Ensuring the right to freedom of religion or belief vital to ensuring security and stability, say participants at OSCE meeting

VIENNA, 2 July 2015 – Work by states, both in national policies and in co-operation with a range of actors at the national and international levels, including religious and belief communities, to ensure the freedom of religion or belief is vital to ensuring security and stability, participants said today at the opening of a two-day OSCE meeting in Vienna.

The meeting, organized by the OSCE’s 2015 Serbian Chairmanship and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), brought together representatives of governments and of civil society organizations working on issues related to the freedom of religion or belief from the Organization’s 57 participating States and Partners for Co-operation.

Michael Georg Link, Director of ODIHR, told the meeting that the practice in some OSCE participating States of limiting the full and free exercise of the right to freedom of religion or belief to a list of religious and belief communities pre-defined and approved by the state, and the rise in some places of “hostile social forces, born of prejudice, fear and contempt,” which have created intolerable and dangerous environments for particular religious or belief communities, were two issues of particular concern.

“Such governmental and social restrictions on the right to freedom of religion or belief are not conducive to the security and stability of our societies and point to the nature and scale of the effort required by us to address these very real, ever present challenges,” the ODIHR Director said.

Ambassador Sanja Milinković, Deputy Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council and Deputy Permanent Representative of Serbia to the OSCE, said that these challenges can only be addressed through a co-operative approach.

“Facilitating open and transparent interfaith and interreligious dialogue, with the aim to ensure peace and stability, and fostering mutual respect and understanding require active co-operation among a wide range of different actors, at the national and international levels,” Ambassador Milinković said.

Keynote speaker Yevgheny Zhovtis, chair of the board of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the rule of law, stressed that, in order to meet their obligations in these areas, it is important for states to understand they are obliged to guarantee the right to freedom of religion or belief, more than the right to religion, and that that right belongs to individuals.

“Legislation and law enforcement practice, particularly in a number of the OSCE member states, is based on the fact that the concept of freedom of conscience and related legal regulation of relations concerning “everyone” is reduced almost exclusively to the freedom of religion, and even more to the problems facing by religious associations in their activities,” Zhovtis said. “As a result, legislation concerning the freedom of conscience is regarded as ‘special’, and specifically religious. Priority is given to religious groups and not to the person, who becomes simply an ‘appendage’ of a confession.”

The meeting will address opportunities to advance freedom of religion or belief and promote mutual respect and understanding in the OSCE area, creating conditions for meaningful and sustained dialogue between and among religious or belief communities in order to ensure stability and security, and advancing freedom of religion or belief and fostering mutual respect and understanding through dialogue and co-operation among and between authorities, religious and belief communities, and civil society. The meeting will also explore and highlight the role of women and youth in these processes.