Suriname (39th Session)

Suriname

(39th Session)

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ADF International is a faith-based legal advocacy organization that protects fundamental freedoms and promotes the inherent dignity of all people. As well as having ECOSOC consultative status with the United Nations (registered name “Alliance Defending Freedom”), ADF International has accreditation with the Organization of American States, the European Commission and Parliament, and is a participant in the FRA Fundamental Rights Platform.

This report highlights Suriname’s failure to fully guarantee the rights to freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression. It also explains why the liberalisation of abortion access is not the solution to the issue of high levels of maternal mortality and morbidity in the country.

Tajikistan (39th Session)

Tajikistan

(39th Session)

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ADF International is a faith-based legal advocacy organization that protects fundamental freedoms and promotes the inherent dignity of all people. As well as having ECOSOC consultative status with the United Nations (registered name ‘Alliance Defending Freedom’), ADF International has accreditation with the European Commission and Parliament, and the Organization of American States. ADF International is also a participant in the FRA Fundamental Rights Platform.

This report highlights the severe restrictions on freedom of religion in Tajikistan, including barriers to church registration, the unjustified monitoring of religious activities, censoring of religious materials and the prohibition of children from participating in religious activities. It also highlights the impact of the country’s laws and policies on combating extremism on both freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression.

Tanzania (39th Session)

Tanzania

(39th Session)

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ADF International is a faith-based legal advocacy organization that protects fundamental freedoms and promotes the inherent dignity of all people. We act before national and international institutions and have ECOSOC consultative status with the United Nations (registered name “Alliance Defending Freedom”), accreditation with the Organization of American States, and are registered with the EU Transparency Register. ADF International is also a participant in the FRA Fundamental Rights Platform.

This report focuses on Tanzania’s persisting challenges relating to the protection and promotion of freedom of religion or belief in the mainland as well as in Zanzibar where Christians continue to experience discrimination and violence. It also highlights Tanzania’s failure to guarantee freedom of expression and how it can improve its severely poor maternal mortality rate.

Thailand (39th Session)

Thailand

(39th Session)

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ADF International is a faith-based legal advocacy organization that protects fundamental freedoms and promotes the inherent dignity of all people before national and international institutions. As well as having ECOSOC consultative status with the United Nations (registered name “Alliance Defending Freedom”), ADF International has accreditation with the European Commission and Parliament, and the Organization of American States. ADF International is also a participant in the FRA Fundamental Rights Platform.

This report outlines a variety of legal and practical challenges to the right to freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression in Thailand, especially for religious minorities. Additionally, in light of the recently amended abortion law and the surrounding social pressure, it highlights the challenges with underage pregnancy and the importance of preserving the right to life of the unborn.

A ‘Precious Asset’?

A ‘Precious Asset’?

Analyzing Religious Freedom Protections in Europe

In its first judgement on Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Strasbourg Court held that freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is ‘a precious asset for atheists, agnostics, sceptics and the unconcerned’. 

This book questions and elaborates on this statement, in the context of the current European legal setting. 

Part I offers a theoretical overview of why freedom of religion matters, and the European regulatory framework of this human right. 

Part II focuses on the challenges of interpreting and protecting religious freedom in the context of employment, education, media reporting, free speech, and freedom of association. Is ‘corporate neutrality’ a legitimate basis for suppressing individual manifestations of religion? Do public expressions of religious values constitute ‘hate speech’? To what extent and under what criteria can States limit the freedom of association of religious groups? Overall, is freedom of religion still indeed ‘a precious asset’ in Europe?

Adina Portaru is legal counsel for ADF International in Brussels, where she advocates for religious freedom. 

White Paper: The Rise of Faux Rights

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White Paper: The Rise of Faux Rights

The United Nations and its various entities are supposed to be committed to the protection and promotion of fundamental, universal human rights. Yet increasingly, individual UN entities promote new conceptions of rights not universally agreed by Member States.

Anti-Conversion Laws

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Anti-Conversion Laws

Four countries in South and Southeast Asia—India, Nepal, Myanmar, and Bhutan—have laws that severely regulate religious conversion. Government officials and the police, in line with increasingly nationalist politicians and lawmakers, selectively enforce these laws, effectively banning conversion from the majority religion to a minority religion, in particular Christianity and Islam. This article examines the language of these anti-conversion laws, the political and religious contexts in which they became law, and their effects on religious minorities.

Freedom of Conscience

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A common appeal to conscience is the phrase ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I…’
It shows the strength of conscientious conviction. It is a concept which has crossed between the religious and secular divide through the ages and is understood by some as a moral constraint upon behaviour which might implore someone to act (or not act) in a particular way.

The Istanbul Convention

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The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) is a comprehensive international treaty. Its declared goal is to combat violence against women and domestic violence. However, it goes much further than that admirable aim and raises a number of concerns.