Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
234 Ford House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-6460
Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Chairman
Rep. Christopher H. Smith, Co-Chairman
Contact: Ben Anderson (202) 225-1901
www.csce.gov
Helsinki Commission briefing explores religious registration
CSCE (04.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The United States Helsinki Commission will conduct a public briefing to explore the issue of religious registration, one of many roadblocks to religious liberties around the world. The briefing will focus on religious registration among the 55 nations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Roadblock to Religious Liberty: Religious Registration
Thursday, October 11, 2001
10:00 AM - 12:00 Noon
340 Cannon House Office Building
Several OSCE participating States are following a troubling trend toward restricting the right to freedom of religion by using registration schemes, making it virtually impossible for citizens to practice their faith.
Panelists at this Helsinki Commission briefing will discuss the various ways governments are chipping away at religious liberty.
Panelists:
Dr. Sophie van Bijsterveld, Co-Chair of the OSCE/ODIHR Advisory Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief; Law Professor at Katholieke Universiteit Brabant, Netherlands
Dr. Gerhard Robbers, Member of the OSCE/ODIHR Advisory Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief; Law Professor, Universitat Trier, Institut fur Europaisches Verfassungsrecht, Germany
Vassilios Tsirbas, Senior Counsel, European Centre for Law and Justice, Greece
Col. Kenneth Baillie, Salvation Army-Moscow, Russia
Registration laws exist for a myriad of reasons. Some are vestiges of the communist era, while others purposefully limit the ability of new groups to function in a country. Yet this trend toward onerous registration ordinances and statutes has gradually emerged throughout OSCE participating States.
Restrictive trends could be exacerbated in the aftermath of recent terrorist attacks that could be used as a pretext to further restrict or ban individuals and religious communities from practicing their faiths.
In several Central Asian countries, the creation of stringent registration policies threatens to place another burden on religious freedom. The OSCE Advisory Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion and Belief has played an active role in the region by providing expert assistance in the drafting of new laws. However, other problems persist, with some states distorting domestic laws to control, and even persecute, selected religious communities.
New legislation concerning religious registration policies that could potentially stymie religious freedom are consistently cropping up throughout the OSCE region, such as in Ukraine, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many Balkan countries. Austria's anti-religion measure has led the Czech Republic's Parliament to consider similar legislation.
Austria's Government maintains a tiered system with an extremely high threshold for a group to gain the highest status. The 1998 Corporate Status Act mandated that religious groups must have existed for at least 20 years. Ten of those years must be in the form of a community of believers with corporate status. The group must also have a membership amounting to two percent of the population, as measured by the last census (currently, approximately 16,000 people).
Russia's 1997 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations has been used as a road block to religious groups and organizations. The Moscow city government recently refused to register the Salvation Army as a religious organization under provisions of the 1997 law, allegedly due to a minor technicality in its application for registration.
The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine Senators, nine Representatives and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce. Additional information about the Commission is available on the Internet at http://www.csce.gov.
Back to the Table of Contents
The OSCE commitments to freedom of religion or belief
The Hague Seminar on Freedom of religion or belief in the OSCE region: challenges to law and practice
HRWF International Secretariat (27.06.2001) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - On the initiative of the Romanian Chairman-in-Office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted an international seminar on Freedom of Religion or Belief in the OSCE Region: Challenges to Laws and Practice on 26 June 2001. More than 200 people participated as representatives of governments of the OSCE Participating States and OSCE Partners for Cooperation, international organisations and non-governmental organisations.
The 0rganisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which currently embraces fifty-five Participating States from throughout Europe, the USA and Canada, has evolved its human rights regime since its first summit in Helsinki in 1975. The Helsinki process has set forth a number of human rights commitments and has established procedures to promote the implementation of these commitments. The right to freedom of religion and belief makes part and parcel of the OSCE human rights regime since its inception and the seminar took a step back to look into the evolution of the OSCE standards and commitments in this area. Dr. Jeremy Gunn, member of the OSCE/ODIHR Advisory Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief, presented the evolution process from chronological and thematical perspective.
Chronologically, the OSCE commitments have moved from the relatively circumscribed rights related to human contacts typical of the dtente era, the specific rights enumerated in the Vienna Document 1989, to a strong observation of the importance of the respect of the rights of both religious and national minorities. The Copenhagen Document of 1990 stipulates that
the participating States reaffirm that ....... everyone will have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. This right includes freedom to change ones religion or belief and freedom to manifest ones religion or belief, either alone or in community with other, in public or in private, through worship, teaching, practice and observance. This exercise of these rights may be subject only to such restrictions as are prescribed by law and are consistent with international standards (Copenhagen Document 1990, II, 9.4)
Thematically, the OSCE commitments related to the freedom of religion and belief stipulate that:
1.The right of religious association to obtain legal status is guaranteed.
2. States obligate themselves to take effective measures to prevent and eliminate discrimination against individual or communities on the grounds of religion or belief (Vienna Document 1989, Principle 16, 1)
3. States commit themselves to refrain from interfering in internal religious affairs (Vienna Document 1989, Principle 16, 4)
4. States recognise that the exercise of rights relating to the freedom of religion or belief may be subject only to such limitations as are provided by law. They will ensure in their laws and regulations and in their application the full and effective exercise of the freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief. (Vienna Document, Principle 28)
Though the right to freedom of religion and belief is enshrined in the OSCE documents alongside other international instruments, it is becoming increasingly clear that the promotion and defense of religious freedom is becoming one of the most pressing items on the international agenda. Two particular issues are of high priority for the OSCE region C what is permissible in laws and practice with regard to the registration and recognition of religious and belief communities and with regard to the restrictions on their activities.
A few general conclusions emerged from the discussions:
- - Every person has the freedom to have, maintain, adopt and change his or her theistic, atheistic and non-atheistic beliefs, whether traditional, new, well-known or familiar. This freedom denotes the individuals inner, private domain. OSCE Participating States may not impose any restrictions whatsoever on internal freedom of religion or belief.
- - Every person also has the freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest his or her religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. This external freedom may be restricted under certain conditions when it is necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. The limitations should be proportionate to the specific aim and not used to undermine the underlying rights and freedoms that are guaranteed by OSCE documents.
- - OSCE documents neither encourage nor discourage Participating States from imposing registration requirements on religious and belief communities. If a Participating State chooses to impose local or national registration requirements, such requirements should not become a precondition for the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set out in OSCE documents. When certain additional rights and privileges are provided following local or national registration and re-registration, OSCE Participating States must ensure that the registration requirements are transparent, non-discriminatory, and serve a legitimate purpose as agreed in OSCE documents.
The possibility of a broad public dialogue on all levels of society was suggested as well as the need for more exchange of information, jurisprudence and best practices at national and international level.
Back to the Table of Contents
