Persecution and Protection of Religious Beliefs Around the World

Despite all of the modern universal changes and although universal declaration of human rights has recognized the right of manifestation of the religion , still there are religious conflicts around the world. There still happen revolutions with religious bases. People are still deprived of the right of applying their religion, while some other are being killed because of their religion views. These happenings can trigger the idea that there should be a special provision in protection of religious liberties. It seems to me that there is not any specialty in religion that should be protected more. However, according to our experiences around the world, there are some features and potential risks in the nature of religion that necessitate specific regulatory measures.

Basically there is nothing special about religious liberties which can make them more important. In fact the mere highlighting a freedom like this, may put the religious and non-religious people in an unequal situation. On the other hand, conflicts, revolutions and crimes like genocide with the religious reasons in the world, make us think about the legal solutions for decreasing these happenings. Before anything we should pay attention to this important fact that, religion can be both in the weak and dangerous position at the same time. In other words religious beliefs can violate many people’s rights in some specific circumstances. For instance, in the case of a religious government, like Iran, where constitutionally Muslims and non Muslims are not equal , official Islam can invade the right of the people who are not Muslim or they do not believe in the in the official presented understanding of Islam. This is not especial provisions that can guarantee the religious...

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...without the recognition of and practical loyalty to other types of public freedoms particularly, freedom of association and speech would be meaningful. The mentioned freedoms should not be limited by any religion or ideology. The only reasonable limitation to public freedoms is other people’s rights and freedoms. The only place that government can stop people from exercising their religion is where a law is violated; a law which is passed enacted and applied by a secular government.

To put it in a nutshell, religious freedoms have to be respected and protected. While this protection is possible by the means of the whole system of accepted international rights and freedoms, none of them would be imaginable without the existence of a secular government. In fact secularism is the most secure guarantee for existence and full exercise of religious beliefs in a country.