2014

USCIRF reports and Western Europe

According to the 2013 Annual Report on the State of International Religious Freedom by The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF):

«The state of international religious freedom is increasingly dire due to the presence of forces that fuel instability. These forces include the rise of violent religious extremism coupled with the actions and inactions of governments.» said Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett [*], USCIRF’s Chair.

ISIS: open letter of 75 NGOs to the EU Council

On 4th December 2014, NGOs and leaders, including the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB), signed a letter sent to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council and all members of this institution, urging them to take effective action to protect religious minorities facing ISIS.

Here is the letter and the signatories:

To Mr Donald Tusk 
President of the European Council

To All members of the European Council

General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union
Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 175 B-1048 Brussels Belgium

Dear Mr President,

Prof. Pietro Nocita - Considerations on Rudy Salles’ proposal at PACE

In the ideological and political view of the European States, there is principle which cannot be negotiated: the guarantee for each individual to consider his State of belonging as a common home both for believers of all faiths and for non-believers alike.


Discrimination of any citizen, based on his/her faith or his non-faith, is not allowed.


Each State must prevent anybody from persecuting or discriminating any person based on his religious faith.


European Court of Human Rights fails to protect religious freedom

This is a press statement by FOREF Europe:

Threat of full-face veil to “open, personal relationships” trumps human rights

Vienna 3 July 2014 - FOREF Europe: By upholding a French ban on wearing full-face veils, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has failed to protect the religious freedom of Islamic women who choose the veil as an expression of their faith, according to the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe (FOREF), an independent nongovernmental monitoring group.

Dr. A. Amicarelli legal comment on Rudy Salles’ report at PACE

The protection of minors against excesses of anti-religious policies

Comment on the report "The protection of minors against excesses of sects" of Mr Rudy Salles (MP EPP/CD' France), no. AS/Jur (2014) 07 of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.

As a human rights lawyer with a specific interest for religious freedom and religious minorities I was not happy to read this draft report as it poses a real threat to religious freedom in Europe.

Basically, as declared in the explanatory memorandum (page 4), this report is the result of: