News October 2006

UN headquarters, New York

Adventist UN Representative Calls for Greater Commitment to End Religious Intolerance

New York, NY… The United Nations, governments, and society all need to do much more to end religious intolerance and discrimination, concluded delegates to a key conference held in New York October 5 and 6.

The conference focused on ways to implement the United Nations 1981 Declaration on religious tolerance as part of the celebration of the declaration's 25th anniversary. Delegates from the UN diplomatic corps and local religious freedom activists met with a group of high-level leaders from overseas that included government officials, judges, academics, and human rights proponents. The Seventh-day Adventist Church was represented by its UN liaison director, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher, a speaker at the conference.

In his address, Gallagher explained that Adventist involvement in the drafting of the 1981 Declaration, in particular the section dealing with the right to a day of worship, was followed by the church's gaining consultative status with the UN in 1985. "As a result Adventists consistently protest religious liberty violations at the annual UN Commission on Human Rights and actively lobby Ambassadors for action on cases of freedom of conscience," he added.

The church has also co-sponsored many regional and world congresses on religious freedom with the International Religious Liberty Association. "These congresses, together with country visits, demonstrated our commitment to educating for religious freedom and ending discrimination based on religion or belief," Gallagher concluded. "The upcoming world congress in Capetown, South Africa, from February 27 to March 1 has the theme: 'Combating Religious Hatred through Freedom to Believe.' In this way we are contributing to the implementation of the 1981 Declaration, and we call for far greater commitment to ending religious intolerance." He also presented and distributed the church's statement on the 25th anniversary of the 1981 Declaration that was drafted for this occasion.

Felice Gaer, chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) gave the "tortuous history" of the 1981 Declaration that took some twenty years to be produced, because of the many objections to the rights to the practice and expression of religion or belief. She also highlighted the ongoing need to work towards better implementation of the Declaration, indicating that it was the mandate of the USCIRF to hold accountable nations for violation of religious freedom by recommending that they be categorized by the US State Department as "countries of particular concern."

Bani Dugal, representing the Baha'i International Community, spoke of the watering down of provisions for religious freedom, in particular the right to change one's religion. "In the 1948 Declaration there is the clear right to change religion, but in later documents this has become only the right to adopt or to have a religion."

Chairman of the meeting, Paul Martin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, summarized the presentations in three issues. "Firstly, the importance of the freedom to change one's religion, and the concept of proselytism. Secondly, equality and women's rights in the religious context. And thirdly, education for freedom of religion or belief, and building trust between religions."

The conference was jointly convened by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University, the Columbia Center for the Study of Human Rights, and the United Nations NGO Committee for Freedom of Religion or Belief. [PARL News]

Panel presentation: L to R: Jonathan Gallagher, Felice Gaer, Matt Cherry, Paul Martin, Bani Dugal.

Jonathan Gallagher, Ibrahim Dabbour (Greek Orthodox Church, Jordan), Abdul Karim Pharaon (Supreme Court Justice, Jordan), Khatuna Tsintsadze (Human Rights expert, Republic of Georgia).

Meeting in progress

TOP