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February 26, 2013 | By USCIRF

USCIRF Chair, Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett testified on February 26, 2013 before the Subcommittee on Middle East and North Africa of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Demonstrations in Tahrir Square: Two Years Later: What Has Changed?

Click here to view the written testimony.

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February 14, 2013 | By Katrina Lantos Swett and Catherine Cosman

The following op-ed appeared in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs on Wednesday, February 13, 2013.  

"Russia is now a police state."

We heard those words from civil society activists in late September during our Moscow visit on behalf of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The words captured their view of Russia today, especially given last year’s targeting of fundamental freedoms, largely in response to protests against Vladimir Putin’s return to Russia’s presidency.

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January 28, 2013| By USCIRF 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "The trial and conviction of Pastor Abedini represent an outrageous miscarriage of justice and  yet one more damning piece of evidence pointing to the rampant denial of religious freedom and the absence of any semblance of rule of law in Iran, " said Katrina Lantos Swett, Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

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January 22, 2013| by Katrina Lantos Swett and M. Zuhdi Jasser

The following op-ed appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Sunday January 20, 2013.

On Wednesday, the United States observed its annual National Religious Freedom Day. This day commemorates the Virginia General Assembly’s adoption in 1786 of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and celebrates the enshrining of this right in the U.S. Constitution and our country’s culture.

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January 16, 2013| By USCIRF

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- USCIRF today called for the immediate release of Saeed Abedeni, an Iranian-American pastor reportedly awaiting a January 21 trial on trumped-up national security charges that date back to 2000 when he lived in Iran.

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January 14, 2013| By Katrina Lantos Swett

The following appeared in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs on January 14, 2013.

Former Soviet prisoner and refusenik Natan Sharansky, Burmese human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi, and Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani are some of the many people across the globe who were unjustly imprisoned for their beliefs.  Fortunately, these three men and women of conscience are now free.  We applaud their lives and the work they have done to advance the cause of freedom and dignity for all.