In 2008, Fariba Kamalabadi, the mother of a friend and former classmate, was arrested by Iranian officials and taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.  She was accused of “espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities, and propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”  Her real crime: her position in the Yaran, the leadership of Iran’s Baha’i community.  In Iran, Baha’is face discrimination in employment and education, are not permitted to practice their religion publicly, and have faced arbitrary arrests and acts of violence.

The persecution of the Baha’i community in Iran is just one example of the way the fundamental human right of religious freedom is threatened around the world today.  Human dignity demands the protection of this right, which is essential to the common good — to the creation of conditions that allow for the full development of the human person.  This right is based on the recognition of free will and the social and spiritual nature of the human person.

It is a right that is recognized internationally and globally in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.  Article 18 states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”  It is based on “the inherent dignity” and “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family,” and these human rights serve as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

Religious freedom also has a rich tradition in the United States, though our record is imperfect.  The right to follow one’s conscience and determine one’s religion is deeply embedded in the national narrative of American history.  President Franklin Roosevelt included freedom of worship in his four freedoms, along with freedom of speech and freedom from fear and want.  One is hard-pressed to successfully come up with a more succinct list of the most essential human rights.

The Church’s commitment to this right has certainly been checkered at best (and often downright hostile to its existence), but this changed with Vatican II.  In Dignitatis Humanae, the Church recognized the duty of individual persons to pursue religious truth and rejected external coercion as a legitimate means to ensuring adherence to the Catholic (or any other) faith.

The issue of religious liberty has been a hot topic for American Catholics this year.  During this time, my thoughts have continually turned abroad to those whose very existence has been threatened by religious persecution. Earlier this month, the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies (where I am a graduate fellow) hosted a conference on international religious freedom, where Cardinal Timothy Dolan expressed how essential it is to address not just domestic religious liberty, but also international religious freedom.  Dolan quoted Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See, who said, “Of course, nobody would confuse or equate this marginalization of religion with the actual persecution and killing of Christians in other areas of the world.”  Dolan noted that efforts to focus exclusively on domestic threats to religious liberty would be “hollow and hypocritical if not coupled with a ringing solicitude for those under more overtly violent attack throughout the world.”

In the conference’s keynote address, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi spelled out the gravity of the situation, saying, “The age of martyrs is still with us.”  Around 150,000 Christians are killed each year for their faith.  Tens of thousands from other religions share their fate.  Many are forced to flee their homes and communities, leaving behind the lives they have built to escape brutality and death.  According to the State Department, over a billion people live under governments that “systematically suppress religious freedoms.”  Numerous other countries meanwhile simply lack the state capacity to ensure the protection of minority religious groups and their ability to practice their faiths freely.

From a sectarian viewpoint, Christians have great incentives to do more to protect our coreligionists.  From an authentically Catholic perspective, more should be done to ensure that every single person lives in a place where this right is protected.  After all, we should care just as much about our Baha’i brothers as our Christian sisters.  At a fundamental level, we are one family, one community.  Human rights are universal and inviolable.

More can and should be done by the United States to promote human rights and specifically religious freedom.  To that end, the Arab Spring offers both great possibilities and greater uncertainties.  Extremists are hoping to destroy the hopes of liberal and democratic reformers in the region.  The strain on already weak governments threatens to undo the progress created by the overthrow of repressive regimes.  Yet there are many reasons to remain hopeful, including the reaction of the Libyan people to the tragic slaying of Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Democratization and human rights have a complex relationship with one another.  In the long-term, free democracies clearly offer the greatest protection of human rights.  In the short-term, steps to increase democratic participation may result in diminished human rights protections, particularly for minority communities, including religious minorities.

Determining when and how to support democratization in order to ensure a greater protection of basic rights is no easy task.  Nor is it easy to balance these efforts with those designed to ensure physical and economic security.  The threats of terrorism and poverty cannot be ignored.  The Church’s desire is for progressive change that leads to effective, democratic government that respects basic rights and ensures environmentally sustainable, socially just economic development.  It is no small challenge for these states to achieve this, particularly in the face of violent opposition.

From the perspective of Catholic social teaching, the protection of human rights is more closely connected to the common good than the form of government.  Freedom of religion is a fundamental right that should exist everywhere and is integral to human flourishing and the global common good, while the structure of government can vary based on local conditions.  At the same time, tyranny breeds ignorance, resentment, and hatred.  Religious fundamentalism, which Pope Benedict XVI has called the falsification of religion, has often flourished in these conditions.  Authoritarian regimes frequently smash civil society and prevent the development of necessary prerequisites to the strong protection of human rights.  Totalitarian regimes obliterate these.  Libya and Egypt are just two places where democrats are thus forced to battle illiberal, anti-democratic forces for control of the state.

Ultimately, in places like Syria and Iraq, if forced to choose between brutal authoritarian regimes, Islamist totalitarian states, and imperfect democracies that fail to ensure the protection of all basic human rights, I would tend to side with the last option.  It is by far the most promising for the long-term protection of basic rights, despite the diminished state capacity that often exists in newly democratized nations and the possibility that democratization could be reversed if nondemocratic forces win an election.  The support of the majority is essential for the durable, enduring protection of rights.

Truthfully, the impact on Christians may be worse with illiberal democratically-elected regimes in power.  If Christians were aligned with the previous regime against the majority of the population (or even if that is merely perceived to be the case), a backlash is likely.  If chaos ensues as a police state breaks down, anti-Christian groups may launch campaigns of violent persecution.  In these scenarios, many Christians will flee for safety and many may never return.

The Arab Spring may result in the rise of governments whose protection of rights, including religious freedom, are unacceptable by the standards of advanced democracies.  But if democratic elections continue, we are likely to see the development of civil society, more responsible political parties, and the strengthening of other building blocks for secure free democracies.  It may be the best hope for the emergence of an Islamic Democracy movement that resembles the development of Christian Democracy in Western Europe, one that reconciles Islam with pluralism, democracy, and human rights.

The Arab Spring was never going to erase overnight the maladies created by decades of tyranny and immediately usher in a golden age of democracy and human rights in the region.  The process was always going to include both progress and steps backward.  In the United States, human beings were owned for decades after the revolution and the evil of segregation persisted for another century.  Building authentic democracy and freedom takes time.

Those who believe an Islamist Winter is the inevitable result of the Arab Spring are premature in their judgments.  As Fareed Zakaria reminds us, the number of those protesting against the US in the Arab world is “in the hundreds – perhaps thousands – in countries with tens of millions of people.”  And while “they make for vivid images…they do not tell the whole story.”  Many who opposed the Arab Spring are merely looking to justify their record of siding with brutal regimes and their opposition to efforts to stop the massacre of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Benghazi.  The battle for democracy and human rights in the Arab world has only just begun.

The need to do more to protect the right to religious freedom extends well beyond the Arab world and must include efforts to guarantee this fundamental right in places such as China and Vietnam.  The hope has been that engagement will lead to prosperity, which will then lead to the rise of a middle class that demands participation in government and the protection of basic rights.

Many in China have turned to religion to escape the emptiness of materialism and there seems to be an increased demand for the freedom of religion.  But China’s authoritarian elites cling tenaciously to power.  They speak the language of human rights, but persecute its authentic defenders.

The US does not have a great deal of leverage over China, but human rights, not just trade considerations, must be a top priority.  And while other human rights issues, such as the freedom of speech, democracy promotion, and the one child policy are critical, religious freedom must not be excluded.

Symbolic acts and speech often do little to change policies.  And at times they can harm efforts to achieve essential cooperation on UN action to halt atrocities, prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and address other real concerns.  However, rhetorical defenses of human rights and democracy (and its heroic defenders) often genuinely inspire those resisting tyranny and they place the US on the right side of history.  Speeches defending dissidents and promoting human rights should not replace negotiation and diplomacy, but they should not disappear, because in the end, only democratization and the end of authoritarianism are likely to bring about a full, durable protection of fundamental human rights, including religious freedom.  We owe it to people like Fariba Kamalabadi to publicly stand on their side in the fight for freedom.