Notre Dame Law School’s Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, Bellwether International, and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice released the second annual Religious Prisoners of Conscience: An Advocacy Brief Prepared for the IRF Summit Community. These organizations have played a central role in supporting the International Religious Freedom Summit’s 2026 Religious Prisoners of Conscience Campaign, which advocates on behalf of individuals imprisoned for exercising their freedom of religion or belief.
That campaign contributed to China’s release of Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri on July 3. Pastor Jin founded Zion Church, one of China’s largest unregistered Protestant churches, and was detained in October 2025 alongside other church leaders during a nationwide crackdown. Chinese authorities accused him of illegally using information networks to conduct church activities.
As part of the 2026 campaign, Religious Liberty Clinic students Aleah Schrock ’27 J.D. and Isabella Fazio ’26 J.D., supervised by Clinic attorney Kimberlie Orr, contributed to the campaign’s research and advocacy efforts. The students examined cases involving religious prisoners of conscience from around the world, including the circumstances of individual prisoners, the laws used to justify their detention, and broader patterns of religious repression. They also consulted with international stakeholders and assessed opportunities for diplomatic advocacy.
That research informed the selection of Pastor Jin and Fayzulla Agzamov of Uzbekistan for focused advocacy. The IRF Summit and its partners then pursued coordinated international advocacy on behalf of both men. In Pastor Jin’s case, the campaign complemented broader advocacy by the Human Rights Foundation, Freedom House, and others, as well as a public call from President Donald Trump for his release. Agzamov remains imprisoned, and advocacy for his release continues.
The advocacy brief places the campaign within a broader examination of the imprisonment of people for their religious beliefs and activities worldwide. Drawing on information from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s prisoners of conscience database, the brief identifies patterns in how governments restrict religious practice and examines the legal mechanisms used to imprison or prosecute members of religious communities. These include laws that directly criminalize religious conduct as well as broadly written or selectively enforced laws used to target religious minorities. The brief is intended to support more effective international advocacy on behalf of religious prisoners of conscience.
“Our students had the opportunity to put rigorous research into practice alongside experienced international religious freedom advocates,” Orr said. “Pastor Jin’s release is a powerful reminder of what sustained, collaborative advocacy can achieve and why this work matters for people imprisoned for their faith.”
“People imprisoned for their faith have few options when their domestic legal systems restrict freedom of religion or belief,” Schrock said. “This type of advocacy can be one of the only remaining avenues for freedom, but it does not guarantee any particular result. That makes Pastor Jin’s release incredibly good news.”
About the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic
The Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic is a teaching law practice that educates, forms, and prepares Notre Dame law students to become the rising generation of religious liberty leaders by training students in the practice of law as they defend religious freedom for all people.
Under the guidance of Law School faculty and staff, students work on a broad variety of legal matters to promote religious freedom on behalf of individuals and organizations of all beliefs—both domestically and abroad. The Clinic represents clients from all faith traditions to promote not only the freedom for people to hold religious beliefs but also their fundamental right to express those beliefs and to live according to them. Learn more about the work of the Clinic here.