Europe can do more to safeguard religious minorities

[rug]

Muslims and Jews return from Mecca and Jerusalem. Zaventem Airport, October 2014. (Joel Schalit/Flickr]

Apr? ?25?, ?2016 (updated: 0:12)
By Sophia Kuby
Sophia Kuby is EU Advocacy Director in Brussels for ADF International, a Vienna-headquartered organisation that advocates for the right of people to freely live their faith.

On 14 April, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the Tehreek-e-Taliban’s suicide bombings on Easter Sunday in Lahore, Pakistan. In keeping with the European Union’s commitment to freedom of religion and belief and the rule of law, lawmakers stressed the importance of respect for the basic rights of all persons. Such rights are an essential part of a life lived with dignity, safety and equality.

The resolution also exhorts the Pakistani authorities to ensure that all its citizens can live peaceably according to their beliefs without the threat of discrimination, retribution or persecution. This laudable resolution demonstrates the European Parliament’s commitment to the universality of human rights.

However, with the growing persecution of religious minorities throughout the world, with terrorist attacks in cities like Paris and Brussels, the European Union must act beyond resolutions.

There is a growing urgency, stemming from conflicts and legal restrictions, that calls for a more adequate response. To follow-up on condemnations and commitments expressed in resolutions the EU needs a high-level office in charge of freedom of religion and belief in the world.

http://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/opinion/europe-can-do-more-to-safeguard-religious-minorities/

[DetlefK]

1. This is exactly the wrong approach.

Religion is so "safeguarded" in Europe that there is an entire muslim quarter in Brussels. They are shutting themselves off from the rest of society.

You do not get rid of bad ideas with a policy that protects bad ideas.
You do not get rid of religious extremism with a policy that legally enshrines the right to religious extremism.

What religion needs is not insulation but dialogue.
What religion needs is talking, comparison, criticism, a clash of ideas.
That way, people of different religions get to know each other and learn to respect each other, not by encouraging them to hole up.

Europe's big problem is immigrants insulating themselves from the rest of society, refusing to integrate and forming parallel societies. Europe's problem is NOT that it's hard to shut yourself off from society.


For example: To this day, we have muslim honor-killings in Europe when a young muslim woman wants to live a life outside of the control of her muslim family.
Will that change if the political approach is that religion must be insulated from criticism and protected?
Or will that change when the political approach is a dialogue and the weakening of absolutist and fundamentalist religious tendencies?