Ray Takeyh is Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His areas of specialization are Iran, U.S. foreign policy and the modern Middle East. Prior to joining CFR, he served as senior advisor on Iran at the State Department and was a fellow at Yale University, […]

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan commission created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) that monitors religious freedom violations abroad and makes policy recommendations to the U.S. federal government.

Mehdi Khalaji is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy specializing in Shiʿa politics and Iran’s religious establishment. 

Lindsay Rodriguez is Director of Development & Advocacy at Coptic Solidarity.

Pari Ibrahim is the founder and Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation (FYF).

International Christian Concern (ICC) is a Washington, D.C.-based, interdenominational human rights organization founded in 1995 that assists Christians they say are facing persecution worldwide. Press contact is Alex Finch.

Candace Lukasik is Assistant Professor of Religion and Faculty Affiliate in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures at Mississippi State University. Her research explores religion and the transnational politics of violence, migration, race, and indigeneity in the Middle East, specifically Egypt and Iraq, and its US diasporas.

Open Doors International is a global Christian non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of Christian minority populations in over 70 countries. It provides Bibles, training and emergency relief while raising awareness of what it says is persecution through its annual World Watch List. Open Doors US CEO is Ryan Brown. Media contact for the World […]

Erika Gault is Director of the Center for the Study of African American Religious Life and the Lilly Endowment Curator of African American Religious History at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and  Culture. Her work focuses on the intersection of religious history, technology and urban black life in post-industrial America.