Right to religious liberty must be defended - Meloni

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 22 - Premier Giorgia Meloni said Thursday that her government was committed to defending religious freedom around the world, saying it was a right that is too frequently not respected.
    "Religious freedom is not a second-tier right," Meloni said in a video message for the presentation of the XVI edition of the Religious Freedom Around the World report published by the Aiuto alla Chiesa che Soffre (Help the Church that Suffers) foundation.
    "It is not a freedom that comes after others and it cannot be forgotten in favour of new freedoms or rights," she continued, recalling Pope Francis's words on the danger of "educated persecution dressed up as culture, modernity, progress.
    "It is profoundly mistaken to think that one must reject one's own identity, including religious identity, to receive others," she continued.
    "Unfortunately the right to religious freedom is still trampled on in too many nations around the world, often in almost total indifference.
    "Being silent about the denial of religious liberty is the same as being complicit.
    "We don't intend to be. It is everyone's duty to defend religious freedom".
    She said her government has allocated 10 million euros to interventions to help persecuted Christians in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria and Pakistan, adding that it was only a first step and "many others will follow".
    The report said that religious freedom is not respected in 61 of the world's 196 States, around one in three.
    It said Africa was the continent where this freedom was most frequently restricted. China and North Korea were the biggest-offending States on this front, it said.
    It said 4.9 billion people, 62% of the global population, live in nations where religious freedom is restricted in a major way.
    (ANSA).