Just how much religious freedom do we have in Britain?

La Mequita Mosque, Cordoba, Spain. Photo ©Steven J Dunlop

Just as the UN Human Rights Council is reconsidering the mandate for Asma Jahangir, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief and with just over a week to go before Britain’s new Commission for Equality and Human Rights opens its doors for business, it seems that some people’s religious freedom is under threat from extremist groups in the UK.

Unholy War, Monday night’s programme in Channel 4’s Dispatches strand claimed that there may be as many as 3,000 people in Britain who have converted from Islam to Christianity. According to reporter Antony Barnett, many of these converts are living in fear, facing reprisals, violence and even death threats from members of their own former communities.

Barnett talked to a number of former Muslims who had converted to Christianity, including one family had been driven from their home in Bradford by violence and intimidation from groups of young Muslim men. Others worshipped in a church which supports converts from Islam to Christianity but whose whereabouts it was too dangerous to reveal. One church in Bradford where former Muslims had worshipped openly had, Barnett reported, been subject to concerted and systematic vandalism – windows repeatedly broken, threatening graffiti painted on the walls, congregants’ car windows bricked, and would-be worshippers intimidated by mobs of young Muslim men. One threat had even said that the church would be bombed, 9/11-style.

Some Islamic texts and traditions teach that apostates from Islam should be killed. In a number of Islamic states, apostasy is a death-penalty offence (as is the case, for example, in Iran – a threat that hangs over the heads of the Baha’is there). However, British laws, notably the Human Rights Act, unequivocally uphold freedom of religion and belief in line with Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

So how is it that extremists are allowed to try to deny this freedom, one of the universal human rights, to those who wish to cease being Muslims?

Michael Nazir-Ali, Anglican Bishop of Rochester (whose father converted from Islam to Christianity in Pakistan), called on Muslim religious leaders to condemn these threats and attacks. One Muslim leader, Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, Chairman of the Interfaith Relations Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, did make an unequivocal statement on camera during the programme, condemning any attempts to harm or threaten people who had converted from Islam to Christianity or any other religion or who had forsaken religion altogether.

All of this makes a sad contrast with Cordoba (Qúrtuba) in the 10th and 11th centuries C.E. in this paper by Boris Handal. Handal writes:

In current days when religious fundamentalism makes people sceptical about the purpose of religion, it is encouraging to look back at times in history where various faiths came together and lived in peace. Cordova, the seat of the great caliphate (929-1031 CE)[1], was one of these cases becoming the embodiment of a tolerant Islam embracing Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. During its golden age sciences, humanities, arts, commerce and industry flourished due to the collective contribution of these three congregations. The inspiration for such development was certainly drawn from those verses of the Qur’án emphasising acceptance and tolerance. On exploring these issues, this paper also reviews the ominous situation of the Bahá’ís of Iran who have been persecuted on a religious basis for the past hundred and sixty years.

In her report to the Sixth Session of the UN Human Rights Council, Asma Jahangir, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, affirms that freedom to change one’s religion is part and parcel of the freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice. In doing so, she cites general comment No. 22 by the Human Rights Committee (the body that monitors adherence to the various human rights conventions):

the freedom to “have or to adopt” a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one’s religion or belief.

The Special Rapporteur states that violations and limitations of the freedom to adopt, change or renounce a religion or belief are unacceptable and still occur too often. She identifies four broad types of situations in which this occurs. These include:

Situations, where members of majority religious groups seek to convert or reconvert members of religious minorities by violent means, including cases where believers attack members of minority religious groups or their places of worship with the aim of converting them;

Now, this is not exactly the case in the north of England, where conversions are from a minority religion to a nominally majority religion. However, in the places where these attacks and threats are taking place, Muslims may well be in a majority or close to a majority. It is worth noting that Ms Jahangir expresses concern in her report about the vulnerability of those in places of worship to physical attacks and of groups such as women, children, minorities and refugees. She calls on States to ensure that their constitutional and legislative systems provide adequate and effective guarantees of freedom of thought, conscience and religion to all without distinction and that effective remedies are in place for cases in which the right is violated.

Ms Jahangir recommends positive action to prevent violations of this important freedom. Education, inter- and intra-religious dialogue, meetings and exchanges, particularly by children and teachers from different faiths, would all contribute to developing tolerance and respect for pluralism.

Would this do the trick for converts who are suffering the abuses highlighted by Unholy War? Not in the short run, for sure. In the long run the actions Ms Jahangir recommends are essential. But they could never be sufficient by themselves. What is needed, it seems to me, is the kind of spiritual transformation (within one’s existing faith or belief or by conversion to another one) that leads one to “call none a stranger; think none a foe” and to be “as if all men [and women] were your close kin and honoured friends.” [From the writings of 'Abdu'l-Baha]

Technorati Tags: religion, faith, religious freedom, Islam, Christianity, Baha’i, Bahai, conversion, transformation, spirituality

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