The Concept of Religious Freedom in the European Union
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES Department of International Relations and European Studies European Studies The Concept of Religious Freedom in the European Union Master’s Thesis Anna Matušinová Supervisor: JUDr. Mgr. Ivo Pospíšil, Ph.D. UČO: 210609 Discipline: ES Year of Matriculation: 2009 Brno, 2011 I would like to express my gratitude to JUDr. Mgr. Ivo Pospíšil, Ph. D. for the skilful supervision of my research, helpful advice and overall approachability. This thesis would not have been possible without the support of Stuart Andrew Hopkinson, Cheri Kramer, Kayla Meek, Ondřej Lébl and Joseph Zelezny. I Declaration I certify that the master thesis entitled The Concept of Religious Freedom in the European Union is all my own work based on the listed literature. I understand that I may be penalized if I use the words of others without acknowledgement. In Brno, May 19, 2011 Anna Matušinová II CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 2. CONCEPT OF THESIS ........................................................................................................ 3 2.1. Hypothesis and structure of the study ................................................................................... 3 2.2. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 4 3. THE TRADITION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN EUROPE ...................................................... 7 3.1. The term “religious freedom” ................................................................................................ 7 3.2. Historical context in brief ...................................................................................................... 8 4. INSTRUMENTS TO SECURE THE FREEDOM OF RELIGION IN EUROPE .............................. 15 4.1. The European Convention on Human Rights ........................................................................ 15 4.2. Other conventions within the Council of Europe ................................................................. 18 4.3. Protection of human rights in the primary law of the EU ..................................................... 19 4.4. Charter of Fundamental Rights ............................................................................................ 20 4.5. Other instruments within the European Union .................................................................... 21 4.6. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 21 5. FREEDOM OF RELIGION AS AN ISSUE ............................................................................. 23 5.1. How are the tensions created? ............................................................................................ 23 5.2. Judicialization of politics ..................................................................................................... 24 6. THE CONSTRUCTION OF MOSQUES ............................................................................... 30 6.1. The political and social debate ............................................................................................ 31 6.2. Reasons behind the protests ............................................................................................... 38 6.3. The examination of cases according to typology .................................................................. 40 6.4. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 43 7. CRUCIFIXES .................................................................................................................... 45 7.1. Approach of judicial sphere ................................................................................................. 46 7.2. Political decisions and public debate ................................................................................... 50 7.3. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 56 8. RELIGIOUS HEADWEAR ................................................................................................. 58 8.1. Approach of judicial sphere ................................................................................................. 59 8.2. Political decisions and public debates .................................................................................. 64 8.3. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 75 9. RELIGIOUS OATHS ......................................................................................................... 77 9.1. Approach of judicial sphere ................................................................................................. 77 9.2. Political decisions and public debate ................................................................................... 79 III 9.3. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 81 10. RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS .................................................................................................. 83 10.1. Approach of judicial sphere ............................................................................................... 85 10.2. Political decisions and public debate ................................................................................. 86 10.3. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 90 11. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 91 12. BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 95 12.1. Table of cases .................................................................................................................... 95 12.2. List of legislation ............................................................................................................... 97 12.3. Books ................................................................................................................................ 98 12.4. Articles .............................................................................................................................. 99 12.5. Newspapers .................................................................................................................... 101 12.6. Other sources .................................................................................................................. 103 IV 1. INTRODUCTION “Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.” 1 Mohandas Gandhi Religion - the word, which has inflicted a variety of feelings since the beginning of mankind. For centuries both religion and faith have been a source of controversy in Europe. During the medieval age torturing and killing were ways to cope with heretics and infidels. The 20th century, however, was not refrained from religious riots. The last century came with one of the biggest genocides of a religious group in the history of mankind – the Jews. The war in the former Yugoslavia and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda2 still reminds us that people are capable to kill each other because of race or religion even today.3 Although the age of the unprecedented influence of the Church on the State’s affairs is already gone, the clash of the sacral and profane world is still deepening. For Europe, and especially the European Union (EU), the number of immigrants is increasing. Those people have diverse political, cultural, religious and social backgrounds. What they share in common is that they are trying to keep ties with their countries of origin. The manner of achieving this goal is mainly through practising cultural and religious traditions. Due to this fact, European cities are slowly changing their appearance as immigrants with a common language, country of origin and in particular religion, are settling different areas (one may think that the modern semi-voluntary ghettos are being built). The majority of immigrants in the European Union are coming from Arabic countries. Due to this fact the common religion shared among immigrants is Islam,4 a religion with which the traditionally Christian inhabitants of Europe are confronted with every day.5 It is obvious that conflicts are not very smooth as can be 1 Gandhi, M. K.: An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, pp. 370 – 371. 2 There are obviously more cases of mass-killings based on religion, the given examples are there only for illustration. Moreover the study should take into account the cases on the area of the European Union. 3 Boven van, T.: Advances and Obstacles in Building Understanding and Respect between People of Diverse Religions and Beliefs, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol 13, No 4, November 1991, pp. 442. 4 According to the data from Eurostat the immigrants to the EU came in the third-fourth of year 2010 especially from Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Serbia and Somalia. The Czech Republic accepted the most applications for asylum from Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia and Ukraine. The majority of immigrants are heading to Germany,