Kent Hill addressed the role of international actors in assisting religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East as part of a panel of experts with experience in the region. Hill was joined in the discussion by Christine van den Toorn, Director of Institute of Regional and International Studies at the American University of Sulaimani, and Sherri Talabany, President of SEED Foundation. 

The address came as part of a day-long conference that brought numerous speakers from the region to provide a first-hand account of the situation to inform policymakers about the continuing travail of religious and ethnic minorities threatened by the Islamic State, and to galvanize long-term thinking about addressing this crisis

The event was jointly hosted by the U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom and the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. 

Knox Thames, U.S. State Department, Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South/Central Asia

Ambassador David Saperstein, U.S. State Department, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom

Robert A. Destro, Professor of Law and founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law & Religion at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law.

Kent Hill, Executive Director, Religious Freedom Institute