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I'm Suzan Johnson Cook, I'm the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom
for the United States of America. In that role I am the principal advisor to the President
of the United States, President Barack Obama, and the Secretary of State of the United States,
Secretary Hillary Clinton, advising them on religious freedom around the world.
Public diplomacy, where I go out and share the message of religious freedom. Second is
our International Religious Freedom Report: it's an annual report that my office of twenty
staff put together each year. We've just released recently the last one, the last half of 2010,
and in the spring we'll be releasing 2011. And then we have grants that we also give
to global organizations that are promoting religious freedom or combating places where
it's not working.
I am the third Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom. I come from a background
of being a faith leader from the state of New York, having been the president of the
largest African-American clergy group in the world, over 12,000 leaders. I come from a
Parish ministry background, where I've also served on the ground with local congregations.
I come from being the only female chaplain for the New York City Police Department for
21 years. Being on the frontlines of 9/11 I've been very involved in interfaith engagement
and dialogue, I've been very involved in terms of terrorism and extremism, and learning to
find common ground among people all over the world.
All over the world there are many challenges, and, as our report indicated, from 198 countries
there were certain regions of the world, certainly, that are having challenges. Places such as
France, that are prohibiting women from wearing certain kinds of head garments, which, you
know, for Muslim society restricts them from expressing their beliefs. Their attire goes
with their culture and their religion. Hungary, which has deregistered many of the churches
or the worship houses, and those are issues that are very important to us. So, we are
interested in a lot of countries, there are many challenges, but those are two that I
would cite.
Well number one what they can do is allow people to be heard. Here, today, I presented
my statement on behalf of the United States of America, on the issue of religious freedom,
but there were 34 other people signed up to speak as well, so the issue is very prevalent
and people want the opportunity to be heard and express their views. The list has to be
closed, it was so large! So number one is a listening forum. Number two it provides
opportunities for bilateral meetings and conversations with the countries that we have concerns and
challenges with and also allows them an opportunity to express their concerns to us.
I also wanted to let people know of my accessibility and availability. With social media being
one of the tools I am available on Facebook, and people can also follow the journey and
also be in touch with me by Twitter. So, again, that's www.facebook.com/rfambassador or irfambassador@twitter.