Timothy Shah, Senior Director, Religious Freedom Institute (File Photo)
Timothy Shah, Senior Director of the Religious Freedom Institute’s South and Southeast Asia Action Team, delivered a private briefing for military leaders from the Near East and South Asia region on the critical role religious freedom plays in addressing the rising challenges posed by religion-related violence and terrorism.
The Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University convened a seminar September 11-22, 2017 looking at the need to move beyond a “whole of government” approach to security and consider a “whole of society” approach.
As Dr. Shah made clear in his presentation, drawing on a growing body of research, it is evident that religion-related violence is an increasing source of security concerns. There are two common approaches to this: 1) Greater restrictions on religion or 2) Greater religious freedom. The evidence makes clear that greater restrictions lead to an increase in religion-related violence both domestically and transnationally.
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“The best environment for preventing and reducing violent extremism (both secular and religious) is an environment of real religious freedom and tolerance.Therefore, the best thing religion can do to fight against violent extremism is to fight for religious freedom for everyone, including groups with which we do not agree.”
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