Topic No. 06 RELIGION

Religion has been a perilous issue since the inception of the world. With dealing with it one has to be cautious so that he won’t disrespect any religion in any way. It is a bitter truth that followers of religion are often reluctant towards other religions and never really care about them. The only reason people have the permission to follow any religion is that it prevents disputes and conflicts. Things have changed now, the current laws have provided room for followers of every religion. This system has been operated smoothly until disturbed by anyone who intentionally did discrimination.

In various agreements in the past, religion was considered alongside human rights. Apart from the “Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination”, there hasn't been a single treaty that was formulated upon the basis of religion or beliefs. However, even this treaty does not provide comprehensive coverage; it only supports non-discrimination and does not address the rights of religion specifically. The acknowledgement of religion as a factor for discrimination illustrates the reluctance of adherents of various beliefs to admit other religion’s autonomy.

There exists some specified principles in agreements which are concerned only with “religion”. Resembling the “UDHR’s 2nd Article” where rights concerned with some specified factor has been discussed and one of those is religion. An individual has the liberty to switch religion or beliefs as per his will as acknowledged by the 18th Article. This has been a cause of trouble in many states especially the muslim countries such as KSA, which hasn’t even signed UDHR. The problem arises due to the fact that in Islamic law, it isn’t a permissible act for any Muslim. So were the issues when concerned with “ICCPR’s 18(2) Article” which has highlighted the fact that “a religion or belief of choice can be adopted”. There existed no further discussion on this topic. But the explanation of this clause had always been a bone of contention for the muslim nations. Moreover, the “ECHR’s Article 9(1)” has validated that people have the right to switch their religion or beliefs by their will, taking us towards UDHR’s 18th article. It should be noted that in both the “African Charter and American Convention” both have articles to ensure that religions are safeguarded. The committee has explained the highly contentious ICCPR’s 18th Article in CCPR General Comment No. 22. As of it, a person has the right to move from one religion to another if he/she thinks it is appropriate. This is contingent upon Article 18(3), which constitutes a derogation from Article 18(2), specifying that it cannot be invoked for the preservation of “morals, fundamental rights, public health, or security.” The implementation of Article 18(3) is conditional upon its non-prejudicial impact, as validated by the committee. The exemption was used during a case in Uzbekistan where a muslim female was told to remove her headwear known as hijab as it violated their institution’s rules. The case was “Raihon Hudoberganova v Uzbekistan” and in this case the state breached the 18th article. When concerned with ECHR’s 9(1) article, one can take a look at the case “Kokkinakis v Greece”. State’s activities to stop someone from inducing others to convert into one’s beliefs is a clear violation of ECHR’s 9th article. This action was taken because the liberty to select one’s religion is an intrinsic right of every individual regardless of the fact that whether he/she publicly practices their religion because this doesn’t matter as the decision ultimately depends upon voluntary choice. No doubt, this initiative of the court deserves appreciation.

Similarly another was brought up in the French court regarding a girl wearing hijab. This case "SAS v France" and as a conclusion it was declared that stopping her from wearing a hijab has not breached the 9th article of ECHR. This result was basically supported by reasons such as to uphold democracy and the "margin of appreciation" ideology formed by the "European Convention on Human Rights". Concept of "margin of appreciation" isn't taken the right way in this context, as states are imposing restrictions on the fundamental right of religious practice. In not a single way does this reflect liberty of practicing religious acts; what it reflects is that it constitutes a limitation on religious practice. Even upon superficial observation, this constitutes an infringement of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by the nations.

Apart from the jurisdiction of the ECHR, there is significant infringement of religious feelings and beliefs by certain nations that require attention and scrutiny. Another example involves a prominent Indian political leader currently in power who made derogatory remarks about the highly revered figure in Islam, "the last Prophet of Islam, Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH)". This incident is a clear cut violation of religious rights and what makes it even more severe is that nearly 15% of the population of India are Muslims. During 2020, Muslims in India were forced and assaulted by Indian authorities to "chant the Indian anthem" and this is enough to show that there is no religious liberty in India. But that's not all, the Indian government is not done now as they are continuously making efforts to destroy Muslims mosques and other important places and building temples there. Close to India is China and there is close resemblance between these two states in treating Muslims. Muslims in China, especially in Uyghur are treated brutally. The Christ Church event is a black day in the history of human rights as some peaceful Muslims who were not doing but praying and worshiping when all of a sudden a man entered their mosque and brutally murdered them while live streaming his crime on social media site. This shows the New Zealand state's views regarding Muslims. How can the United States stay back in case of exploiting muslims. There are numerous incidents of muslim exploitation in the US as well such as the "Afia Siddique" incident who is behind bars for no reason at all. Keeping a woman can be justified as they have even justified "George Flyod" but the way they treated Afia Siddique is too bad to be mentioned here. The traveling restriction for being a muslims also makes no sense at all. But muslims aren't the only nation that is suffering as the christians are also going through a hard time in Iran. The opposite thing is that the United Nations took some steps for them and have brought some positive response. Similar efforts were made by the authorities of France and Germany to propagate antisemitism. There had been several "Antizionist campaigns" by the end of the twentieth century in France. An incident from Pakistan got international attention and it involved a Sri Lankan getting beaten by Pakistanis as they said that he violated their religious rules. According to the statistics provided, nearly all the countries worldwide implement discriminatory measures against various religions.