Armenian Legal Center’s Nahapetian to Speak at International Conference on Religious Freedom

WASHINGTON—Director of the Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights (ALC) Kate Nahapetian will participate in a panel discussion on Dec. 6 as part of the Third Annual International Conference on Religious Freedom. The conference is being held in Washington D.C. and is organized by the Order of St. Andrew, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The overarching theme of this year’s conference will be “Persecution of Christians in the Holy Lands and the Middle East: Consequences and Solutions.” Nahapetian will be speaking about the challenges facing Armenians and other religious minorities in Turkey seeking to secure and protect holy sites and properties.

Joining Nahapetian as fellow panelists will be Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, the Diocesan legate in Washington and ecumenical director of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America; Ambassador Patrick Theros, former U.S. ambassador to Qatar; Christina Hioureas, chair of the Foley Hoag United Nations Practice Group; and Rabbi Arthur Schneier, president and founder of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation.

The panel will be chaired by Dr. Anthony Limberakis, national commander of the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; it will be moderated by Elizabeth Prodromou of the Tufts University Fletcher School for Law & Diplomacy.

Members of Congress and religious-freedom advocates will also be speaking at the conference, including Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), James Lankford (R-Okla.); US Representatives Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Chris Smith (R-N.J.); Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom vice chair; and Jay Sekulow, American Center for Law and Justice chief counsel.

The ALC fights to redress human rights violations emanating from the Armenian Genocide that continue to this day and undermine stability in a region that has for far too long been marred by policies founded on genocide, not human rights and justice.

The ALC promotes scholarship on the legal avenues for addressing the challenges emanating from the Armenian Genocide, in addition to pursuing cases in national and international courts, while promoting the protection of Armenian cultural heritage through the return of stolen properties and artifacts.

For more information on the conference, visit http://conference.archons.org/.