ADVOCATES
LEGAL OFFICER, EUROPE
Lidia Rieder, PhD, serves as legal officer for ADF International in Vienna, Austria. She is a lawyer specializing in public international law and conducts high quality legal advocacy in Europe to promote and protect religious liberty, freedom of expression, life, and the family.
Lidia Rieder, PhD, serves as legal officer for ADF International in Vienna, Austria. She is a lawyer specializing in public international law and conducts high quality legal advocacy in Europe to promote and protect religious liberty, freedom of expression, life, and the family. Her responsibilities include legal analysis, research, and drafting, with a particular focus on the European Court of Human Right. Prior to joining ADF International, Rieder worked as an intern at the United Nations Register of Damage. She also worked and interned with commercial, governmental, and legal organizations in Minsk, Hamburg, Berlin, Brussels, and Vienna. She is fluent in English, German, and Russian. Rieder earned her law degree in 2008 in Minsk, Belarus, followed by an LL.M. in International and European Law in 2010 in Bremen. She obtained a PhD in International Law at the University of Bremen in 2018 (magna cum laude) for which she was scholarship holder of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
A German city has issued a fine against taxi driver Jalil Mashali over alleged unlawful “religious advertising,” because of a small Bible verse sticker on his rear window reading “Jesus – I am the way. The truth. And the life”.
To highlight the mounting discrimination against minority religions in Türkiye, ADF International hosted a panel discussion at the OSCE* Human Dimension Implementation Conference in Warsaw this week.
ADF International files case on behalf of Rachel Zalma* before Europe’s top human rights court after she was unlawfully banned from living in Türkiye.
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Teresa Ribeiro, publishes a special report on legal harassment and abuse of the judicial system against the media
A Christian church is challenging Russian authorities at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for seizing the congregation’s property and leaving the community to gather outside in a tent.
The number of Christians in Turkey has diminished from 20 percent to 0.2 percent of the population in the last 100 years. Although Turkey does not have a constitutionally recognized state religion, its government is increasingly marked by Islamization and nationalism, which creates challenges for religious minorities, particularly Christians.
