The German government is to present a report on the situation of freedom of religion and belief in countries around the world by June 30, 2016. All parliamentary groups in the German Bundestag agreed to a corresponding motion on Thursday evening.
The explanatory memorandum to the motion (Drs. 18/5206) stated that the “protection of freedom of religion and belief is of the utmost importance for all state institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany”. In future, the Federal Government should therefore publish an independent report on the state of freedom of religion and belief worldwide. According to the motion, the US State Department’s annual report on international religious freedom is a model for this. The motion also stated that the basis of the human right to freedom of religion or belief is the religious and ideological neutrality of states and that it serves individuals as a right to freedom and defense against state authority. States are always obliged “to act as impartial administrators neutral towards all religious and ideological communities and at the same time to guarantee the protection of religious freedom.” The human right to freedom of religion and belief must also be respected worldwide as part of the United Nations Charter of Human Rights. “Nevertheless, people are harassed on a daily basis because of their religious beliefs, discriminated against in society and suffer from massive state repression. These range from social exclusion, humiliation, insults and abuse to open and violent persecution and the death penalty. Those affected include followers of all faiths as well as people who do not profess any faith at all,” according to the application. It also stated that, like individual and collective freedom of religion, the freedom “not to form, hold, profess or live by any faith is protected. This negative freedom of religion is also part of the freedom of religion and belief protected by human rights and constitutional law.” The President of the Humanist Association of Germany, Frieder Otto Wolf, welcomed the Bundestag’s decision. According to Wolf, the report not only addresses an important topic. The future publication of the report also gives hope that this will lead to a better awareness of the difficult and often poor human rights situation in this area almost worldwide. “However, I also associate this with the expectation that the political debates on the situation in Germany will become more qualified,” Wolf continued. After all, he also sees a number of significant deficits in Germany that require public attention and political solutions. He is confident that the wording of the mandate to the Federal Government has now succeeded in including the existence of non-religious individuals as well as worldviews and worldview communities without a religious basis and negative religious freedom on an equal footing. “Due to our own work, we already have extensive expertise on the situation of non-religious people in Germany and other countries. We would therefore like to contribute this to the preparations for the Federal Government’s report,” said Wolf on Friday in Berlin.
On the topic
Since 2012, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, in cooperation with the Humanist Association, has published the Freedom of Thought report every year on 10 December, which documents problems and deficits in the realization of freedom of religion and belief worldwide from a decidedly non-religious perspective. The report can be obtained free of charge from the website www.freethoughtreport.com.
