International Human Rights Day
Fiona Bruce MP
Last week the Prime Minister
confirmed that freedom of religion and freedom of speech lie at the heart of
Britain’s “strong tradition” of religious tolerance. This week, as we mark
International Human Rights Day, it is vital to remember that religious rights
are human rights.
Freedom of thought, conscience
and religion – more often abbreviated to “freedom of religion or belief” – is a
human right for everyone, guaranteed in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. And yet too often it is a neglected right: at best ignored or
misunderstood, at worst severely violated.
As we mark International Human
Rights Day across the world, we recognise that all human rights set out in the Universal
Declaration are inter-dependent and equally important. Freedoms of religion,
expression, association and movement, for example, hang together. There is no
hierarchy of rights. However, if people are denied the freedom to choose,
practice, share and change their beliefs, what use are the other freedoms? The
outgoing UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Dr Heiner
Bielefeldt, describes freedom of religion or belief as a “gateway” to other
freedoms.
Around the world, freedom of
religion or belief has never been under as much attack as it is today. “Massive
violations of freedom of religion or belief are currently taking place,”
according to Dr Bielefeldt. The genocide facing Christians, Yazidis and Muslims
at the hands of ISIS in Syria and Iraq is unspeakable. The ethnic cleansing of
the Muslim Rohingyas from Burma is horrific. Baha’is in Iran, Ahmadiyya Muslims
in Pakistan and Indonesia, Uighur Muslims, Falun Gong practitioners and Tibetan
Buddhists in China, and Christians across the Middle East, Africa and Asia and
in parts of Latin America such as Cuba, face continuing persecution. And, as
the latest report by the International Humanist and Ethical Union illustrates,
in parts of the world it is as dangerous to not have a religious belief as it
is to have one. Atheists such as Alexander Aan in Indonesia are jailed because
they do not believe in God. Article 18 of the UDHR, properly applied, should
protect the rights of everyone, of all beliefs and none.
In his final report to the United
Nations, Dr Bielefeldt argues that this right is “multifaceted”, protecting not
simply freedom of worship but “the free development of religious or
belief-related identities, bearing witness to one’s existential conviction by
freely communicating” beliefs with others. It is about “all aspects of
religious and belief-related life”, not only what one believes in one’s heart
and mind, but about the community which arises from that and the conduct that
it entails. He confirms what the Equalities Commissioner has said, and what the
new report from the Lawyers Christian Fellowship and the Evangelical Alliance
report “Speak Up” concludes – that freedom of religion or belief is important,
being “in turn foundational for many of our other freedoms, human rights and
civil liberties”, and for being one means of inspiring contributions towards
the common good through community and voluntary engagement.
Governments, Dr Bielefeldt
argues, have the obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the implementation
of human rights standards. In too many parts of the world, it is the State that
is the primary violator of freedom of religion or belief. Whether through
unjust restrictions and regulations and violent persecution, as in communist
countries such as China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea, or through
discriminatory laws that contribute to a climate of intolerance and extremism,
such as blasphemy laws in Pakistan and Indonesia and their equivalent in Burma
or through not passing or promoting laws ensuring the freedom of the press as in
Bangladesh, or through allowing a culture of impunity to exist where
perpetrators of religiously-motivated violence are never brought to justice, or
through an education curriculum that promotes hatred or intolerance. According
to the Special Rapporteur, “arguably the most widespread pattern of
State-induced violations of freedom of religion or belief relates to harassment
by an uncooperative bureaucracy that may treat people belonging to certain
religious communities with contempt, hostility or suspicion”.
Developed countries are by no
means exempt from this challenge, whilst, of course, restrictions on freedom of
religion or belief here cannot be compared with the horrendous persecution,
torture, and even deaths suffered in countries such as North Korea today. It is
because that country is such a closed society with so little freedom of belief
or speech that I have campaigned in Parliament for many years for the BBC to
start broadcasting into North Korea just as it did into Russia, Eastern
Germany, and Burma, when they were closed countries. We now know from people
there how BBC broadcasts helped them understand that there was a different,
more democratic way for a society to live and encouraged oppressed people to
fight for change. That is why I am so pleased that the BBC has now just
announced that it will start to broadcast into North Korea, a country in which
the state has, until recently, had virtually total control of the media and
thereby such severe control over the mind-set of individuals – requiring
unwavering “worship” of their political leader.
The outgoing UN Special
Rapporteur believes there is a “lack of awareness” around the world however,
not just in closed countries such as North Korea, about the importance of
freedom of religion or belief, and that the full scope of this basic human
right is “often underestimated”. On this International Human Rights Day it is good
to recognise that.
In 212AD,
Tertullian said: “It is a fundamental human right that every man should worship
according to his own convictions” and in 1819 Thomas Jefferson argued that: “The
constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all
human rights”. In 2016, at home and abroad, it is time to actively promote,
protect and uphold this basic right of freedom of religion or belief once more.
That is why it was so encouraging to hear the Prime Minister confirm in the
House of Commons recently the importance of maintaining “‘the jealously guarded
principle’ of the ability to speak freely…respectfully and responsibly about
one’s religion” in this country today.
Fiona Bruce is Member of Parliament for
Congleton and Chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.
International Human Rights
Day is 10th December.
