The event gives Donald Trump a spotlight for showing his pro-Christian bona fides. It also gives the president’s critics a platform to assail what they see as his hypocrisy on human rights. | Andrew Harnik, File/AP Photo U.S. gathering on religious freedom sets up competing narratives The event is drawing dozens of countries and hundreds of activists, some who say they’ll call out what they see as Trump’s human rights hypocrisy.

The U.S. will host a first-of-its-kind gathering on international religious freedom next week, an assembly being hailed by evangelical voters who helped propel President Donald Trump into office.

The three-day Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom has become the hottest ticket in Washington, with more than 80 countries sending delegations, hundreds of rights activists attending, and a number of others being shut out for political reasons as well as lack of space.


The gathering gives Trump a high-wattage spotlight for showing his pro-Christian bona fides to the evangelical voters who helped him win the Oval Office. But it also gives the president’s critics a platform to assail what they see as his hypocrisy on human rights, especially when it comes to Muslims, whom Trump once proposed banning from U.S. soil.

“We’re living in the eye of a paradox: Both narratives are out there and perception is reality,” said Chris Seiple, a religious-freedom expert who advised the ministerial organizers. He said the Trump administration is trying to tackle the topic without favoring any one religious group, and in doing so is setting “a new precedent in diplomatic history on this issue in that it is bringing together governments and grass roots — top-down and bottom-up meet.”

The administration is heavily promoting the assembly, set for Tuesday through Thursday at the State Department. At least 40 foreign ministers are expected to show, including some from countries with questionable religious-rights records. Vice President Mike Pence, who has close ties to evangelical Christian groups, is planning to deliver a speech on the event’s final day.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has talked up the gathering in several interviews in recent days, calling it a “historic opportunity.”

“Religious freedom is something that’s very important to me personally; it’s very important to President Trump,” Pompeo told ABC Radio Australia. “And the State Department is going to lead the world in opening up religious freedom to every citizen.”

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When Pompeo announced the event in May, he indicated that most countries asked to send delegations would be “like-minded” — with good records on religious freedom — but that some trying to improve their standing could also get invited.

But according to a State Department staffer, countries that managed to snag seats include Bahrain and Hungary, whose governments have been accused of hostility toward some religious groups. In Bahrain, Shiite Muslims, many of whom are opposition activists, have faced crackdowns by the Sunni-led monarchy. Hungary’s increasingly autocratic ruling party has faced a backlash over a law stripping recognition from a range of religious groups.

But China, Saudi Arabia and most other so-called Countries of Particular Concern — as designated by the State Department — were left off the invite list. One exception is Uzbekistan, a CPC country that appears to have made significant progress in improving its religious-rights record; it has been invited to set an example for others.

“There is clearly an effort here to use the peer pressure of the international community to urge respect for religious freedom,” said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council and a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “The importance of this is to send a very strong message that America is once again concerned about religious freedom. They see it not as an American right, but as a human right.”

The State Department staffer said that Russia and Turkey, whose religious-rights records have been increasingly problematic, were left off the invite list. The staffer added that administration officials hoped to highlight in particular the religious abuses by the government of Iran, an Islamist-led country that the Trump administration has singled out for pressure to the point where analysts say it is effectively aiming for regime change.

On the civil-society front, the administration is taking an inclusive approach: Invitees range from atheists to Scientologists, according to the State Department staffer. Representatives of more broad-based organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, are also on the list. Many are hosting side events.

Trump, who avoids church and has a long history of sexual dalliances, has more than any president in modern history delivered on promises to evangelical voters, who helped propel him into the White House. In January, he became the first sitting president to address the annual March for Life rally in Washington. By the conclusion of next week’s event, the administration expects to announce a series of proposals, including plans for other countries to replicate U.S. institutions, as well as naming religious-freedom ambassadors.

“There will be some very tangible items which the administration wants to release,” Perkins said. “But the biggest thing here is this sends a message, a significant message, that religious freedom is a priority for the United States."

Brian Hook, a top aide to Pompeo, said in a recent interview with Crux, a news site focused on Catholicism, that the administration “decided to convene a ministerial on religious freedom because we don’t think that enough attention has been given to the persecution of Christian minorities around the world.”

The State Department sidestepped questions from POLITICO about whether this was indeed the case, but Pompeo and others have been careful not to make it appear that one religion will get more attention than others.

Still, few religious groups are as excited about the gathering as evangelical Christians. While activists in that category have been exceptionally supportive of Trump’s broader agenda, they haven’t always been happy with the administration’s handling of Christian persecution abroad. In particular, they have pressured the administration to send more aid to Christians in Iraq, who the U.S. has said were facing a genocide under the rule of the Islamic State terrorist network.

Pence last October promised U.S. Christian-rights activists that the administration would speed up and increase aid to those endangered Christians. Earlier this summer, he came under withering criticism from lawmakers and activists who said the aid had not materialized. Under pressure from the vice president, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced shortly afterward new measures to direct tens of millions of dollars more in aid to the religious minorities.

Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and a vocal advocate for Christian minorities in the Middle East, said she and others were closely watching to see whether Pence and USAID would make good on their latest promise. Still, she praised the upcoming ministerial.

“It’s substantive and important,” she said. “It’s an important networking opportunity for all of us. But it also will be directed at creating institutions in other governments for advancing religious freedom around the world.”

The three-day event is being held 20 years after President Bill Clinton signed into law the International Religious Freedom Act, which requires the president and Congress to weigh religious freedom issues in U.S. foreign policy.

It will include opportunities for survivors of religious persecution to share their stories at a time when authoritarianism is on the rise and parts of the world are seeing spikes in religious oppression. One group likely to get special attention is the Rohingya, Muslims subjected to what the U.S. labels an ethnic cleansing campaign by Myanmar’s Buddhist-dominated army.

The gathering will also include opportunities for activists to raise concerns with U.S. officials. Human rights activists, while stressing that they are happy the U.S. is holding the ministerial, say they will not hold back in criticizing the Trump administration.

In particular, they expect to raise questions about the president’s views on Muslims, whom he has denigrated on multiple occasions, and his administration’s dramatic reduction of the number of refugees the U.S. accepts. Many refugees are fleeing religious persecution.

In addition, rights activists say they will make it clear to the administration that it cannot use religious freedom as a proxy for all sorts of human rights. To that end, they will probably criticize its decision to quit the U.N. Human Rights Council, Trump’s affinity for authoritarian leaders, his attacks on the news media and his repeated proposals to slash funding for foreign aid.

“This is an administration that has been, to put it plainly, horrendous on human rights, so many in the human rights community are appropriately skeptical,” said one top official with a prominent organization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. “As always with these big, flashy ministerials, however, actions will speak louder than words, so the meeting really needs to be judged on what it produces.”