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This article proposes that we view freedom of religion as a specific application area of more general basic liberties such as freedoms of thought, expression, association, assembly, movement, privacy, political participation, and economic activity. Separate enumeration of freedom of religion in national and international bills of rights may be useful, but it is not indispensable. In this respect freedom of religion is more like scientific freedom or artistic freedom than like freedom of expression. Recognizing that separate enumeration of freedom of religion is dispensable has salutary consequences for how we conceive and justify freedom as it applies to religion. First, we see that the general grounds of the basic liberties will also be the grounds of religious freedom. Second, we gain a broad and ecumenical scope for freedom of religion that extends into areas such as association, movement, politics, and business. Third, this perspective helps us avoid a narrow clause-bound focus in interpreting freedom of religion. Finally, this approach helps us resist exaggerating the priority of freedom of religion.

What is freedom of religion? What is its relation to other values in society? How do we respect religious heritage in democracies - particularly in multi-cultural democracies that contain many potentially conflicting - values? How far can one express one's religious heritage? In what follows, I want to discuss these issues with a view to determining whether some kind of secularism is the best public policy to pursue in order to respect and promote freedom of religion and one's religious heritage, particularly in contemporary liberal democracies.

In the paper the new hungarian constitutional regulation and related statues on the right to conscience and religion and establishment of churches are examined and compared to the previous regulatory framework. The comparism seems necessary as in 2011 the Hungarian Parliament adopted a new Fundamental Law and new statue on these fundamentak rights. Due to the changed constitutional framerwork concerning the establishment of churches, it seems possible that in Hungary there may be a serious deficit in promoting human rights.

Despite the international recognition of religious freedom as a fundamental human right, recent developments in the United States and Europe reveal that the Islamic faith has been singled out qua Islam for special prohibitions. The question is whether this sectarian approach is compatible with the normative liberal approach to religious freedom that emphasizes egalitarianism and neutrality. The answer to this question is, no. Although religion within the paradigm of liberal political philosophy does not warrant special legal protection qua religion, this article contends that it is equally troublesome to single out religion qua religion for special disfavored treatment, even if the justification is facially neutral. This article uses facially neutral examples, such as: the French burqa-ban case, the Travel Ban project of President Trump, and the anti-Sharia debacle in the state of Oklahoma. This article draws on the dichotomous approach of liberal political philosophy to religion and develops a non-sectarian framework of arguments to defend religious liberty.

In Italy, Catholicism was the dominant faith for about two thousand years and until recently almost the only one. This has meant that it has taken root in the country as a primary socio-cultural element also for the laity and non-believers. Every legal system in a democratic state must find the normative mechanisms to guarantee and protect the religious phenomenon. With the advent of the Republican Constitution, the religious phenomenon is foreseen and regulated in four articles: Articles 7, 8, 19, 20 of the Constitution, to which we must add the guarantees deriving from articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution. These Articles sanction the principle of equality of all confessions and non-discrimination on a religious basis, the freedom to profess one's beliefs both individually and collectively, in public or private, ect. The analysis aims to understand the capacity of these provisions to guarantee all dimensions of the religious phenomenon. In this regard, the question arose whether these articles protect freedom of conscience, conscientious objection and atheism. It is also important to analyze those are the limits that this freedom encounters.

In the paper the new Hungarian constitutional regulation and related statutes on the right to conscience and religion and establishment of churches are examined and compared to the previous regulatory framework. The comparism seems necessary as in 2011 the Hungarian Parliament adopted a new Fundamental Law and new statute on these fundamental rights. Due to the changed constitutional framerwork concerning the establishment of churches, it seems possible that in Hungary there may be a serious deficit in promoting human rights. ; El objeto del trabajo consiste en comparar la nueva regulación del derecho a la libertad religiosa en Hungría con la que existía antes. Los autores del artículo sugieren que los cambios referentes a la libertad de culto pueden suponer un atentado a la dimensión promocional de los derechos fundamentales.

The Australian Constitution contains no guarantee of freedom of religion or freedom of conscience. Indeed, it contains very few provisions dealing with rights — in essence, it is a Constitution that confines itself mainly to prescribing a framework for federal government, setting out the various powers of government and limiting them as between federal and state governments and the three branches of government without attempting to define the rights of citizens except in minor respects. Whether Australia should have a national bill of rights has been a controversial issue for quite some time. This is despite the fact that Australia has acceded to the ICCPR, as well as the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, thereby accepting an international obligation to bring Australian law into line with the ICCPR, an obligation that Australia has not discharged. Australia is the only country in the Western world without a national bill of rights. The chapters that follow in this book debate the situation in Australia and in various other Western jurisdictions.

In the context of a pluralistic religious life, freedom of religion and religious conversion are the two entities that cannot be separated. I argues that the death penalty for the perpetrators of apostate is not relevant to the recent development. The scholars differ on the punishment for the perpetrators of apostate. Scholars who interpret prophetic texts declare the death penalty for apostasy, basing his argument that religious conversions are theological issues which are not negotiable. Scholars who consider apostasy from the socio-political perspective argue that the emergence of Hadith about the death penalty for apostasy is not only meant for riddah who move from Islam to another religion but also for politician who edanger the nation. The number of facts at the time showed that the phenomenon of apostasy is always associated with the issue of treason (bughat), endangering the country and hostility against Muslims. In addition, psychologically, apostasy is also the demolition of old religious tradition to a new religious tradition. This could lead to psychological confusion and mental turmoil for perpetrators of apostasy.

Freedom of religion and belief is one of the strongest rights contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), but simultaneously one of the most elusive. Article 18 of the ICCPR protects "theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief." And yet jurisprudence is yet to fully explore the capacity of this right to stand up to the challenge of meaningfully protecting freedom of religion and belief across the spectrum of worldviews. At the outset of this thesis, a brief history of religious persecution is offered as a backdrop to the emergence of the human right to freedom of religion and belief, before that human right in its present form is unpacked. The compatibility and incompatibility of freedom of religion and belief and other human rights is explored, with reference to some religious approaches to understanding rights. Pluralism is ultimately identified as a key value in balancing conflicts that may arise between different approaches. The human rights obligations of non-state religious actors are then discussed, before asserting that there is a hierarchy of religion and belief in the practice of international human rights law. Despite the fact that article 18 provides for the equal protection of those who believe in one God, those who believe in many gods and those who believe in no god, monotheists are asserted to occupy the highest rung of the hierarchy, with new religions that have not yet become entrenched in history and atheists below them. This assertion is further explored through case study chapters. A case study on proselytism determines the point at which proselytism, as a manifestation of a person's religion or beliefs, becomes coercion of another person that should be limited. In the following case study chapter on hate speech, it is found that persons who are hated for their religion are more likely to be protected than those who are hated by the religious. The beliefs and traits of parties concerned are thus found to have more bearing on legal decisions than whether or not the hate speech at issue incites violence. The third and final case study chapter considers the conflict between a child's right to enjoy religious freedom with the right of her parent to impose a religion or belief upon her. By exploring this tension through analysis of education and the religious circumcision of infants, it is asserted that international human rights law protects parents' religious rights vis-à-vis their child, above the child's own rights and freedoms. It is then considered whether the hierarchy of religion and belief is justified. From a rights-based perspective premised on the value of individual freedoms above ideology, the conclusion reached is that such a hierarchy is indefensible and may serve to entrench the vulnerability of people on the basis of their religion or belief. In order to level the hierarchy at play, freedom from religion is ultimately offered as the measure of freedom of religion and belief. Freedom of religion and belief is only meaningful when an individual is free to choose, change, maintain or reject any religion or belief or even profess atheism, and when the rights of people around him are protected from harmful manifestations of his choice.

-- Introduction * Pasquale Annicchino -- The Protection and Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief in Foreign Policy: Three Puzzles. * Lorenzo Zucca -- Religious Group Rights: Four Analytic Touchstones * Frederick Mark Gedicks -- New Challenges To Religious Freedom In Europe * Hegumen Philip Ryabykh -- Rethinking religious freedom * Elizabeth Shakman Hurd -- The Politics of Religious Freedom: Competing Claims in the United States (and Other Places) * T. Jeremy Gunn -- Supporting Subversion? International Organisations and 'Freedom of Conscience' in Islamic States * Matthew J. Nelson -- The role of the European Parliament in helping to protect freedom of religion or belief via the EU's external relations * Dr. Cornelis (Dennis) de Jong -- The European External Action Service and Freedom of Religion or Belief * Jean Bernard Bolvin -- The United States' Approach to Promoting International Religious Freedom: the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act * Elizabeth K. Cassidy -- Reporting on religious freedom: the "governmental" approach and the issue of legitimacy * Pasquale Ferrara

Contemporary debates on freedom of religion are based on the following premises: a) Human beings are born free, as unique individuals with distinct personalities shaped by natural and social influences; b) human rationality, being the seat of human freedoms, is universal; c) Religion, and hence freedom thereof, might as well be relegated to the realm of individual consciousness. This explains the reference to "the freedom of consciousness and belief" in many international and legal documents. d) Therefore as an individual human right, freedom of religion, consisting of one's right to uphold any belief, dogma, conviction or practice, must be protected against external coercion and interference of any sort. So, the question arises as to the nature of freedom of religion; does it belong inside or outside the realm of human rights? It appears that once a religion is perceived from a majority perspective, it is positioned outside and, hence, falls under the political rights - and if it is perceived from a minority perspective or from the point of view of the latecomers to a country, it is positioned inside. It comes easier for some adherents of different religious traditions to try to devalue all the "other religions" in a spirit of competition for influencing public opinion rather than focusing on the common issues facing all religions alike. Freedom of religion is unquestionably one of these issues at stake now. In this paper, I intend to provide a short analysis of the philosophical perspectives developed by some Muslim philosophers on the question of freedom of religion. Since freedom of religion is a social and first-order political issue, it must be dealt with in the theoretical context of social and political philosophy. But contemporary philosophy has almost severed its ties with religion. To the modern view, philosophy involves rational reflection on the nature of things and religion is concerned with practices based on revealed doctrines which are presumably impervious to rational scrutiny. However, I will attempt to argue that freedom of religion can only be resolved by a philosophical perspective on truth, which was the nature of philosophy as understood by some Muslim philosophers, like Alfarabi and Avicenna. We cannot analyze freedom of religion within a single religious perspective, nor one philosophical perspective on modernity. The perspective of these Muslim philosophers of 10th to 13th century are relevant here because for them, philosophy was not just a rational discourse, as it is for us today, but also a matter of academic exchange or statements; it was about primarily ways involving 'practice of spiritual exercises with the aim of the transformation of the self by the acquisition of wisdom."

The boundaries between secularism, democracy, pluralism, and religious diversity cannot easily be demarcated. Bringing democratic and secular values together with religious pluralism, accommodating different religious communities, and acknowledging individual rights is a great challenge for many societies. In parallel, religious education (RE) in state schools has been a controversial and unresolved issue. On both sides of Cyprus, RE is organized in a mono-confessional way: while the Christian Orthodox content of RE is linked with Greek national identity in the Greek Cypriot South, Sunni Islamic RE is linked with the Turkish national identity in the Turkish Cypriot North. On both sides of the island, the compulsory and mono-confessional characters of RE, as well as the national curricula and textbooks that are used, are a source of conflict. Within this context, this article explores the way RE (Orthodox Christian, Sunni Islamic) is organized in Cyprus and to what extent this may lead to an infringement of the freedom of religion and freedom of education.

The classical liberal concern for freedom of religion today intersects with concerns of equality and respect for minorities, of what might be loosely termed 'multiculturalism'. When these minorities were primarily understood in terms of ethno-racial identities, multiculturalism and freedom of religion were seen at that time as quite separate policy and legal fields. As ethno-religious identities have become central to multiculturalism (and to rejections of multiculturalism), specifically in Western Europe in relation to its growing Muslim settlements, not only have the two fields intersected, new approaches to religion and equality have emerged. We consider the relationship between freedom of religion and ethno-religious equality, or alternatively, religion as faith or conscience and religion as group identity. We argue that the normative challenges raised by multicultural equality and integration cannot be met by individualist understandings of religion and freedom, by the idea of state neutrality, nor by laicist understandings of citizenship and equality. Hence, a re-thinking of the place of religion in public life and of religion as a public good and a re-configuring of political secularism in the context of religious diversity is necessary. We explore a number of pro-diversity approaches that suggest what a respectful and inclusive egalitarian governance of religious diversity might look like, and consider what might be usefully learnt from other countries, as Europe struggles with a deeper diversity than it has known for a long time. The moderate secularism that has historically evolved in Western Europe is potentially accommodative of religious diversity, just as it came to be of Christian churches, but it has to be 'multiculturalised'.

The Council of the European Union recently released its Strategic Framework on Human Rights and Democracy, which included freedom of religion or belief in a list of 36 desired outcomes. The timing is good, as countries around the world are grappling with religion/state questions and the role of religious freedom for minority religious communities and dissenting members of the majority faith. Freedom of religion or belief stands at the crux of these issues, yet the Strategic Framework risks losing the religious freedom among the list of other worthy issues. By learning from the experience of the United States in its decade of religious freedom work, the European Union can jump start its efforts and ensure they have impact during this time of global transition.

The 2011 "Arab Spring" arouses, in Western societies, expectations that often do not take into account the real context of the Islamic countries. As a matter of fact, the Western Secular tradition frequently obstructs the understanding of the strong religious feeling that pervades the social reality of the Islamic world, even if in a non-uniform way: the modernists, traditionalists and fundamentalists' school of thoughts have a different idea of the modern Islamic State. In order to clarify this diversity, the history of the relationships between State and Islam, the inter-relationship (in a degree that is unthinkable in Western culture) between State, religion and law and the consequent different perception of single individual behaviours have to be examined. This encounter-conflict with the Western political perspective became real in the Islamic States through the imposition of the Western law during the colonial period and – in the opposite direction – is taking place, today, in Europe through the increasing immigration of Islamic believers. The provision of concordats (a potential solution with other monotheistic religions) is not possible with the Islamic communities, because Islam does not take into consideration a hierarchically organized ecclesiastical structure and, therefore, the Western States cannot find a single and official interlocutor. This way, within each individual Western State, a frequently difficult coexistence between Western and Islamic States is growing, a coexistence that is leading to new forms of legal pluralism. On an international relations level, the economic difference between the Western States and those who took part in the "Arab Spring" make it difficult for these last countries to promptly build up a modern State. The potential models range from Iranian theocracy to Turkish Secularism, with innumerous intermediate solutions. Today, the tendency seems to go towards an Islamic State, as the Pakistani constitutional evolution shows: but any prediction is questionable, because the transformation process that started with the Arab Spring is just beginning. Finally, the Western constitution model struggles with the rigor of the Islamic religion that does not admit Muslim conversion to another religion. Whoever abandons Islam commits the crime of apostasy that the Coranic law punishes with death. The fundamental right of freedom of religion becomes, this way, an insurmountable obstacle for the introduction of a Western-style constitution in a State whose population is mainly Islamic.