has once again reared its ugly head and Jews face harassment and violence.

We see it in Sri Lanka, where a series of church bombings on Easter Sunday killed 259 people.  

We see it in New Zealand, where 51 people lost their lives and scores more were injured during horrific shootings at two mosques.  

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After Defeat of ISIS, Iraq’s Christians and Yazidis Adjust to Uneasy Peace

ST.  MATTHEW’S MONASTERY, Iraq—Some 20 miles from Mosul in northern Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, this Christian monastery has stood high on the slopes of Mount Alfaf since the year 363. Once home to about 7,000 monks in the ninth century, it’s among the oldest Christian monasteries in the world. 

Over the centuries, St. Matthew’s Monastery has survived attacks by Kurds, Muslim tribes, and the Mongol emperor Tamerlane. Yet perhaps the direst threat of all came in 2014 when the Islamic State’s terrorist army rampaged across Syria and northern Iraq to take control of Mosul.

Bolstered by a U.S.-led bombing campaign, a force of Kurdish peshmerga fighters—who are Sunni Muslims—stopped the advancing Islamic State militants just 2.5 miles from the beige stone citadel of St. Matthew’s. 

Today, Christians from Mosul and the surrounding villages make the trek up to the historic Syriac Orthodox monastery every Sunday to celebrate mass. 

“It’s safe for us to pray here,” says Besman Naif, 42, a Christian man from the nearby village of Mergey at the foot of Mount Alfaf. “We aren’t safe anywhere else.”

A coalition of Kurdish and Iraqi forces liberated Mosul from the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in 2017. Yet Naif, who is originally from Mosul, says he won’t return to the city anytime soon.

“The Daesh mentality is still there, many well-known terrorists just blended back into the community,” Naif says, using a pejorative Arabic nickname for ISIS. “There are still Daesh cells operating in the city. It’s very dangerous.”