Freedom of religion or belief - Asma’s report to the Human Rights Council

Asma Jahangir, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, reported to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) yesterday and took part in an interactive dialogue with government and NGO representatives.

Asma is physically small, but she has a steely determination to defend freedom of religion or belief. In its daily Council Monitor, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) summarizes her presentation of her thematic report to the Council:

Ms Jahangir highlighted a number of issues already mentioned in her report. She went on to state that there were two primary areas of concern for her mandate that deserved equal attention. First, that the freedom to pursue one’s own religion or belief must be protected and respected and second that the rights of individuals need to be protected from being violated on the premise of religion or belief. She emphasised that both victims and perpetrators of religious intolerance belonged to all religions and beliefs. However, religious minorities continued to be prosecuted at the national and international levels.

While noting the challenge that the protection of the freedom of religion and belief posed for States, Ms Jahangir suggested that wise and balanced decision-making, non-discriminatory legislation, an independent and non-arbitrary judiciary, as well as adequate protection and effective remedies for victims, were all some key ways in which States could promote freedom of religion. She highlighted that protection needed to be complemented by the pro-active efforts of States to prevent acts of discrimination and violence. She emphasised that in addition to reviewing policy and legislation pertaining to freedom of religion and belief, States need to be cautious not to ‘over-regulate’ this freedom through excessive, and ultimately counter- productive legislation. Ms Jahangir continued by highlighting the role of education as a preventive measure. She mentioned that in conjunction with a regional organisation, guiding principles on teaching about religion in public schools were currently being developed.

She also highlighted the persistence of discriminatory stereotypes of religion, which she had addressed in a joint report with Mr Doudou Diène, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance last September.9 Ms Jahangir recalled that one of their key recommendations had been to encourage the Council to consider adopting complementary standards on the inter-relation between freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and non-discrimination. Additionally, she mentioned that the Chairperson of the Human Rights Committee expressed the interest of the Committee in drafting a general comment on Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and political Rights (ICCPR).10 Finally, she mentioned the importance of inter- and intra-religious dialogue that would include all groups such as women, youth, believers and non-believers, and that regional or international cultural exchanges should be encouraged in order to promote tolerance.

After she had presented her report, Ms Jahangir took part in an interactive dialogue with representatives of the HRC’s member states and NGOs. As the Council Monitor reported:

In response to her report and presentation at the Council in the afternoon, several States expressed their appreciation of her ‘well-balanced’11, ‘systematised and scrupulous’ and ‘objective’ report, while virtually all States who took the floor warmly welcomed her report. Of particular note was that several States explicitly expressed their support for her mandate and the extension of her mandate, given its upcoming assessment on Friday afternoon (under the review of mandates). Portugal, on behalf of the European Union (EU), emphasised the importance of her mandate as a human rights mechanism, and stressed that the EU had always supported her mandate. Azerbaijan also stressed the significance of her. China expressed its appreciation and support for the continuation of her work on promoting dialogues between civilisations and religions. In addition to the support of Albania and Norway, Ms Jahangir’s mandate received strong support from New Zealand, who stated that she had made a ‘compelling case’ for the extension of her mandate.

We can but hope that these expressions of goodwill will translate into a renewal today (Friday 14 September) of Asma’s mandate (and that the renewed mandate will be a strong one).

Themes raised in the interactive dialogue session included:

• The relationship between the law and the freedom of religion
• The intersection of the right to freedom of religion and belief with the freedom of expression, and defamation of religion
• Inter-faith and intra-religious dialogue
• The link between religion and terrorism
• The prevention of religious discrimination through education

The representative of the Baha’i International Community raised the grave concerns that the Baha’i community has about the intensification of the persecution of their fellow Baha’is in Iran.

You can watch the UN video cast of Asma’s presentation here. You can watch the intervention of the Baha’i International Community representative here. And you can see the Special Rapporteur’s concluding remarks here.

The HRC’s archived videocasts can be accessed here.

Threats to freedom of religion or belief are widespread and may be growing. Religion is now in the public sphere in ways and to an extent that wouldn’t have seemed possible 10 or 15 years ago. We might wish that it were not so, but it’s there and freedom of conscience, thought and religion (as Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it), together with freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19), are crucial to human flourishing. I, for one, am very happy to see Asma Jahangir so strongly defend this freedom.

We will all have the opportunity to add our voices to Asma’s when we mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration in 2008.

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