Non-State Actors and Religious Freedom in Europe

Willy Fautre, Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. w.fautre@hrwf.net

Introduction

Throughout the second half of the 20^th century, Western European countries took part in the elaboration of international instruments that increasingly guaranteed the basic principles of freedom of religion and belief.[i] They also demonstrated a high degree of creativity in conceptualizing and setting up international human rights monitoring and implementation mechanisms. The European scene is worth focusing on because a number of major forces threatening, inhibiting or safeguarding religious freedom in relatively open societies can be identified and highlighted. It is also a privileged field of investigation because it provides a source of reflection on the significant interactive role played by religious and secular non-state organizations dealing with religious freedom matters, state actors and supra-state actors.

Christian historical churches and Judaism have naturally and easily benefited from the elaboration of international instruments that increasingly guaranteed the basic principles of freedom of religion and belief in Western Europe, where democracy finally prevailed after the fall of the last dictatorships in Greece, Spain and Portugal around the middle of the 1970s. The settlement and development of new religious movements in Western Europe (Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Hare Krishna, and so on) was, however, always accompanied by social and political mistrust.

Their integration into the existing religious landscape, which was and still is mainly influenced by a dominant church, either Catholic or Protestant, remains slow and difficult. Secular humanism has also emerged as an additional factor impeding the social accommodation of new religions, especially in French-speaking and German-speaking countries and regions of Western Europe.

In the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik revolution brought the Communists to power in 1917. All religions, whether historical or new, were dramatically oppressed for more than 70 years. Thousands of churches were destroyed, clerics were massacred, imprisoned or deported to labor camps, and atheism was imposed in all spheres of society and at all levels of state education. In the aftermath of World War II, all religions fell under the yoke of Communism and its atheist propaganda in Central and Eastern European countries that had been “liberated” from the Nazi occupation by the Soviet Union. The spaces of religious freedom were extremely restricted in these new Communist states. This situation prevailed until 1989-1990.

Since the fall of communism in Central and Eastern European countries, the general concept of religious freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination has been gaining more and more ground, mainly under the influence of the human rights implementation mechanisms of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the integration into the Council of Europe and the enlargement of the European Union.  At the beginning of the 1990s, historical religions in former Communist countries started to re-conquer their freedom while non-traditional minority religions continued suffering various forms of hostility not only from the state but also from the dominant religions (Orthodox, Catholic or Lutheran). State and non-state actors started launching anti-cult campaigns against the development and the “invasion” of “foreign cults”, usually perceived as a threat to the national identity.

In Western Europe, the latent social mistrust towards non-historical minority religions suddenly became a political issue, when the Order of the Solar Temple committed a number of mass-suicides and homicides in the mid-1990s.[ii] The anti-cult offensive was first triggered off in French-speaking and German-speaking countries, and then spread to other countries. Parliamentary enquiry commissions on cults were set up, as were lists of (possibly) harmful cults. Special laws and decrees were voted. Campaigns warning against cults were sponsored by governmental agencies and specific state-sponsored mechanisms were put in place to fight them.

National parliaments have the responsibility not only to guarantee freedom of religion and belief but also to protect individuals and society against possible misuse of this same freedom. They also have the power to outline the legal framework regulating the relations between state and religions and to entrust its implementation to a particular ministry or state agency.[iii]

However, the activities of these state actors are under scrutiny of a number of supra-state actors involved in the implementation of international standards. The interactive relations between state-actors and supra-state actors generate a dynamic process intended to reduce restrictions on religious freedom as well as to regulate state interference into internal matters of religions. The main supra-state actors on the European continent are the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights and the European Parliament. Of all the European supra-state institutions, the one most influential in practice is the European Court. Of particular importance is the Amsterdam Treaty (May 1, 1998). Superseding the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 framing the European Union, the treaty stipulates that relations between member states and religions or worldviews in the European Union remain under the authority of the states.