HRWF International was founded in 2001 by Willy Fautré, its executive director who also heads Human Rights Without Frontiers (Belgium).
[1] The latter was renamed from Brussels – Human Rights which originated in 1989 with a bi-monthly magazine Droits de l'homme sans frontières.
[2] Fautré was a researcher in pedagogy at the University of Mons and a chargé de mission at the Cabinet of the Belgian Ministry of Education and the Belgian Parliament.
[3] He serves as associate editor of Bitter Winter,[4] a magazine focusing on religious liberty and human rights in China published by the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR).
[5] The international network of HRWF International correspondents monitors human rights concerns in various countries and maintains a global database of freedom of religion or belief cases.