At last month’s European Religious liberty Forum (at which 25 religious liberty specialists, including representatives from 7 national EAs gathered), conversations were able to continue on how to help asylum seekers and refugees facing religious liberty difficulties. By facilitating sharing between refugee ministry and religious liberty experts, we are identifying the best ways of how

1. To record incidents of harassment and attack so that local, national and European advocacy can take place in order to bring about improvements.
2. To improve the running of refugee reception centres in order to guarantee good community between peoples of different faiths.
3. To ensure immigration officials assess an asylum seeker’s conversion fairly.
4. Churches can support asylum seekers prepare for interview, without interfering in the legal process.
5. To support Christians who are being forced to return to countries where they are likely to face severe persecution.

  Sadly, due to political and/or resource pressure at national level, we know that many Christian asylum seekers face huge difficulty in receiving a fair assessment of their asylum claim. Already 100s are being returned to danger, and this is likely to increase to 1000s if not 100s of 1000s.  So many of the refugees coming to Europe are from countries who feature high up in Open Doors World Watch List . Thank you for working with us to try to change this situation.