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WA3. Religion and Human Rights

Statement

  • How has the global focus on human rights protection evolved in recent years?
  • Which three human rights from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (listed below) do you believe are the most important to protect? Please justify your choice.
  • In considering your country, what is the predominant religion, and how would you describe the relationship between religion, society, and government there? (Please specify your country). Please support your answer with specific examples.
  • What are the worst cases of religious intolerance occurring in the world today according to your country’s point of view?
  • How can the UN help stop state‐sponsored religious intolerance?

Answer

Introduction

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. It is a milestone in human history and a lot has been achieved since then. However, there are still many challenges that face the global community in the field of human rights as these rights are not respected equally among states; each state commits to a subset of these rights and rarely does a state commit to all of them.

How has the global focus on human rights protection evolved in recent years?

The Council of Europe (2014) divides human rights into three generations; first, civil and political rights that are mostly concerned with the protection of the individual from state violations; second, economic, social, and cultural rights which focus on the necessities of life; third, solidarity rights that are concerned with the rights of groups and the environment. The focus of human rights has shifted from first, to second, and now to third-generation rights (Council Of Europe, 2014).

In the beginning, specifically after World War II, the focus of human rights was on basic equality and survival rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and security of person. However, in recent years, with the progress that has been made in the field of human rights, eliminating a big chunk of fatal illnesses, the focus has shifted to include more social and economic rights, such as the right to education, democracy, and work.

The number of global Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) with consultative accreditation to the UN grew to 5188 in 2021 and a total of more than 26,000 organizations (Sidiropoulos et al., 2021). With all of these organizations monitoring and advocating for human rights, the global focus on human rights protection has increased.

In recent years, we saw the recognition of the rights of various groups of people, such as the LGBTQ+ community, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and refugees.

Which three human rights from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (listed below) do you believe are the most important to protect? Please justify your choice

The most important human rights to protect, in my opinion, are articles 5, 9, and 21; which are summarized as follows (United Nations, n.d.): article 5, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. Article 9, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile”. Article 21, “Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives”.

I believe that I chose these articles because they are the most that my country, Syria, needs; especially as I grew up lacking those rights and seeing them being violated every day.

In considering your country, what is the predominant religion, and how would you describe the relationship between religion, society, and government there? (Please specify your country). Please support your answer with specific examples

The predominant religion in Syria is Islam; the government is supposed to be purely secular and there should be complete separation between the state and religion. However, the government has been accused of favoring the Alawite sect while discriminating against all other religious groups in military, legal, and political matters (Hibrawi, 2018).

The religion in the Syrian society is important as the society is mostly conservative and religious. Despite the social contract that demanded the secularity of the government, no government has committed to that in the past 50 years, the government has built a strong and complex relationship with religious leaders and institutions to use them as a tool to spread specific propaganda and control the population and maintain its power (Echele, 2023).

What are the worst cases of religious intolerance occurring in the world today according to your country’s point of view?

In Syria, the worst case of religious intolerance is the persecution of religious minorities, especially the Christians and the Yazidis. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has targeted these religious minorities and committed serious crimes against them, including mass killings, enslaving, and forced conversions (Mccary, 2024).

In Syria, also, the government has a long history of prosecuting Muslim Sunnis; they consider the Islamic Brotherhood a terrorist organization despite it being recognized as a political movement by many countries. The government used this as an umbrella to target any persons who seemed religious despite them not doing anything wrong based on law No. 49 of 1980 which was specifically targeting political opponents (Harvard Divinity School, 2024).

In Palestine, there is discrimination against Palestinians, especially Muslims. The Israeli government has imposed restrictions on the freedom of worship and movement of Palestinians, demolished mosques and other religious sites, and discriminated against Palestinians in access to religious sites. The Israeli government has also been accused of using religion to justify its policies and actions (U.S. Office. of Palestinian Affairs, 2023).

How can the UN help stop state‐sponsored religious intolerance?

State-sponsored religious intolerance is becoming less important as humanity is moving to be less religious; however, the UN should do more to stop state-religious intolerance where it happens and that is by specifically adding religious intolerance to the list of human rights violations that are punishable by international law and make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights legally binding to all states, and a coalition of other states can enforce these laws on the state that violates human rights in the way they see fit.

Imposing sanctions on states that violate that law, and the UN can also create a global fund that distributes rewards to states that show progress on the issue, with these rewards being in the form of financial aid, trade reliefs, and other incentives that encourage the adoption of human rights.

Word Count: 958.

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