Book Launch Peacebuilding in Interfaith Contexts

Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence

20 October, 2025

We are deeply honoured to welcome Author Dr Georgette Bennett, Founder and President of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, and Founder and Board Chair of Multifaith Alliance (MFA) to present her highly acclaimed book RELIGICIDE: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence, in conversation woth Professor Reza Aslan, Distinguished Professor at the University of California, USA.

About the book: Religion-related violence is the fastest spreading type of violence worldwide. Attacks on religious minorities follow a clear pattern and are preceded with early warning signs. Until now, such violence had no name, let alone a set of policies designed to identify and prevent it. A unique attempt to create a new moral and legal category alongside other forms of persecution and mass murder, Religicide explores the roots of atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, and other human rights catastrophes.
The authors tap into their decades of activism, interreligious engagement, and people-to-people diplomacy to delve into a gripping examination of contemporary religicides: the Yazidis in Iraq, the Rohingya in Myanmar, Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in China, and the centuries-long efforts to wipe out Indigenous Americans. Yet, even in the face of these horrific atrocities, the authors resist despair. They amplify the voices of survivors and offer a blueprint for action, calling on government, business, civil society, and religious leaders to join in a global campaign to protect religious minorities.

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Here are more details about this fascinating event.

Author’s Biography: TED speaker Dr Georgette Bennett is an award-winning sociologist, widely published author, popular lecturer, and former broadcast journalist for NBC News. In 1992, she founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, the go-to organisation for combating religious prejudice. In 2013, Bennett founded the Multifaith Alliance (MFA), which has worked to raise awareness and mobilise more than $550 million of humanitarian aid, benefiting more than three million Syrian war victims. MFA now also operates in Gaza, where it has delivered aid to more than 100,000 families. She is a co-founder of Global Covenant Partners and served on the U.S. State Department’s Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group tasked with developing recommendations to engage religious actors in conflict mitigation. She was awarded a 2019 AARP Purpose Prize, and in 2021 was selected as one of Forbes’ 50 over 50 Women of Impact.

Contributor: Professor Reza Aslan is a renowned writer, commentator, Emmy- and Peabody-nominated producer, scholar of religions, and Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, USA.

Moderator: Dr Elizabeth Mackintosh, Fellow of the Oxford Interfaith Forum.

Date: 20 October, 2025

Time: 18:00-19:00 BST | 19:00-20:00 CET | 10:00-11:00 PST | 13:00-14:00 EST

Venue: Online

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