The Strasbourg Consortium joins the international religious freedom community in mourning the death on 2 January 2012 of Tunisian human rights advocate Professor Abdelfattah Amor. Professor Amor served from 1993 to 2004 as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. At the time of his death, Dr. Amor was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee, and had recently been appointed as president of Tunisia’s National Commission for the Investigation of Corruption and Bribery.

A Muslim, Dr. Amor was widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost advocates for religious freedom for all people of faith. His death, says Dr. John Graz, secretary general of the International Religious Liberty Association, represents a great loss for the international religious freedom community. Dr. Amor was a man of tremendous courage and integrity. He spoke out fearlessly against fanaticism and intolerance, and defended the right of every person to live according to his or her conscience. It would be difficult to overestimate his contribution to the cause of freedom.”