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Forum 18

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Norwegian human rights organization

Forum 18 is a Norwegian human rights organization that promotesreligious freedom. The organization's name is based on Article 18 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights. Forum 18 summarizes the article as:

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief^[1]

TheForum 18 News Service, established by Forum 18 on March 12, 2003, is a web and e-mail initiative to report on threats and actions against the religious freedom of all people, whatever their religious affiliation, in an objective, truthful and timely manner. The first three reporters to lead this project were Felix Corley, Geraldine Fagan, andIgor Rotar. They had previously done similar reporting for the UK-based Keston News Service^[2] and continued this work at Forum 18 afterKeston Institute closed its news service due to financial difficulties and staff changes.^[3]

The news service concentrates on the states of Eastern Europe, includingBelarus andRussia, the South Caucasus, includingAzerbaijan andGeorgia, andCentral Asia,^[4] includingTajikistan,^[5]Turkmenistan,^[6] andUzbekistan,^[7]^[8].

It earlier published reports onKosovo,^[9]Macedonia,Serbia,Turkey,Burma,China^[10] (includingXinjiang),Laos,Mongolia,North Korea,^[11] andVietnam.

The news service is published in two editions: a weekly news summary each Friday; and an almost daily edition published on weekdays. There is a searchable archive of reports, including religious freedom surveys of countries and regions, and personal commentaries on religious freedom issues.

In August 2005 one of the organisation'sreporters was detained and deported by the authorities atTashkent airport in Uzbekistan,^[12] but it carries on covering that country.

Forum 18 News Service's reports on religious freedom are widely used by international organizations likeAmnesty International,^[13]Human Rights Watch,^[14] and theOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE),^[15] as well as numerous news sites with different religious affiliation (i.e.Muslim,^[16]Christian,^[17]Bahá'í,^[18] andBuddhist^[19]).