CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY WORLDWIDE (CSW)
http://www.csw.org.uk/
Mission/Mandate:
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is a Christian advocacy organisation with the aim of promoting religious freedom worldwide. It seeks to influence governments on religious freedom issues (CSW Website, http://www.csw.org.uk/aboutus.htm, accessed on 5 February 2008).
“The organisation began in 1979 as the UK branch of the Swiss based organization, Christian Solidarity International. It was founded following an inter-denominational march in protest at the imprisonment of Russian Baptist Pastor, Georgi Vins. It adopted the name Christian Solidarity Worldwide in 1997.” (Wikipedia: Christian Solidarity Worldwide, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Solidarity_Worldwide, accessed on 5 February 2008)
Target group:
UK and European parliamentarians, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other European foreign ministries, the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the US Administration and the United Nations as well as key decision makers in the international community (CSW Website, http://www.csw.org.uk/whatwedo.htm, accessed on 5 February 2008).
Objective:
CSW seeks to promote religious freedom by gathering current, accurate, first-hand information on religious freedom issues and by making this information available to a broad public and to higher order decision makers. CSW actively approaches governments and key officials with information about specific cases of abuse or injustice (CSW Website, http://www.csw.org.uk/whatwedo.htm, accessed on 5 February 2008).
Funding:
Scope of reporting:
Geographic focus: Algeria, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Indonesia, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Peru, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkey, Vietnam (CSW Website, http://www.csw.org.uk/countriesoffocus.htm, accessed on 5 February 2008).
Thematic focus: Persecution because of religious belief and violations of religious freedom, with a focus on Christians.
Reporting methodology:
Regular fact-finding visits, information from CSW’s network of contacts around the world (including partners from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, India, Burkina Faso, France, USA, Sri Lanka and Norway), oral information, publicly available information.
Publication cycle:
Annual reports, giving a full account of the organisation’s activities; bimonthly Response magazine featuring latest news and articles.
The CSW website contains a frequently updated news section as well as case studies of persecution victims and country profiles which introduce selected countries’ human rights and religious freedom records (CSW Website, http://www.csw.org.uk/christianpersecution.htm, accessed on 5 February 2008).
Language:
English.
Navigation of website:
The Website is divided into the two sub-sites “Get Involved” and “In depth”.
Latest news, countries of focus and case studies are accessible via Christian persecution today in the menu bar on the left side of the Get Involved site (http://www.csw.org.uk/christianpersecution.htm, accessed on 5 February 2008). The Response magazine, annual reports and country profiles are accessible via Library on the same menu bar (http://www.csw.org.uk/library.htm, accessed on 5 February 2008).
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