Politics & International Relations
Freedom of Religion
Freedom of religion refers to the right of individuals to practice their chosen religion without interference from the government or other authorities. It encompasses the freedom to worship, express and manifest one's beliefs, and participate in religious activities. This fundamental human right is often enshrined in constitutions and international human rights instruments to protect individuals from discrimination and persecution based on their religious beliefs.
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12 Key excerpts on "Freedom of Religion"
eBook - PDFInternational Religious Freedom Advocacy
A Guide to Organizations, Law, and NGOs
- H. Knox Thames, Chris Seiple, Amy Rowe(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Baylor University Press(Publisher)
Notably, international documents do not define what constitutes a reli-gion. Drafters have rightly not attempted to define the concept of religion, as it would be an impossible task. What one may consider sacred, another may consider sinful. Readers will find in subsequent chapters, however, that international agreements from the UN and regional systems offer a variety of expressions describing religious freedom: Freedom of Religion • Freedom of Religion or belief • freedom of conscience and of religion • freedom of thought, conscience, and religion • freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief. • The more specific a description, the better it protects religious freedom. So “freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief ” includes elements of reli-gious freedom additional to those found in the other renderings. However, the simplest wording—Freedom of Religion—is also understood to include those broader concepts, as the phrase is construed broadly. Also noteworthy is religious speech, either through word or dress, as it can also be protected under separate provisions concerning freedom of expression. Religious freedom is unique from other human rights in that, for its full enjoyment, a variety of other rights must also be protected. The multifaceted and interdependent nature of this right can be seen in several ways: to meet col-lectively for worship or religious education, the freedom of association must be respected; to allow the sharing of religious views, which is often a part of a belief system, speech freedoms must be enjoyed; to provide for some type of commu-nity legal status, laws must not discriminate on religious grounds; to maintain or own a place of worship, property rights must be respected; to obtain sacred books and disseminate religious publications, media freedoms must be protected. 10 International Religious Freedom In touching these other rights, religious freedom can be either easier or harder to advocate for.
eBook - PDFAn Introduction to Religion and Politics
Theory and Practice
- Jonathan Fox(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Religious freedom 13 “Religious freedom” is a commonly used term in the study of religion and politics, but what does it mean? It is one of those terms that everyone “understands,” but upon closer inspection its meaning can be very different to different people. Even a superficial examination of the literature on religious freedom reveals that there is little agreement on the term’s meaning, or even whether religious freedom is the proper term to use. It is alternatively called religious rights (with variations such as religious civil or human rights), religious tolerance, religious liberty, religious equality, the free exercise of religion, and the right to a level religious playing field. Violations of religious freedom are called religious discrimination, religious persecution, religious intolerance, and religious repression. Each of these terms has its own meaning, and some of them have multiple potential meanings. In this chapter I explore all of these terms and their implications for practical policy. In addition to the debate over meaning, there is a debate over desirability. While from a classical liberal viewpoint religious freedom is an essential value, this value is disputed by both ends of the political spectrum, ranging from contentions that all religion is bad for society to contentions that a society must have uniform religious values to function properly. OFFICIAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Religious freedom is present in multiple political documents, including international treaties and conventions, and most of the world’s constitutions, as well as the laws of many countries. However, while these legal documents often guarantee religious freedom, they rarely define it. They sometime list actions which would violate religious freedom but do not explain why some actions rather than others are included in these lists. A good example of this phenomenon is the US International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
eBook - PDF- J. Gallagher, E. Patterson, J. Gallagher, E. Patterson(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to 2. have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice. Democracy, Religion, and the War of Ideas 145 Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to 3. such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. In addition to its multilateral commitments, the United States has under- taken concrete actions to promote religious liberty worldwide for nearly four decades. That leadership began in the Cold War with concern for the plight of Soviet Jews and later Soviet Pentecostals. In 1974 Congress passed the Jackson- Vanik Amendment, which linked trade relations with the Soviet Union to the freedom of Jews and others to emigrate. The following year, the Helsinki Accords resolved the territorial status of the Soviet Union, linking that issue to a substantive human rights agenda that included religious freedom. Two decades later, and after intense lobbying and political maneuvering, President Clinton signed the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), 4 which: Declared “The right to Freedom of Religion undergirds the very origin ● and existence of the United States . . . as a fundamental right and as a pil- lar of our Nation . . . Freedom of religious belief and practice is a universal human right and fundamental freedom . . . ” Created an independent U.S. Commission on International Religious ● Freedom (USCIRF) to make recommendations to the President and Congress. Designated an Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom ● at the U.S. Department of State, leading an Office of International Religious Freedom. Mandated an Annual Report on International Religious Freedom to ● include every country in the world.
Available until 15 Jan |Learn moreStudies in International Relations and Politics
New Europe and Beyond
- William T. Bagatelas, Getnet Tamene, David Reichardt, Bruno Sergi, William T. Bagatelas, Getnet Tamene, David Reichardt, Bruno Sergi(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Budrich UniPress(Publisher)
Section 2 a (1) states: The right to Freedom of Religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States. Many of our Nation's founders fled religious persecution abroad, cherishing in their hearts and minds the ideal of religious freedom. They established in law, as a fundamental right and as a pillar of our Nation, the right to Freedom of Religion. From its birth to this day, the United States has prized this legacy of religious freedom and honored this heritage by standing for religious freedom and offering refuge to those suffering religious persecution (IRFA, section 2 A (1) 9 In Section 2 a (6), the specific link between religious freedom and democracy, as well as the need for protecting minority religions, is stated: Though not confined to a particular region or regime, religious persecution is often particularly widespread, systematic, and heinous under totalitarian governments and in countries with militant, politicized religious majorities (IRFA, section 2 A (6)) The IRFA established an Office of Religious Freedom with an Ambassador at Large and a bipartisan-appointed Commission on Religious Freedom making foreign policy recommendations to the President and classifying countries of concern. The IRFA outlines a framework for these policy choices. The Office, furthermore, publishes annual reports on the status of Religious Freedom in most countries in the world. These reports are among the most comprehensive and detailed on the subject by any official body in the world. Once the US President “determines that the government of a foreign country has engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom, the President shall oppose such violations and promote the right to religious freedom through one or more of the actions described in subsection (c)” (IRFA, section 402, 2). Presidential measures in such cases are thus not only desirable, but theoretically mandatory with no room for “no action” (Chang, p.10).
eBook - ePub- Silvio Ferrari(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Still, international law offers a platform for scrutiny for persons who seek recognition for their religious standpoints and who challenge the actions of states and the downsides of established majoritarian societal patterns that continue to mark national discourse, including legal discourse, despite homogeneity in many places being partly fictitious. International law, including its explicit provisions on Freedom of Religion and belief, is a platform that currently holds much appeal, despite the hesitations of Sullivan and many others. Human rights serve as an authoritative voice and a language for utopia in times of ‘post-modern insecurity’. They have achieved a dominant position when it comes to envisioning human life.We usually imagine human rights as above and beyond mundane politics, which is their utopian feature. We also attach certain expectations to human rights in their legal configurations. And sure enough, neutrality or impartiality is intrinsic to our image of both international and national law. The same is the case with our understanding of law’s relationship to religion. Even so, law sets out a framework of meaning and shapes our vision of human life and behaviour. Law makes sense of some things while downplaying the significance of other things. Beyond addressing disputes that arise, and regulating societal life, law is ‘a species of social imagination’ (Rosen 2006 : 8–9, 11–12; Slotte 2010 : 186–7). This is also what Sullivan wants us to be critically aware of.44 See Sullivan 2005 : 3, 101, who observes how definitions of religion function as exclusionary. Thus, a clear legal definition of religion will not solve the problems facing the protection of Freedom of Religion and belief, even if it may limit the scope of discretion.International human rights law affirms the value of religion to human existence. The understanding of ‘belief’ and ‘religion’ is emphasized as broad, and protection should be generous. By way of legally binding provisions such as Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (hereafter ICCPR) and Article 9 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereafter ECHR), various supervisory bodies and a special rapporteur, international law seeks to protect the religious freedom of individuals and groups, the freedom to believe or not to believe, and the freedom to manifest religion in private and publicly, individually and together with others.5
eBook - PDFConfronting Religious Violence
A Counternarrative
- Megan Warner, Richard A. Burridge, Jonathan Sacks(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Baylor University Press(Publisher)
The human right to religious freedom imposes stringent obligations on governments and other institutions and on individuals to respect the liberty of others to believe and act on their best judgments in religious matters, including those pertaining to their moral obligations. At the same time, we have reasons no less sound and compelling to understand that religious freedom is not an absolute: the presumption in favor of religious freedom, though broad, can be overcome by sufficiently weighty considerations—requirements of justice—that are themselves grounded in central dimensions of the integral flourishing of human beings.
eBook - PDFConstitutions, Religion and Politics in Asia
Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka
- Dian A. H. Shah(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
On this line of reasoning, the Indonesian court appears to have contradicted international standards on religious freedom. Central to the discussion in this chapter is also the idea of a dual conception of religious freedom: as an expressive activity of belief, criticism and inquiry on the one hand, and as an identity which entails equality between religions, on the other. 4 Both originated from the Enlightenment era of liberal thought, where religious freedom follows from the conception of individuals as autono- mous, rational, free-thinking citizens, coupled with the notion that every person has the right to equal liberty. 5 These philosophies are now expressed in several international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). On the ground, however, these principles are translated and interpreted according to different ideals in order to serve different interests. The cases later in this chapter demonstrate the different visions on religious freedom and fundamental rights in plural societies. These have already been reflected in the constitutional arrangements in the three countries. The conspicuous omission of the right to choose or change one’s religion in the Malaysian set-up, for example, was not a mere oversight. Consider this, then, in tandem 4 Ibid., p. 31. 5 Ibid., pp. 35–41. Competing Understandings of Religious Freedom 67 with the provision that allows states to control or restrict propagation of other religions among Muslims. Both of these were part of the central demands of the sultans during the constitution-making process, ostensibly, to protect the interests of the Malay-Muslims. For those who subscribe to this anti- proselytism view, religious freedom means the right to be free from organized and active proselytism and does not encompass the right to leave or change one’s religion.
eBook - PDFThe Confluence of Law and Religion
Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Work of Norman Doe
- Frank Cranmer, Mark Hill QC, Celia Kenny, Russell Sandberg(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Looking at Freedom of Religion and belief through these two principles should allow us to affirm the ‘possibility’ of religious freedom without identifying it with a particular model associated with the religious ortho- doxy dominant in any specific context. On the one hand, this approach retains the concept that history and culture (including religious history and culture) provides the particular framework within which the right of Freedom of Religion is embedded; on the other, it recognizes that the claim of even-handedness that is inbuilt into this right can overcome the limitations of a specific context and open it to new ways to understand and implement the right itself. This tension between the universal dimension of the right to Freedom of Religion and its particular implementations allows us to affirm the possibility of religious freedoms (plural), whose different manifestations are better protected by collecting them under the umbrella of the same legal category than by apportioning them between different and more general rights. 25 Novak, Natural Law, 29. who needs Freedom of Religion? 189 The chapters that follow in this section look at particular aspects relating to religious freedom. They all in different ways discuss the contributions made by Professor Norman Doe and future developments that his work might inspire. Professor Doe’s comparative scholarship focusing on the detail of the law – both religion law and religious law – allows us to not only assess the pessimistic accounts concerning religious freedom but also to move the debate forward. His work shows how notions of law and religion need to be contextualized. These notions of law and religion do not have the same meaning and do not perform the same social role all over the world. The need to contextualize these categories and to understand how they are conceived in different social settings is a precondition to any attempt to regulate their relationship.
eBook - PDFChurch-State Issues in America Today
[3 volumes]
- Ann W. Duncan, Steven L. Jones, Ann W. Duncan, Steven L. Jones(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Praeger(Publisher)
A transcript of the event is avail- able at: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/105/legislating-international-religious-freedom. For a more extended discussion of this topic see Allen D. Hertzke, Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). 64. The statute is available at http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/laws/majorlaw/ intlrel.htm 65. The connections between the emerging concern of evangelicals with religious freedom and the passage of the IRFA were strong. In a Wall Street Journal editorial credited with drawing attention to the issue of religious persecution abroad, Hud- son Institute fellow Michael Horowtiz, though himself Jewish, argued that human rights for Christians ought be used to promote human rights more generally. Mc- Cormick, 285. 66. See http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.1795/pub_detail.asp 67. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Symposium on “Legislation In- ternational Religious Freedom,” November 20, 2006. A transcript of the event is available at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/105/legislating-international-religious- freedom 68. Jeffrey Goldberg, “Washington Discovers Christian Persecution,” New York Times Magazine (December, 21 1997): 46. 69. “Candles in the Darkness: Religious freedom is a foreign policy beacon,” Washington Times (December 31, 2000). 70. Thomas F. Farr, “The Diplomacy of Religious Freedom,” First Things (May 2006): 12–15; Thomas F. Farr, “Religious Realism in Foreign Policy: Lessons from Vatican II,” The Review of Faith & International Affairs (Winter 2005–2006): 28. 71. Farr, “Religious Realism in Foreign Policy,” 28. 72. Ibid., 28–39. 73. William Martin, “The Christian Right and Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy 114 (Spring 1999): 78. 74. Philpott, 995. The Internationalization of Church-State Issues • 161 75. John Shattuck, “Religion, Rights, and Terrorism,” Harvard Human Rights Journal 16 (Spring 2003): 185.
eBook - PDF- Frank B. Cross(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Much like pornog- raphy, he suggests that the definition of religion is simply that “[w]e know it when we see it” (Koppelman 2010, 976). If religion is to be protected (or limited), though, it must be defined. Some contend that prevailing definitions have produced only a mess or a quagmire (Feofanov 1994). But definition is dangerous. It risks excluding true beliefs as not qualifying as religious. Sullivan (2006, 924) contends that religion cannot “be defined in such a way that it can be legally protected and maintained as separate.” There may be no good definition of religion, but Sullivan’s view is too gloomy, and the difficulty need not be a serious problem. Disputes tend to arise only at the boundary. Thus, Europeans debate whether 2 Constitutions and Religious Freedom Scientology should be considered a religion or a cult. While this may be important – very important to some – the vast majority of religious freedom issues are not such boundary problems, so a precise defini- tion is unnecessary for a general assessment of global Freedom of Religion. Lupu (1996, 358) notes that the “combination of cultural pluralism, pragmatism, and experience” suggests that the defini- tional problem is not great, as we have “conventional understandings of what constitutes religion.” The Justification for Protecting Religious Freedom The right to choose one’s religion is a constitutional protection not offered to other individual choices. There is no constitutional right to choose what one eats, for example, though that is undeniably important to people. Religion is an important area of individual autonomy, but so are choices of dress or vocation or countless other areas of personal autonomy. The privileged status of religion in constitutions may fairly be questioned. This is especially true when religious freedom appears to conflict with other freedoms, such as gender rights.
- Gerard V. Bradley(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
part v THE UNITED STATES’ BASIC MORAL RESPONSIBILITIES TO PROMOTE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY ABROAD 175 9 A Foreign Policy of Religious Freedom Theoretical and Evidentiary Foundations Daniel Philpott 1 Thomas Farr, World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty Is Vital to American National Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Hopes for an American foreign policy of religious freedom have not fared well. Human rights easily become subordinated to larger political goals. Just as the struggle against Soviet communism was said to justify alli- ances with dictators in South Korea, the Philippines, and Zaire during the Cold War, so too the imperative of fighting terrorism in Pakistan, Central Asia, and across the Arab world has muffled the cause that the U.S. Congress elevated in October 1998 when it passed the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). But must human rights and security always be competitors? Might the goal of religious freedom – and more broadly, democratic regimes based on religious freedom – rather than compete with and usually lose out to the fight against terrorism, instead serve as an integral strategy in that very struggle? This is the proposal of Thomas Farr, former direc- tor of the Office of International Religious Freedom at the U.S. State Department, in his new book, World of Faith and Freedom. 1 Since IRFA succeeded in institutionalizing religious freedom in the American foreign- policy bureaucracy, the policy has involved mostly exposing violator countries and improving the lot of the persecuted. But the United States ought to expand this policy, argues Farr, so as not only to free prisoners but also to build free regimes, ones where the state respects the religious belief and practice of all citizens and where religions themselves renounce standing control over public policy and respect minority religions – a form of reciprocal respect that political scientist Alfred Stepan has called
eBook - PDFInstitutionalizing Rights and Religion
Competing Supremacies
- Leora Batnitzky, Hanoch Dagan(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Still, the demands of the age of civil rights are seen as including a commitment to the inclusion and protection of the religious believers and groups involved in these conflicts, and a determination to respect their place in the civitas 25 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 18, pmbl. See also Pope Paul VI, Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) on the Right of the Person and of Communities to Social and Civil Freedom in Matters Religious § 2 (Dec. 7, 1965): “[T]he right to religious freedom has its founda- tion in the very dignity of the human person.” 26 See Abner S. Greene, Religious Freedom and (Other) Civil Liberties: Is There a Middle Ground? 9 HARV. L. & POL’Y REV. 161 (2015). 27 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 555 (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting). 28 Cf. Richard W. Garnett, Political (and Other) Safeguards of Religious Freedom, 32 CARDOZO L. REV. 1815, 1817 (2011). 29 MCCONNELL ET AL., RELIGION AND THE CONSTITUTION, 121. 30 Cf. ROBERT D. PUTNAM & DAVID E. CAMPBELL, AMERICAN GRACE: HOW RELIGION DIVIDES AND UNITES US 495 (2012). 31 MCCONNELL ET AL., RELIGION AND THE CONSTITUTION, 121. Religious Accommodations and – and Among – Civil Rights 47 47 rather than insist on boundaries and loyalties and conditions that exclude or “shut [them] out.” 32 There is at least one other way to approach the topic. A second avenue of inquiry presumes that the dynamic at issue is (as a USA Today headline recently put it) “[r]eligious liberty vs. civil rights,” 33 rather than “religious freedom and, and among, civil rights.” 34 This dynamic played out in the failed effort to enact the Religious Liberty Protection Act (RLPA) in the late 1990s, after the Supreme Court ruled that the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), as applied to state and local governments, exceeded the power of Congress.
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