Vatican City – It ranges from the death penalty for those who change religion to the demand for registration for all or some faiths, from prison for those who do not adhere to the State religion to the requirement to form part of particular “national associations”, from a ban on wearing symbols of one’s faith to having to dress according to codes of the State religion. Abuses, repression, violence… once again, in 2005, freedom of worship was widely violated across the world. It is a reality that – albeit with significant differences – impinges upon all continents, as revealed by the ACS Report 2006, presented in Rome today.
Direct sources of information, testimonies, official documents, press articles, dailies and periodicals, and news supplied by several human rights organizations, contribute to the drawing up of the report, which is the work of the Italian section of “Aid to the Church in Need, offering a global view, analyzing each continent, nation by nation.
The 2006 report reveals that the global situation of religious freedom is still extremely delicate.
Asia is the continent where the great majority of states apply laws that limit religious freedom in several ways, and also where the highest number of people see this right violated. China weighs heavily on this painful record, thanks to laws obliging believers to subscribe to specific government-controlled associations, and which allow for the use of all sorts of abuse against those who are not members: arrests, tortures, at times to death, destruction and sale of sacred buildings. But religious freedom is violated not only in the world’s most populated country, but also in the one which ranks second – India. Here a gradual restricting of spaces of freedom is under way, with growing Hindu nationalism that on the one hand increases attacks against Christians (there have been deaths too) and on the other promotes “anti-conversion” laws that destroy freedom. But restrictions of varying degrees of severity, legal or de facto, exist in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, North Korea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Laos, Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Palestinian territories, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen.
A chapter was dedicated wholly, in Asia, to the threat of terrorism that pushes many Christians to choose the path of exile in the West. This was the case in Iraq, where between August and October 2004 alone, between 10,000 and 40,000 Christians left the country, and in Palestine, where there is a high risk of extinction of Catholic communities of the Eastern Rite. Equally worrying is the situation in Indonesia, where Islamic terrorism and extremism, embedded in local political conflicts and personal interests, represent a real obstacle to guarantees of freedom of worship. At the end of 2005, sources within the Jakarta public security services warned of the presence of at least 3,000 Indonesians ready to undertake terrorist and suicide attacks across the archipelago.
In Africa too, although the situation has eased with the end of some civil wars, the worst waves of violence took place in Angola, Ivory Coast and Sudan while the conflict in Uganda continues. Radical Islam is on the rise in some countries, bringing with it considerable restraints on religious freedom. The current situation in Somalia is extremely worrying, as are the tormented country’s prospects.
If on the one hand, some states, like Morocco and Tunisia, have introduced principles promoting tolerance, Algeria has passed a law punishing conversions from Islam, and in Egypt, the clash between fundamentalist Muslims and Coptic Christians appears to be taking root. There are difficult, but not dramatically so, situations in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria and Rwanda.
In America, meanwhile, apart from Cuba, where political limitations are still imposed on religious freedom, and Venezuela, where moves against civil rights are suspected, problems faced by believers arise first and foremost from the activities of centres promoting “civil rights” like abortion, and from secular attitudes of some political parties in government. This was the case in Brazil as regards abortion, in Canada with homosexual “marriages”, and in some of the United States of America due to a distorted concept of secularism of public institutions.
In some states, life proved difficult at a number of levels for religious groups defending and promoting human rights. This happened in Colombia, Ecuador, Jamaica and Mexico.
Even Europe was not completely exempted from concerns about respect for religious freedom. Here problems arise above all from the spread of a secular attitude and a “monitoring” approach towards religion pervading some states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. This last group includes Belorussia, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldava and Russia, although possibilities of positive developments could be discerned in the last.
The report voiced concern about the secular approach of states in Belgium, France and Sweden. Turkey is a unique case: its desire to join the European Community is pushing the authorities to take steps towards ensuring respect for religious freedom. But much remains to be done, not least at the level of civil society, where signs of penetration of Islamic extremism can be seen, as revealed by the murder of the Italian missionary, Fr Michele Santoro.
“Aid to the Church in Need” (ACN) is a work of Pontifical Right set up in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, a Dutch Norbertine priest. It bears the distinction of being one of the few Observers of religious freedom in the world, in a spirit of service undertaken so that the Church may press ahead with its evangelizing mission, even in places of persecution and great socio-economic hardships.