I’ll speak for just over 13 minutes using examples from Forum 18’s work monitoring and analysing FoRB violations in Central Asia((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=27)), the South Caucasus((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=20)) (on Georgia with the Tolerance and Diversity Institute((http://www.tdi.ge))), Russia((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=10)), Belarus((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=16)), Russian-occupied Crimea((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=86)) and Donbas((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=87)). We also publish occasional analyses on Turkey((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=68)) with the Norwegian Helsinki Comittee Turkey Freedom of Belief Initiative((http://www.inancozgurlugugirisimi.org/)). My examples are mainly drawn from those places, and I’ll be using them to discuss some global challenges in relation to FoRB and security.

Let’s first think about the idea that more security requires less human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) both begin: “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”((http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx)). During the Troubles, as we called them in Ireland, over 3,600 people were killed((http://www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/deaths.htm)). In 1983 Interpol found that Northern Ireland was the most dangerous place in the world to be a police officer. Yet today it’s no more dangerous than anywhere else in western Europe, and almost all the community strongly supports policing. Why? As the then-Chief Constable of Northern Ireland stated in 2009, human rights must be at the core of policing((https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmhaff/418/418.pdf)). Ending the Troubles required the post-1998 introduction of strong institutional protection of everyone’s human rights((http://bihr.org.uk/sites/default/files/Brice-Dickson-transcript.pdf)). This strengthened democracy and the rule of law, and laid a strong foundation for reconciliation through listening and understanding the experiences of people on opposing sides((See Reconciliation and Human Rights in Northern Ireland: A False Dichotomy?, Maggie Beirne and Colin Knox, Journal of Human Rights Practice, Vol. 6 Number 1, March 2014, pp. 26–50, https://academic.oup.com/jhrp/article-pdf/6/1/26/6461674/hut032.pdf and Rebecca Dudley, Human Rights and Reconciliation, Rebecca Dudley, Corrymeela Community 2013, https://www.corrymeela.org/cmsfiles/resources/think-peaces/think-peaces-10.pdf)). This produced the popular support for law-enforcement essential for any society’s security. No government can afford to neglect human rights, including FoRB, if it genuinely wants security – especially against terrorists claiming a religious motivation.

So we might want to question the idea that more security requires less respect for human rights.

Do the ways we think about FoRB help us understand reality, or leave us blind to reality and threats to everyone’s freedom? In Russia only 5 per cent at most of Russians attend Orthodox services. So if we think of Russia as basically Orthodox under the Moscow Patriarchate, with a few smaller groups, we can overlook the centuries-old communities of non-Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox, Buddhists, non-Orthodox Christians, Jews, indigenous pagans and Muslims, as well as atheists and followers of many other beliefs such as Hare Krishna devotees. There are claims made that only some within Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and [non-Orthodox] Christianity are “traditional religions”. This phrase began to be used in 1995 to advocate for discrimination – for example, for privileges for the Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox but not for the historically far more “traditional” Old Believer Orthodox((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2246)).

Today in 2019 there is a nationwide Jehovah’s Witnesses ban. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression David Kaye, then-SR on the Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association Maina Kiai, and SR on FoRB Ahmed Shaheed stated that “the use of counter-extremism legislation in this way to confine freedom of opinion, including religious belief, expression and association to that which is state-approved is unlawful and dangerous, and signals a dark future for all religious freedom in Russia”((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2297)). There are increasing numbers of prisoners of conscience jailed for exercising FoRB, including six Muslims jailed for periods of between two and eight years for meeting without state permission with other Muslims to study theologian Said Nursi’s writings, pray, eat, and drink tea together((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2450)). One of those jailed Muslims, Yevgeny Kim, was last month made stateless by being stripped of his Russian citizenship and awaits deportation to his country of birth Uzbekistan((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2478)) – itself a serious FoRB violator((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?country=33)). Russian Jehovah’s Witnesses are increasingly being jailed and detained for periods of a year or more, and yesterday, a court confirmed a six year jail sentence against Dennis Christensen((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2479)). Well over 180 are known to be being investigated on “extremism” criminal charges, many in detention, under house arrest, or under travel restrictions((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2480)). And throughout 2018 at least 56 organisations and 103 individuals – Protestants, Jews, Hare Krishna devotees, Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox, etc. – were prosecuted under “anti-missionary” legal changes with a 90 per cent conviction rate. As Hare Krishna lawyer Mikhail Frolov said, “believers don’t understand what they can and can’t do, and because of heavy fines they don’t want to take the risk and therefore significantly reduce their activity, especially in public”((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2474)).

Unless it is stopped, discrimination – for example in the mass media and in education – can over time also take other countries into what the UN Special Rapporteurs described as “a dark future”.

So we might want to question whether the ways we think about FoRB help us understand reality, or leave us blind to reality and threats to everyone’s freedom.

Is FoRB a threat to security, or are FoRB violations the real threat? As UN Special Rapporteur on FoRB Ahmed Shaheed reminded us today, “we are talking about everyone’s right to hold religious or non-religious beliefs. We are also referring to the right to manifest one’s religion or belief; to express one’s thoughts that may be critical of religion or belief; or to simply be loyal to one’s conscience and be whoever they want to be peacefully”((Video message to the “Contemporary Issues of Freedom of Religion or Belief in Armenia, Georgia and beyond” conference in Yerevan on 24 May 2019.)). FoRB violations attack deep-rooted personal identities and values, and both make political and social tensions more difficult to resolve and add new conflicts. FoRB violations normally happen in a context where people cannot express different identities and opinions openly, in societies where the rule of law is weak, which deny women equality, where LGBTI people face attack.

For example, in Kyrgyzstan followers of many different beliefs are concerned at continuing attacks on people because of their beliefs, and the impunity the authorities give such attackers. Violent attacks continue against local Christians and Muslims friendly with Christians after an attack on a Protestant, Eldos Sattar uuly, which left him needing immediate surgery. During a formal police questioning of witnesses Sattar uuly and his lawyer were verbally and physically attacked. Kyrgyzstan has a long record of not bringing perpetrators of violent attacks to justice, including state officials who incited attacks on people trying to bury their dead((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2460)).

It is impossible to understand FoRB violations against anyone unless one looks at FoRB from an all human rights for all people perspective. As former UN Special Rapporteur on FoRB Asma Jahangir – a Pakistani lawyer who defended those accused of blasphemy and women against rape and discrimination – commented: “When I am asked which community is persecuted most, I always reply ‘human beings’”((at the Prague commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief)).

So we might want to focus on the freedom in “freedom of religion and belief”, as an empowering freedom for everyone essential for everyone’s freedom and security.

Many states use “security” as an excuse for violating FoRB, even though their international legal obligations forbid this((“Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.” See also the interpretative UN Human Rights Committee General Comment 22 http://www.tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2fC%2f21%2fRev.1%2fAdd.4&Lang=en)). Former UN Special Rapporteur on FoRB Heiner Bielefeldt wrote in 2016 that: “Freedom of religion or belief rightly has been termed a “gateway” to other freedoms, including freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly and association. There can be no free religious community life without respect for those other freedoms, which are closely intertwined with the right to freedom of religion or belief itself. This is exactly what worries authoritarian Governments and often causes them to curb freedom of religion or belief”((http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Religion/A-71-269_en.pdf)).

As the OSCE ODIHR/Venice Commission Joint Guidelines on the Legal Personality of Religion or Belief Communities((http://www.osce.org/odihr/139046)) note: “States have developed a number of practices involving, for example, police control, surveillance, restrictive measures including the closing of places of worship, confiscation of property, financial sanctions, imprisonment, blocking access to chaplaincy services, restricting the dissemination or ownership of religious literature, or restricting the freedom to convince others of one’s religion or belief”.

Kazakhstan, for example, in 2018 proposed new restrictions which among many other things included bans on sharing the beliefs of religious communities denied state permission to exist, and confiscating all religious literature that has not passed state censorship. The regime claimed that this implemented its human rights obligations, and that people who exercise FoRB without state permission are a “risk group” who may get involved in what the regime calls “terrorism”((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2384)).

As Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, pointed out last Monday on her Kazakhstan country visit, in relation to the targetting of religious and civil society groups: “The use of extremism laws against political groups and critical voices is a worrisome practice and detracts from the genuine and much-needed work globally of addressing … terrorism challenges”((http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24620&LangID=E)).

So we might want to ask whether “security” measures are what they claim to be, or are really about protecting unjust rulers.

Dictatorships make great efforts to deceive people. For example, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia all make extravagant claims of “religious tolerance” or state-sponsored “religious dialogue”. Such meetings and their foreign guests never seriously publicly address the reality of the host’s systemic and increasing FoRB violations((http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1939)). Kazakhstan’s commitment to “dialogue” may be judged by, among other things, the arrest this month of Aslan Sagutdinov for holding a blank piece of paper in a square in Oral((http://www.rferl.org/a/meta-protest-kazakh-man-detained-holding-blank-poster/29926716.html)). Such regimes’ alleged “religious dialogue” falsifies reality and signals that human rights, the rule of law, and freedom are of no importance. And can any “dialogue” worthy of the name, with the trust that is essential for this, be facilitated by a regime which steadily worsens its flagrant breaches of the human rights it has solemnly promised to implement?

As the European Union Guidelines on the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief((http://consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/137585.pdf)) state: “Religious tolerance as well as inter-cultural and interreligious dialogue must be promoted in a human rights perspective, ensuring respect of freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression and other human rights and fundamental freedoms”. If this happens, a context for fruitful, wide-ranging interreligious dialogue is facilitated. This can open the door to co-operative constructive action on many issues, such as environmental protection and tackling poverty.

For as then-UN Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association Maina Kiai said on a 2015 country visit to Kazakhstan: “the robust exercise of human rights and the maintenance of peace and harmony are mutually reinforcing goals. Indeed, the best guarantor of stability is ensuring that all people living in Kazakhstan fully enjoy their rights as endorsed by the Government through its voluntary ratification of international human rights law”((http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15517&LangID=E)).

So we might want to ask whether our own actions and words empower people exercising their FoRB and other human rights, or empower their governmental oppressors.

Serious FoRB violations signal that the regimes responsible are not genuinely interested in security, but only in retaining their unjust grip on power. The rule of law and the fundamental freedoms of religion and belief, expression, association, and assembly reinforce each other. Indeed, current UN Special Rapporteur on FoRB Ahmed Shaheed has stated that the lack of FoRB and linked fundamental freedoms in his home country of the Maldives is directly connected with there being no independent parliament or judiciary((speaking in the Bundestag in Berlin on 14 September 2016.)). The challenge we face is this: how can we foster genuine security, by giving people what the OSCE ODIHR/Venice Commission Joint Guidelines on the Legal Personality of Religion or Belief Communities((http://www.osce.org/odihr/139046)) calls “the dignity they deserve as members of the human family”.

Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to our discussion.

24 May 2019,  Yerevan

Contemporary Issues of Freedom of Religion or Belief in Armenia, Georgia and beyond, regional conference, Yerevan