THE TANDEM PROJECT
UNITED NATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS,
FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE:
PREPARATION FOR THE UNIVERSAL
PERIODIC REVIEWS IN
Issue: Separation of Church and State – Preparing for the
Universal Periodic Reviews on
For: United Nations, Governments, Religions or Beliefs,
Academia, NGOs, Media, Civil Society
Review: “
Excerpts from these articles are for dialogue on
constitutional, policy and administrative practices of Separation of Church and
State issues, in preparation for Universal Periodic Reviews for
In 2008 the UN Human
Rights Council launched a process called the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
All UN Member States will be reviewed on their progress to fulfill their human
rights responsibilities and obligations. Each State has a set date for their
UPR Review before the UN Human Rights Council sometime between 2008 and 2011.
The Universal Periodic Review begins with a presentation of a National Report
by a UN Member State and inter-active dialogue with the UN Human Rights
Council. The Human Rights Council drafts a Working Group Report and later,
follow-up recommendations after a second inter-active dialogue with the Council
and other Stakeholders.
The Norwegian Universal
Periodic Review will be held in 2009 and the United States of America Universal
Periodic Review in 2010. These excerpts are from reports and articles on
selective Separation of Church and
State issues on both countries.
The Postscript following
the Issue Statement considers the
question of a Convention on Freedom of Religion or Belief followed by a
Response from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. The
Tandem Project proposes a concept, Separation of Religion or
Belief and State (SOROBAS), as
an option for consideration. It complements the core principles and values of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through rights-based Dialogue and Education.
The Tandem Project
Objectives on Dialogue and Education for Universal Periodic Reviews: (1) Use
International Human Rights Standards on Freedom of Religion or Belief as a platform for genuine dialogue on core principles and values
within and among nations, all religions and other beliefs. (2) Adapt these
human rights standards to early childhood education, teaching children, from
the very beginning, that their own religion is one out of many and that it is a
personal choice for everyone to adhere
to the religion or belief by which he or she feels most inspired, or to adhere
to no religion or belief at all.1
The Tandem Project proposes governments, religions or beliefs, academic institutions
and non-governmental organizations in Norway and the United States of America
review issues on Separation of Church and State using International Human
Rights Standards on Freedom of Religion or Belief as a platform, in preparation
for National Reports on the Universal Periodic Reviews for their countries in
2009 and 2010 respectively.
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Link: U.S. State
Department International Religious Freedom Report on Norway; Overview; Religious Demography; Legal/Policy Framework; Restrictions on Freedom of Religion or
Belief; Societal Abuse and
Discrimination. The State Department does not do International
Religious Freedom Reports on the
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90192.htm
Source:
Links to State Department
sites are welcomed. Unless a copyright is indicated, information on the State
Department’s main website is in the public domain and may be copied and
distributed without permission. Citation of the U.S. State Department as source
of the information is appreciated.
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Link: Interview Humanism in
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Link: New York Times story: “Obama Seeks Bigger Role
for Religious Groups
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Link: For Coach, God and Archery are a Package Deal, by Katie
Thomas, New York Times, 20, August 2008.
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Excerpts: Excerpts are presented under the Eight Articles of
the 1981 U.N. Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. Examples of extracts are presented
prior to an Issue Statement for each Review.
1. 1 Everyone shall have the right
to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include
freedom to have a religion or whatever belief of his choice, and freedom,
either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to
manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
1. 2. No one shall be subject to
coercion which would impair his freedom to have a religion or belief of his
choice.
1. 3 Freedom to manifest one’s
religion or belief may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by
law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, morals or the
fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
7. 1 The rights and freedoms
set forth in the present Declaration shall be accorded in national legislation
in such a manner that everyone shall be able to avail himself of such rights
and freedoms in practice.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT -
On
Church officials and some politicians spoke in
favor of greater separation in the state-church relationship. In 2003 the
Government appointed an official State-Church Commission to review the future
of the state-church relationship. The commission's purpose was to ascertain
whether the state-church system should be maintained, reformed, or
discontinued. The commission had its own secretariat and included members from
several areas of society, including different church groups and other religious
groups, politicians, legal experts, and the Sami people.
On
A religious community must register with the
Government only if it desires state support, which is provided to all
registered denominations in proportion to their membership.
A 1997 law introduced the
Christian Knowledge and Religious and Ethical Information (CKREE) course for
grades 1 through 10 (ages 6 to 16). The CKREE reviews world religions and
philosophy while promoting tolerance and respect for all religious beliefs.
Citing the country's Christian history (and given the stated importance of
Christianity to society), the CKREE devotes an extensive amount of time to
studying Christianity. This class is mandatory, without any exceptions for
children of other religious groups. On special grounds, students may be
exempted from participating in or performing specific religious acts, such as
church services or prayer, but they cannot forgo religious instruction.
Organizations for atheists, as
well as Muslim communities, have contested the legality of forced religious
teaching, claiming that it is a breach of freedom of religion and parents'
right to provide religious instruction to their children. In 2002 the humanist
association appealed the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and
the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). In November 2004 the UNHRC
decided that the requirement of a mandatory religion class violated article 18
of the ICCPR and stated that the law violated parents' right to determine their
children's religious and moral upbringing. In response, the Government gave
parents the right to exempt their children from the CKREE until August 2005
(when a new curriculum was implemented). In December 2006 the ECHR reviewed the
case. In a verdict rendered on June 29, 2007, the ECHR held in a near-split
decision that article 2 of the European Human Rights Convention's Protocol No.
1 was violated. In reply the Minister of Education stated that the verdict
would be evaluated, the Government would determine whether additional CKREE
course amendments would be introduced, and that the case would not be appealed.
Under the new curriculum,
Christianity, as the state religion, continued to receive a larger percentage
of the class's teaching time than other religious groups. The final law states
that children cannot receive complete class exemption. Limited exemptions may
occur with respect to specific classroom activities, such as hymn singing or
public prayer.
The humanist association did not
support the curriculum changes. The association asserted in a letter to the
UNHRC that the CKREE curriculum revisions were only cosmetic and did not create
a religion and belief-neutral class. In addition the association advocated that
the partial exemption right be expanded. The association claimed that the UNHRC
concerns had not been heeded and the CKREE curriculum, as revised, continued to
violate Article 18 of the ICCPR.
“HUMANISM IN
In 1814,
Then Article 12 of the
Constitution stipulates that at least 50% of the Prime Minister’s cabinet has
to be members of the state church. Norway’s King is also required to be a
member of the Lutheran Church – strangely, the head of the state is denied
freedom of religion or belief!
The Norwegian Humanist
Association’s aim is to separate Church and State, and to introduce liberty for
all religions and life stances on equal terms.
What happened in
While
“OBAMA
SEEKS BIGGER ROLE FOR RELIGIOUS GROUPS”
“Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that if elected
president he would expand the delivery of social services through churches and
other religious organizations, vowing to achieve a goal he said President Bush
had fallen short on during his two terms. “The challenges we face today – from
saving our planet to ending poverty – are simply too big to solve alone,” Mr.
Obama said outside a community center here. “We need an all-hands-on-deck
approach.”
But Mr. Obama’s plan pointedly departed from the
Bush administration’s stance on one fundamental issue: whether religious
organizations that get federal money for social services can take faith into
account in their hiring. Mr. Bush has said yes. Mr Obama no. “If you get a
federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you
help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire –
on the basis of their religion,” Mr. Obama said. “Federal dollars that go
directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular
programs.”
Early in his first term, Mr. Bush issue executive
orders expressly allowing religion-based groups receiving federal money to
consider religion in their employment decisions, although confusion often
remains in this area because of conflicting federal, state and local laws. “For
those of us who believe in protecting the integrity of our religious
institutions, this is a fundamental right,” said Richard Czik, vice president
for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals.
“If you can’t hire people within your faith
community, then you’ve lost the distinctive that is the reason why faith-based
programs exist in the first place,” said Richard Land, head of the public
policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Mr. Obama’s plan – his campaign said it would be
the “moral center” of his administration – was unfurled against a backdrop
freighted with electoral ramifications…If elected, Mr. Obama said, he would
call for a pre-inauguration review of all executive orders pertaining to the
religion-based program, particularly those dealing with hiring. In one example
of how he would use the approach to carry out a policy goal, Mr. Obama proposed
$500 million per year to provide summer education for one million poor
children, with a goal of closing the achievement gaps between wealthy students
and poorer ones.
But the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized Mr. Obama’s
support of a program that Mr. Lynn said had undermined civil liberties and
civil rights. “I am disappointed that any presidential candidate would want to
continue a failed policy of the Bush administration,” Mr. Lynn said. “It ought
to be shut down, not continued.”
David Kuo, who was deputy director of the Office
of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under Mr. Bush… eventually grew
disenchanted and left when the Bush administration made religion-based
initiatives part of the domestic policy structure…Mr Kuo, who has criticized
the Bush effort as getting bogged down in partisan politics, was asked by the
Obama campaign to review its proposal.
“I think it is a bold, smart, engaging attempt to
use religious organizations to help the poor and to do for the faith community
what the Bush administration could not,” Mr. Kuo said. “But I’m concerned that
his position on hiring rights will bog down this initiative just like Bush’s
position on the other side did the same thing.”
FOR
COACH, GOD AND ARCHERY ARE A PACKAGE DEAL
Two weeks before leaving to compete in the
Olympics, the archer Brady Ellison waded into a pool not far from the Olympic
But Lee’s advocacy has raised concerns in the
“To me, it felt like he did have expectations of
people turning toward Christianity,” Susan Caldwell said. Raquel Caldwell [her
daughter] said when she arrived at Chula Visa, Lee gave her and the other new
archer’s copies of the book “The Purpose Driven Life,” by the evangelical
pastor Rick Warren. When Lee invited the team to attend his Korean church,
everyone went, she said. They later began attending the nondenominational
ISSUE STATEMENT: Positions on Separation of Church and State in
A front page cover story in a weekly American news
magazine called Pastor Rick Warren “
The
Every country has its own way of dealing with
proselytism, conversion, missionary activity and registration of religions.
There are efforts by governmental organizations at regional levels to suggest
standards for the constitutional and legal/policy frameworks for their
countries. But more needs to be done on an international level. This is an
opportunity for the new Universal Periodic Review
in the U.N. Human Rights Council to show its effectiveness by suggesting
standards both pre-preparation of National Reports as is the case of
The Tandem Project proposes governments, religions or beliefs, academic
institutions and non-governmental organizations in Norway and the United States
of America review issues on Separation of Church and State using International
Human Rights Standards on Freedom of Religion or Belief as a platform, in
preparation for National Reports on the Universal Periodic Reviews for their
countries in 2009 and 2010 respectively.
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STANDARDS: http://www.tandemproject.com/program/81_dec.htm
The Tandem Project: a non-governmental organization founded
in 1986 to build understanding, tolerance and respect for diversity, and to prevent
discrimination in matters relating to freedom of religion or belief. The Tandem
Project, a non-profit NGO, has sponsored multiple conferences, curricula,
reference materials and programs on Article 18 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights – Everyone shall have the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion - and 1981 United Nations Declaration on the
Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or
Belief.
The Tandem Project
initiative is the result of a co-founder representing the World Federation of
United Nations Associations at the United Nations Geneva Seminar, Encouragement of Understanding, Tolerance
and Respect in Matters Relating to Freedom of Religion or Belief,
called by the UN Secretariat in 1984 on ways to implement the 1981 UN
Declaration. In 1986, The Tandem Project organized the first NGO International
Conference on the 1981 UN Declaration.
The Tandem Project
Executive Director is: Michael M. Roan, mroan@tandemproject.com.
The Tandem Project is a UN NGO in
Special Consultative Status with the
Economic and Social Council of
the United Nations
_________________________________________
Postscript: consider the objective, challenge and
question of a Convention on Freedom of Religion or Belief followed by a
response from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. The
Tandem Project proposes a concept, Separation of Religion or
Belief and State (SOROBAS) as an
option for consideration. SOROBAS
complements the core principles and values of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights through rights-based Dialogue and
Education.
Objective: Build understanding and support for Article
18, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights –Everyone shall have
the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion - and the 1981 UN
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination
Based on Religion or Belief. Encourage the United Nations, Governments,
Religions or Beliefs, Academia, NGOs, Media and Civil Society to consider the
rule of law and International Human Rights Standards on Freedom of Religion or
Belief as essential for long-term solutions
to conflicts in matters relating to religion or belief.
Challenge: In 1968 the United Nations deferred work on an
International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Religious
Intolerance, because of its apparent complexity and sensitivity. In the
twenty-first century, a dramatic increase of intolerance and discrimination on
grounds of religion or belief is motivating a worldwide search to find
solutions to these problems. This is a challenge calling for enhanced dialogue
by States and others; including consideration of an International Convention on
Freedom of Religion or Belief for protection of and accountability by all
religions or beliefs. The tensions in today’s world inspire a question such as:
Should the United Nations
adopt an International Convention on Freedom of Religion or Belief?
Response: Is it the appropriate moment to
reinitiate the drafting of a legally binding international convention on
freedom of religion or belief? Law making of this nature requires a minimum
consensus and an environment that appeals to reason rather than emotions. At
the same time we are on a learning curve as the various dimensions of the
Declaration are being explored. Many academics have produced voluminous books
on these questions but more ground has to be prepared before setting up of a UN
working group on drafting a convention. In my opinion, we should not try to
rush the elaboration of a Convention on Freedom of Religion or Belief,
especially not in times of high tensions and unpreparedness. - UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief,
Option: After forty years this may be the time,
however complex and sensitive, for the United Nations Human Rights Council to
appoint an Open-ended Working Group to draft a United Nations Convention on
Freedom of Religion or Belief. The mandate for an Open-ended Working Group
ought to assure nothing in a draft Convention will be construed as restricting
or derogating from any right defined in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights, and the 1981 UN
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.
Concept: Separation of Religion or
Belief and State – SOROBAS. The First Preamble to the 1948 United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights; “Whereas 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. This concept suggests States recalling their history,
culture and constitution adopt fair and equal human rights protection for all
religions or beliefs as described in General Comment 22 on Article 18,
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN Human Rights
Committee,
Article
18: protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not
to profess any religion or belief.
The terms belief and religion are to be broadly construed. Article 18 is not
limited in its application to traditional religions or to religions and beliefs
with international characteristics or practices analogous to those of
traditional religions. The Committee therefore views with concern any tendency
to discriminate against any religion or belief for any reasons, including the
fact that they are newly established, or represent religious minorities that
may be the subject of hostility by a predominant religious community. Article 18: permits restrictions to manifest a religion or
belief only if such limitations are prescribed by law and necessary to protect
public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms
of others.
Dialogue & Education
Dialogue: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki
Moon, at the Alliance of Civilizations Madrid Forum said; “Never in our
lifetime has there been a more desperate need for constructive and committed dialogue,
among individuals, among communities, among cultures, among and between
nations.” A writer in another setting has said, “The warning signs are clear:
unless we establish genuine dialogue within and among all kinds of belief,
ranging from religious fundamentalism to secular dogmatism, the conflicts of
the future will probably be even more deadly.”
International Human Rights Standards on Freedom of
Religion or Belief are international law and universal codes of conduct for
peaceful cooperation, respectful competition and resolution of conflicts. They
are a platform for genuine dialogue on the core principles and values within
and among nations, all religions and other beliefs.
Education:
The 1981 U.N. Declaration states; “Every child shall
enjoy the right to have access to education in the matter of religion or belief
in accordance with the wishes of his parents, and shall not be compelled to
receive teaching on religion or belief against the wishes of his parents, the
best interests of the child being the guiding principle.” With International
Human Rights safeguards, early childhood education is the best time to begin to
teach tolerance, understanding and respect for freedom of religion or belief.
Documents Attached: