“Lessons Learned from Public Policy in Colombia to Identify Violations of Religious Freedom” by John Fredy Osorio Cardona

Photo of Cocora Valley, Colombia by Fernanda Fierro on Unsplash. This article is part of our virtual symposium and essay series, “Masking Religious Freedom Violations.” Read more here. Preliminary Contributions of Public Policy Colombia is one of the few countries worldwide with a public policy exclusively dedicated to ensuring the right to religious freedom. This

“Regulation of FoRB Rights by Organized Crime in Mexico: A Real Although Largely Overlooked Issue” by Teresa I. Flores

San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León by Mexico Fotos (CC BY SA 2.0). This article is part of our virtual symposium and essay series, “Masking Religious Freedom Violations.” Read more here. On October 20, 2024, two people on a motorcycle shot at priest Marcelo Perez Perez’s vehicle as he left the parish of Guadalupe, located

“Lifting the Mask on Undetected Religious Freedom Violations” by Dennis P. Petri

Costa Rican Pacific Coast, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) This article is part of our virtual symposium and essay series, “Masking Religious Freedom Violations.” Read more here. In 2006, Brian Grim and Roger Finke noted that religion was largely absent from international quantitative studies, partly due to a lack of high-quality data. Today, this gap

“Religious Diplomacy in the Organization of American States: Challenges for the Promotion of Religious Freedom in the Americas” by Marcela A. Bordón Lugo

Interfaith Harmony at the Department of World Religions and Culture by Monir Uddin Jowel (CC BY-SA 4.0) The following essay is reprinted and adapted on Canopy Forum in collaboration with the journal Derecho en Sociedad, a biannual electronic publication that is free and open access. Their issue 18(2) features full length articles in Spanish and English. Read Lugo’s long-form

“Towards a Multidimensional Understanding of Places of Worship for Rights Balancing in Colombia” by John Osorio

Image by Neidy Girado from Pixabay (license). The following essay is reprinted and adapted on Canopy Forum in collaboration with the journal Derecho en Sociedad, a biannual electronic publication that is free and open access. Their issue 18(2) features full length articles in Spanish and English. Read Osorio’s long-form essay on places of worship in Colombia here. The following

“Normative Development of Religious Freedom in Latin America: Counter-Transfer of Religious Policies” by Camila A. Sánchez Sandoval

Santuario de Las Lajas, Ipiales, Colombia by Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0) The following essay is reprinted and adapted on Canopy Forum in collaboration with the journal Derecho en Sociedad, a biannual electronic publication that is free and open access. Their issue 18(2) features full length articles in Spanish and English. Read Sandoval’s long-form essay on Religious Freedom in

“Cuba: A Legal Framework that Restricts the Right to Religious Freedom” by Teresa I. Flores

Image of Palacio del Centro Asturiano, Havana, Cuba by Carol M. Highsmith (CC0) The following essay is reprinted and adapted on Canopy Forum in collaboration with the journal Derecho en Sociedad, a biannual electronic publication that is free and open access. Their issue 18(2) features full length articles in Spanish and English. Read Flores’ long-form essay on the Cuban

“The Violent Incidents Database: A Social Innovation for Religious Freedom” by Dennis P. Petri and Kyle Wisdom

Casa de la Libertad (Freedom House) in Sucre, Bolivia by Dan Lundberg (CC BY-SA 2.0). The Growing Sophistication of Religious Freedom Monitoring When considering research and political attention for religious freedom, we have really come a long way. For a long time, secularization theory was dominant in social sciences. Back in the nineteenth century, German

“From the Pope’s Hand to Indigenous Lands Alexander VI in Spanish Imperialism” by Matthew P. Cavedon

“From the Pope’s Hand to Indigenous Lands: Alexander VI in Spanish Imperialism”Matthew P. Cavedon The following is an introduction followed by an adapted excerpt from Matt Cavedon’s new book, “From the Pope’s Hand to Indigenous Lands.” With permission from Brill Academic Publishers, 2023. In 1493, shortly after Christopher Columbus returned from his first voyage to

“Under the Protection of God: Does the Preamble of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 Allow Freedom of Expression solely for Christians?” by Damião Benilson Gomes de Melo, Rafaela Albuquerque Fires & J. Ernesto Pimentel Filho

Picture of the Supremo Tribunal Federal in Brazil by Dennis W. Asfour (CC BY-SA 4.0). In Brazil, the constitutional preamble of the 1988 Federal Constitution contains the expression “under the protection of God,” which has sparked debates for many years regarding its legally binding relevance. A landmark decision (the ADI 2076) even addressed whether the