Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion Or Belief
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The Founders and the Freedom of Religion: an Introduction
The Founders and the Freedom of Religion: An Introduction Religion has always been important in America. During the colonial and Revolutionary eras, religion permeated the lives of Americans. Blue laws kept the Sabbath holy and consumption laws limited the actions of everyone. Christianity was one of the few links that bound American society together from Maine to Georgia. The Bible, in addition to being the divine word of God that would guide people through life's journey to the next world, served as a textbook for history, a source book for morals, a primer for mothers to teach their children how to read, and a window through which to view and understand human nature. Because religion and morality were seen as necessary components of stable society, colonial and Revolutionary governments supported religion. Clergymen were among the most influential members of the community and many of them actively participated in government. The liberal religious traditions embodied in the charters and fundamental laws of Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and the Carolinas read very much like the declarations of indulgences promulgated by Charles II and James II that were so bitterly denounced by the Anglican clergy and members of Parliament. Like a magnet, however, these liberal policies attracted Dissenters to these religiously benevolent colonies. Although colonists often emigrated to the New World to escape religious persecution, many new Americans readily discriminated against others on the basis of religion. Nine of the thirteen American colonies authorized established churches--the Congregational Church in New England and the Anglican Church in the Middle and Southern colonies. -
Religion–State Relations
Religion–State Relations International IDEA Constitution-Building Primer 8 Religion–State Relations International IDEA Constitution-Building Primer 8 Dawood Ahmed © 2017 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) Second edition First published in 2014 by International IDEA International IDEA publications are independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of International IDEA, its Board or its Council members. The electronic version of this publication is available under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence. You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the publication as well as to remix and adapt it, provided it is only for non-commercial purposes, that you appropriately attribute the publication, and that you distribute it under an identical licence. For more information on this licence visit the Creative Commons website: <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/> International IDEA Strömsborg SE–103 34 Stockholm Sweden Telephone: +46 8 698 37 00 Email: [email protected] Website: <http://www.idea.int> Cover design: International IDEA Cover illustration: © 123RF, <http://www.123rf.com> Produced using Booktype: <https://booktype.pro> ISBN: 978-91-7671-113-2 Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 3 Advantages and risks ............................................................................................... -
Rights in the Pandemic Mapping the Impact of Covid-19 on Human Rights
Bulletin No. 10 RIGHTS IN THE PANDEMIC MAPPING THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON HUMAN RIGHTS SÃO PAULO • 20/01/2021 OFFPRINT Cite: Ventura, D.; Reis, R. An unprecedented attack on human rights in Brazil: the timeline of the federal government’s strategy to spread Covid-19. Offprint. Translation by Luis Misiara, revision by Jameson Martins. Bulletin Rights in the Pandemic n. 10, São Paulo, Brazil, CEPEDISA/USP and Conectas Human Rights, January 2021. Credits: The Bulletin entitled RIGHTS IN THE PANDEMIC - Mapping the impact of Covid-19 on human rights is a scientific publication of Conectas Human Rights and the Center for Studies and Research on Health Law (CEPEDISA) of the University of São Paulo (USP) that will be released every two weeks for a limited time. Editors: Camila Lissa Asano, Deisy de Freitas Lima Ventura, Fernando Mussa Abujamra Aith, Rossana Rocha Reis and Tatiane Bomfim Ribeiro Researchers: André Bastos Ferreira, Alexia Viana da Rosa, Alexsander Silva Farias, Giovanna Dutra Silva Valentim and Lucas Bertola Herzog AN UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL: the timeline of the federal government’s strategy to spread Covid-19 n February 2020, the Ministry of Health 1. federal normative acts, including the I presented the Contingency Plan for the enacting of rules by federal authorities and response to Covid-191. Unlike other countries2, bodies and presidential vetoes; the document did not contain any reference to ethics, human rights or fundamental freedoms, 2. acts of obstruction to state and municipal not even to those related to the emergency government efforts to respond to the routine, such as the management of scarce pandemic; and supplies or the doctor-patient relationship, ignoring both Brazilian law (Law no. -
Freedom of Religion and the Legal Status of Religion in Russia
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe Volume 17 Issue 2 Article 1 4-1997 Freedom of Religion and the Legal Status of Religion in Russia Larisa Skuratovskaya Academy of Medical Science, Moscow, Russia Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree Part of the Christianity Commons, and the Law Commons Recommended Citation Skuratovskaya, Larisa (1997) "Freedom of Religion and the Legal Status of Religion in Russia," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 17 : Iss. 2 , Article 1. Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol17/iss2/1 This Article, Exploration, or Report is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND THE LEGAL STATUS OF RELIGION IN RUSSIA By Larisa Skuratovskaya Dr. Larisa Skuratovskaya (Russian Orthodox) is a medical doctor at the Institute of General pathology and Patho-physiology at the Academy of medical Science in Moscow, Russia. She is interested in women;s rights, anti-nuclear campaigns, religious freedom, environmental and socio-medical advocacy. This paper was written in February 1996 while she was a trainee of the Center for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University and European Commission of Human Rights, Strassbourg, France. With Russia's accession to the Council of Europe, this pan-European organization now stretches from the Pacific Ocean in the East to the Atlantic Ocean in the West. -
Why Protect Religious Freedom?
THE YALE LAW JOURNAL MICHAEL W. MCCONNELL Why Protect Religious Freedom? Why Tolerate Religion? BY BRIAN LEITER PRINCETON, NJ: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2012, PP. 208. $24.95. AUTHOR. Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution. The author wishes to thank William Baude, Nathan Chapman, Richard Epstein, Chad Flanders, Robert George, Luke Goodrich, Paul Harold, Joshua Hawley, Steffen Johnson, Burt Neuborne, Eric Rassbach, James Sonne, and Eugene Volokh for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and Spencer Churchill and Mark Storslee for invaluable research assistance. 770 REVIEW CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 772 1. "TOLERATION" 777 II. THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT 781 A. Religion as a Subset of Conscience 782 B. "Insulation from Evidence" 786 C. Rawls 789 D. Mill 792 E. Schauer and "Governmental Incompetence" 795 III. THE LEGAL ARGUMENTS 797 A. Free Exercise Exemptions 797 B. Harm 803 C. Establishment of a "Vision of the Good" 807 771 THE YALE LAW JOURNAL 123:770 2013 INTRODUCTION Religious beliefs have always generated controversy. But religious freedom - the right of individuals and groups to form their own religious beliefs and to practice them to the extent consistent with the rights of others and with fundamental requirements of public order and the common good-has long been a bedrock value in the United States and other liberal nations. Religious freedom is one thing nearly all Americans, left and right, religious and secular, have been able to -
Religious Rights in China: a Comparison of International Human Rights Law and Chinese Domestic Legislation
UCLA UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal Title Religious Rights in China: A Comparison of International Human Rights Law and Chinese Domestic Legislation Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3266q260 Journal UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal, 12(2) Author Kolodner, Eric Publication Date 1994 DOI 10.5070/P8122022058 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California COMMENTS RELIGIOUS RIGHTS IN CHINA: A COMPARISON OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND CHINESE DOMESTIC LEGISLATION Eric Kolodnert INTRODUCTION Analyses of human rights in the People's Republic of China ("PRC") tend to focus upon the specific abuses which the Chi- nese government visits upon its citizens. For example, govern- ments and nongovernmental organizations charge that China violates international human rights law when it shuts down news- papers, bans political parties, arbitrarily detains criminal sus- pects, jails political protesters, tortures prisoners, and refuses to allow its citizens to leave the country. Comparing China's domestic practices with international norms, however, is not the only way to assess PRC compliance with international human rights law. From a legal perspective, it is also important to compare such international law with China's domestic legislation covering such areas as freedom of expres- sion, freedom of movement, the rights of the accused, and the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. This comparative legal perspective possesses three primary advantages. First, where domestic law facially provides certain protections, it helps to expose the inadequacy of human rights critiques which focus solely on governmental actions. While such reports are invaluable in publicizing abuses and raising interna- tional awareness, they often fail to acknowledge that violations of rights contain both political and legal components. -
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
UNITED CCPR NATIONS International covenant Distr. on civil and GENERAL political rights CCPR/C/BRA/2004/2 11 April 2005 Original: ENGLISH HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 40 OF THE COVENANT Second periodic report BRAZIL* [15 November 2004] * The report is issued unedited, in compliance with the wish expressed by the Human Rights Committee at its sixty-sixth session in July 1999. GE.05-41019 CCPR/C/BRA/2004/2 Page 2 1. Introduction 1. Since Brazil's ratification of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on January 24, 1992, a number of political and institutional changes have been implemented and significant progress has been made in the effort to build a normative framework capable of guaranteeing the fundamental rights of individuals in the country. Despite those changes and the process of democratic consolidation pursued up to now, significant challenges remain with respect to securing economic and social improvements capable of ensuring application of those rights, as well as transforming the guarantees formally assured in the Constitution and the infra-constitutional legislation into a cultural mindset. The experience of the decade since the first report on the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was submitted by the federal government, in 1994, has been marked by a disturbing contradiction: while on the one hand, Brazil has never before achieved a comparable level of progress in building a legal order committed to Human Rights, on the other hand, some of these achievements have yet to be reflected in public policies or effective guarantees for the Brazilian population. -
Brazil: Background and U.S. Relations
Brazil: Background and U.S. Relations Updated July 6, 2020 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R46236 SUMMARY R46236 Brazil: Background and U.S. Relations July 6, 2020 Occupying almost half of South America, Brazil is the fifth-largest and fifth-most-populous country in the world. Given its size and tremendous natural resources, Brazil has long had the Peter J. Meyer potential to become a world power and periodically has been the focal point of U.S. policy in Specialist in Latin Latin America. Brazil’s rise to prominence has been hindered, however, by uneven economic American Affairs performance and political instability. After a period of strong economic growth and increased international influence during the first decade of the 21st century, Brazil has struggled with a series of domestic crises in recent years. Since 2014, the country has experienced a deep recession, record-high homicide rate, and massive corruption scandal. Those combined crises contributed to the controversial impeachment and removal from office of President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016). They also discredited much of Brazil’s political class, paving the way for right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro to win the presidency in October 2018. Since taking office in January 2019, President Jair Bolsonaro has begun to implement economic and regulatory reforms favored by international investors and Brazilian businesses and has proposed hard-line security policies intended to reduce crime and violence. Rather than building a broad-based coalition to advance his agenda, however, Bolsonaro has sought to keep the electorate polarized and his political base mobilized by taking socially conservative stands on cultural issues and verbally attacking perceived enemies, such as the press, nongovernmental organizations, and other branches of government. -
Justifying Religious Freedom: the Western Tradition
Justifying Religious Freedom: The Western Tradition E. Gregory Wallace* Table of Contents I. THESIS: REDISCOVERING THE RELIGIOUS JUSTIFICATIONS FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.......................................................... 488 II. THE ORIGINS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN EARLY CHRISTIAN THOUGHT ................................................................................... 495 A. Early Christian Views on Religious Toleration and Freedom.............................................................................. 495 1. Early Christian Teaching on Church and State............. 496 2. Persecution in the Early Roman Empire....................... 499 3. Tertullian’s Call for Religious Freedom ....................... 502 B. Christianity and Religious Freedom in the Constantinian Empire ................................................................................ 504 C. The Rise of Intolerance in Christendom ............................. 510 1. The Beginnings of Christian Intolerance ...................... 510 2. The Causes of Christian Intolerance ............................. 512 D. Opposition to State Persecution in Early Christendom...... 516 E. Augustine’s Theory of Persecution..................................... 518 F. Church-State Boundaries in Early Christendom................ 526 G. Emerging Principles of Religious Freedom........................ 528 III. THE PRESERVATION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN MEDIEVAL AND REFORMATION EUROPE...................................................... 530 A. Persecution and Opposition in the Medieval -
Timor-Leste 2019 International Religious Freedom Report
TIMOR-LESTE 2019 INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT Executive Summary The constitution provides for freedom of conscience and worship and of religious instruction. There is no official state religion. Religious organizations may register with the government under the regulations provided for nonprofit corporate bodies. Religious minority groups continued to report instances in which civil servants rejected marriage or birth certificates issued by religious organizations other than the Roman Catholic Church. Non-Catholic groups reported tensions regarding unequal allocation of government funds, which they said significantly favored the Catholic Church. Government leaders occasionally consulted with religious leaders as part of the government’s broader engagement with civil society. Representatives from a minority religious group reported that an unknown assailant threw stones at them during a church service in September. They said one stone hit a woman inside the church, injuring her face. At year’s end a case remained pending in which, according to Protestant religious leaders in Dili, an unidentified person threw a rock at a Protestant church in the Dili subdistrict of Metinaro in October 2018. U.S. embassy officials engaged regularly with government officials, including from the Office of the Prime Minister, on religious freedom issues, including discrimination in public service, recognition of religious minority documentation, and budget allocations to minority religious groups. Section I. Religious Demography The U.S. government estimates the total population at 1.4 million (midyear 2019 estimate). According to the 2015 census, 97.6 percent of the population is Catholic, approximately 2 percent Protestant, and less than 1 percent Muslim. Protestant denominations include the Assemblies of God, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Christian Vision Church. -
Mechanisms to Claim the Human Right to Adequate Food in Brazil
Exigibiladade: Mechanisms to claim the human right to adequate food in Brazil Right to Food Studies Exigibilidade: Mechanisms to claim the human right to adequate food in Brazil Valéria Burity Luisa Cruz Thaís Franceschini Food and agriculture organization oF the united nations rome, 2011 The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by FAO in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. The views expressed in this information product are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of FAO. E-ISBN 978-92-5-106814-4 (PDF) All rights reserved. FAO encourages reproduction and dissemination of material in this information product. Non-commercial uses will be authorized free of charge, upon request. Reproduction for resale or other commercial purposes, including educational purposes, may incur fees. Applications for permission to reproduce or disseminate FAO copyright materials, and all other queries concerning rights and licences, should be addressed by e-mail to [email protected] or to the Chief, Publishing Policy and Support Branch, Office of Knowledge Exchange, Research and Extension, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy. -
Religious Rights of Prisoners
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS FREEDOM OF RELIGION ACLU National Prison Project Much of the following information was taken from a book by John Boston and Daniel Manville called the Prisoners’ Self-Help Litigation Manual (3d ed. 1995). Important Note: The law is always evolving. If you have access to a prison law library, it is a good idea to confirm that the cases and statutes cited below are still good law. The date at the bottom of this page indicates when this information sheet was last updated. The Free Exercise Clause: When is Religious Exercise Protected? Generally, beliefs that are "sincerely held" and "religious" are protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Courts often disagree about what qualifies as a religion or a religious belief. So- called “mainstream” belief systems, such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism, are universally understood to be religions. Less well-known or nontraditional faiths, however, have had less success being recognized as religions. While Rastafari, Native American religions, and various Eastern religions have generally been protected, belief systems such as the Church of the New Song, Satanism, the Aryan Nations, and the Five Percenters have often gone unprotected. The Supreme Court has never defined the term “religion.” However, in deciding whether something is a religion, lower courts have asked whether the belief system addresses “fundamental and ultimate questions,” is “comprehensive in nature,” and presents “certain formal and external signs.” Africa v. Pennsylvania, 662 F.2d 1025, 1032 (3rd Cir. 1981); see also Dettmer v. Landon, 799 F.2d 929, 931-32 (4th Cir.