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Good and Bad at the UN

Last Thursday, I attended a meeting of the UN General Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Committee – the so-called “Third Committee” – for presentation of the annual report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Professor Heiner Beilefeldt. (Earlier in the day, CLR had co-hosted a briefing with Beilefeldt). It was an interesting experience.

Professor Beilefeldt is a serious, energetic, and well-motivated scholar, and his report, which focuses on protecting the right of conversion in international human rights law, is worth reading. In some respects, the Committee meeting was worthwhile, too. The Third Committee is a huge body, with delegates from all UN member states; it meets in an oversized room that feels like a repurposed Costco. There is a platform at the front, where the Chair and Special Rapporteur sit, and rows and rows of tables with delegates and staff. The Special Rapporteur presents a summary of his report, and delegates are then allowed to respond and ask questions, which they do in the studied, affectless monotone of diplomatic conferences.

About a dozen state delegations responded to Professor Beilefeldt’s report. Some interventions were revealing. For example, Germany and the Netherlands stressed the need for protecting atheism as a belief. The Canadian and Chinese delegates got into a dustup over whether Falun Gong is a religion or a cult; the Read more

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CLR Co-Hosts Briefing With UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief

In New York yesterday, CLR co-hosted a lunch briefing with Professor Heiner Beielefeldt (left), the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Beielefeldt was in New York to present his annual report, “Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance,” to the UN’s General Assembly. (I attended the General Assembly meeting as well; I’ll write more about that in a subsequent post).

Beilefeldt’s report focuses on the right of conversion as an essential component of the freedom of religion or belief. Although international human rights law grants a right to change one’s religion, the right has proved controversial in practice, especially, though not exclusively, in Muslim-majority countries, which often criminalize apostasy from Islam. In his briefing, Beilefeldt explained that his report identifies four versions of the right of conversion, all of which merit protection:  (1) the right to change one’s religion; (2) the right not to Read more

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Iran Releases Pastor Accused of Apostasy

Good news from Iran this weekend: the government has released Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani from prison. The Iranian government initially had sentenced Nadarkhani, who converted to Christianity from Islam, to death for the crime of apostasy, but later switched the charges to rape and extortion – charges most people dismissed. In response to pressure from religious-freedom advocates in the West, including the White House, Iran now says the conviction was only for “evangelizing Muslims,” not apostasy, and that Nadarkhani can be released for time served. (H/t: First Things).

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Deringil, “Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire”

Conversion is a problematic concept for Muslim-majority societies. Classical  Islamic law makes conversion from Islam a capital offense, and many Muslim-majority countries today, even those that do not apply classical fiqh, fail to recognize a right to convert.  Turkey’s current draft constitution for the first time grants such a right, although the right’s contours are uncertain. A forthcoming book by Turkish historian Selim Deringil, Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire (Cambridge 2012) situates the subject historically, describing the pressures on Christians to convert in the nineteenth- century Ottoman Empire. These pressures coincided, ironically, with a secularization campaign known as the Tanzimat, which, as a formal matter, made religion irrelevant to Ottoman political identity. Deringil, a professor at Istanbul’s Bogazici University, no doubt deals with the ironies in his forthcoming book, which looks like a very worthwhile read. The publisher’s description follows:

The commonly accepted wisdom is that nationalism replaced religion in the age of modernity. In the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, the focus of Selim Deringil’s book, traditional religious structures crumbled as the empire itself began to fall apart. The state’s answer to schism was regulation and control, administered in the form of a number of edicts in the early part of the century. It is against this background that different religious communities and individuals negotiated survival by converting to Islam when their political interests or their lives were at stake. As the century progressed, however, and as this engaging study illustrates with examples from real-life cases, conversion was no longer sufficient to guarantee citizenship and property rights as the state became increasingly paranoid about its apostates and what it perceived as their “de-nationalization.” The book tells the story of the struggle for the bodies and the souls of people, waged between the Ottoman state, the Great Powers, and a multitude of evangelical organizations. Many of the stories shed light on current flash-points in the Arab world and the Balkans, offering alternative perspectives on national and religious identity and the interconnections between the two.

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Yildirim on Turkey’s Draft Constitution

The Forum 18 Blog has an interesting article by Mine Yildirim (Åbo Akademi University) on the freedom of religion provisions in a draft constitution currently under consideration in Turkey. The ruling Islamist AKP party and the opposition secularist CHP party have agreed on some provisions, but not all, and Yildirim describes the result as a mixed bag. For example, for the first time, the constitution will contain a clause conferring a right to change one’s religion. As Yildirim points out, many majority-Muslim countries reject such a right, and the AKP deserves some credit for accepting the language (though Islamists sometimes interpret such language to confer only a right to convert to Islam). On the other hand, the AKP has refused to discontinue compulsory religion classes in public schools. Minorities, especially Alevis, claim these classes amount to proselytism, and the ECtHR has agreed on at least one occasion (Zengin v. Turkey). Also, the AKP rejected the CHP’s proposal for a clause stating that “the state is impartial toward all religions and beliefs in all its proceedings and actions and will respect social pluralism based on the diversity of religions, beliefs and opinions.” The AKP argued that such a provision would invalidate the state’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, which has a major role in promoting Sunni Islam in Turkey. Here’s Yildirim’s closing paragraph:

The challenge for the AKP – as the current ruling party – remains to devise policies which genuinely respect the religious freedom of Turkey’s increasingly pluralistic society. This starts with the Constitution and also includes other legislative changes to protect religious freedom in line with the country’s existing human rights commitments. The AKP’s non-recognition of Alevi cem houses (places of worship), insistence on the compulsory [religious education] lessons, strengthening the Diyanet’s position as a publicly-funded religious institution, and the comments of AKP politicians, indicate that the party fails to devise policies that respect Turkey’s pluralistic reality and observe the principle of impartiality on the part of the state.

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UK Court: Child of Divorced Parents May Convert from Judaism to Christianity Despite Mother’s Objections

What a wrenching — and in its implications for how civil courts understand minority religious traditions, fascinating — case. An English judge has ruled that a 10-year old Jewish girl may be baptized over the objections of her mother, who wishes the girl to remain Jewish. The girl’s father and mother divorced two years ago. Both parents were Jewish, but after the divorce the father converted and joined the Church of England. The parents shared custody of the girl, and, on the weekends he had custody, the father took the girl with him to church. The girl eventually told him she wished to be baptized; unsure of her commitment, he put her off. The girl then approached a minister on her own and also raised the issue with her mother, who quickly filed a court application to stop the process.

In a judgment made public last week, the judge decided that the girl’s interests were best served by allowing baptism to go forward. As in any such case, the judge considered many factors, including the fact that the father and mother had not been observant Jews during the marriage; that since the divorce the mother had neither taken the  girl to synagogue nor arranged for Jewish religious instruction; that the father had not, as the mother and all four grandparents alleged, “brainwashed” the girl; and that baptism, which in the Anglican tradition is only the start of one’s relationship to the church, would not prevent the girl from changing her mind later.

Reading the judgment, one senses how painful this situation has been for all concerned and how hard the judge tried to do the right thing. I don’t wish to intellectualize matters inappropriately, but I was particularly struck by the judge’s reasoning with respect to the girl’s religious upbringing. It seems to me the judge understood Judaism in very Christian terms – or perhaps in very liberal, Western terms, which, in this case, turns out be the same thing. For the Read more

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Al-Azhar’s Bill of Rights

Earlier this week, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the world’s preeminent Sunni center of learning, announced a new “Bill of Rights” for Egypt. Al-Azhar hopes that the non-binding document will guide the newly-elected parliament in preparing the new Egyptian constitution. Al-Azhar consulted Muslim and Christian intellectuals during the document’s drafting, and influential religious and political leaders have endorsed it, including Coptic Pope Shenouda and representatives of Islamist parties like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Al-Nour. Observers say the announcement is one in a series of attempts by Al-Azhar to assert a “moderate” version of Islam and beat back challenges from stricter versions of the faith endorsed by the Islamists.

The Times  reports that the document protects “freedom of expression and belief.” I haven’t been able to find an official translation online, but phrases like these can obscure serious underlying tensions. For example, a secular Western liberal might understand “freedom of belief” to cover, among other things, the choice to change one’s religion. In a Muslim context, though, the phrase could mean only that non-Muslims have the right to convert to Islam — Muslims still would be prohibited from converting to other faiths. Similarly, “freedom of expression” would not protect expression perceived as an insult to Islam, for example, attempts to convince Muslims that other faiths are superior. The fact that Islamist parties have signed on to the new document suggests that these narrow interpretations are at least plausible.

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Religious Conversion and Presidential Candidates

In The New Republic, Mark Oppenheimer remarks on the fact that so many major American politicians have had religious conversions while adults: Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich, Harry Reid, and George W. Bush, to name only a few. He can’t help but wonder whether their motivations were at least partly political. For Gingrich, conversion to Catholicism might be a way to obscure his earlier adulteries; in fact, on the campaign trail, he has pointed to his conversion to show he’s a changed person. For Obama, baptism in “a prominent, black, urban mega-church” would have been a way to ignite his political career in Chicago. And so on.

Oppenheimer notes that religious conversions do not seem to hurt American politicians. It’s easy to see why. Voters switch religions all the time, too. According to a recent study by Putnam and Campbell, at least one-third of Americans have switched their religion as adults; about 25% have searched for a new place of worship, not counting those who have searched for a new place because of a move. These are astonishingly high numbers in comparison with the rest of the world. In their propensity to change religions as adults, American politicians reflect the remarkable “churn” that characterizes American religious culture. Perhaps this is Mitt Romney’s real problem: he’s been in the same church his whole life.

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Iran Says Pastor’s Crime Not Apostasy, But Rape

More news this weekend on Yousef Nadarkhani, the Evangelical pastor Iran has sentenced to death for apostasy.  The semi-official Fars news agency says that Nadarkhani is actually facing execution for several counts of rape, extortion, and treason — nothing to do his conversion to Christianity.   Fars quotes a government official criticizing outside media coverage for giving a distorted account of Nadarkhani’s trial.  “In our system,” the official is quoted as saying, “no one can be executed for changing his/her religion.”  The new allegations are surprising, to say the least, since the government’s brief in Nadarkhani’s appeal to the Iranian Supreme Court, obtained by Western news outlets, mentions only the charge of apostasy.  Observers suspect that the international  attention to Nadarkhani’s case, including an appeal from the Obama Administration last week, has embarrassed the Iranian regime, which is now seeking a pretense for punishing the pastor.  — MLM

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White House Issues Statement on Iran Apostasy Trial

The White House issued a statement this afternoon condemning the conviction of Evangelical Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani for apostasy by an Iranian court. Having refused three times to recant his adult conversion to Christianity, Nadarkhani is now subject to execution. Some reports suggest that the authorities will commute the death-penalty sentence, but that is unclear at this writing. The White House’s statement follows. — MLM

The United States condemns the conviction of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani.  Pastor Nadarkhani has done nothing more than maintain his devout faith, which is a universal right for all people.  That the Iranian authorities would try to force him to renounce that faith violates the religious values they claim to defend, crosses all bounds of decency, and breaches Iran’s own international obligations.   A decision to impose the death penalty would further demonstrate the Iranian authorities’ utter disregard for religious freedom, and highlight Iran’s continuing violation of the universal rights of its citizens.  We call upon the Iranian authorities to release Pastor Nadarkhani, and demonstrate a commitment to basic, universal human rights, including freedom of religion.