Dr. Dennis Petri and Dr. Kyle Wisdom participated in the International Religious Freedom Summit representing the International Institute for Religious Freedom. The IRF Summit is a civil society-led event, supported by a diverse coalition of partners who care passionately about advancing the cause of international religious freedom. This year, 2024, marked the fourth annual meeting of the Summit. This two-day event took place in Washington DC at the end of January.
Dr. Dennis Petri, IIRF International Director, participated in the panel discussion concerning “Social Innovation for Religious Freedom” where he introduced the Violent Incidents Database (VID), and shared the methodology applied during the research and collection of incidents. Dr. Petri placed the unique contribution of the VID in sociological approaches, many of which had blind spots due to the dominance of the secularization thesis. We invite you to visit the Violent Incidents Database to see the results.
“Talked to Dennis Petri at the IRF Summit where he presented a new tool in tracking persecution. Glad this is taking off and looking forward to seeing how it can be used to advance religious freedom globally!” – Timothy Kristian Goropevsek, Executive Director at Christian Daily International.
On the second day of the event, Dr. Kyle Wisdom, Deputy Director of IIRF, participated in the panel on “Concerning Trends in Latin America” where he presented how the violent incidents database supported IIRF research on Latin America and highlighted the importance of reporting and data collection. This provides more visibility on the violation of religious freedom by the state and criminal organizations. Dr. Wisdom mentioned USCIRF’s recent publication on Indigenous communities which was conducted by some of IIRF’s researchers. This report highlighted overlooked religious freedom violations by non-state actors and affecting indigenous communities.
Among the IIRF’s flagship projects is the Violent Incident Database (VID), a comprehensive initiative aimed at collecting, recording, and analyzing incidents related to violations of religious freedom across the globe. To access the VID please click here or scroll down to the bottom of this page.
We also invite you to read our reports on religious freedom violations, among them the collaboration with USCIRF on the situation of Religious Freedom of Indigenous communities in Latin America, you can read it here.