{"title":"On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination: A Case Study on the Applicability of ICERD with Respect to China’s Uyghur Muslim Minority","authors":"Ross Holder","doi":"10.1163/18710328-13021144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13021144","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000As an officially recognised minority nationality in China, the Uyghurs’ unique religious identity is ostensibly protected under Chinese national law. In reality, such protections are limited in practice, with frequent claims by Uyghur activists, human rights NGOs and scholars that government policies result in the religious discrimination of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. In light of the inefficacy of state legislation in protecting the Uyghurs’ religious freedoms, this article considers the protections offered within the Human Rights Treaty System of the United Nations (UN), of which China is both a charter member and an increasingly active participant. However, any attempt to consider Freedom of Religion or Belief protections within the UN’s core treaties remains frustrated as China has yet to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is the sole UN human rights instrument to contain provisions dedicated to religious and minority rights. To overcome this issue, this article argues that acts of religious discrimination against the Uyghur minority may also fall into contention with the protections contained within the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty that has been ratified by China and is therefore legally obligated to comply with.","PeriodicalId":42092,"journal":{"name":"Religion & Human Rights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18710328-13021144","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45443424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Human Rights Protection and Traditional Churches in the System of National Cooperation in Hungary","authors":"Júlia Mink","doi":"10.1163/18710328-13021143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13021143","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Hungary adopted its new Fundamental Law and new legislative framework on the legal status of churches, religious denominations and religious communities in 2011, as part of a number of constitutional changes leading to the dismantlement of democracy, rule of law and human rights protection. In relation to the new legislative framework of state-church relations, much assessment so far focused on how the installment of a “pluralist system of state churches” led to an institutional and partly moral establishment, jeopardizing and curtailing the religious freedom of non-established religious denominations. However, it has been less investigated how the “pluralist system of state churches” and related constitutional changes affected a number of human rights (e.g. the right to private and family life or the right to education) and the position of traditional churches, especially, in view of their autonomy. The paper intends to show that the close entanglement of the state and its traditional churches led to the deterioration of the protection of a number of human rights while it also undermined the autonomy of these churches.","PeriodicalId":42092,"journal":{"name":"Religion & Human Rights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18710328-13021143","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47573534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bent Out of Shape: Fictions of Yoga and Religion before the Courts","authors":"Diana Dabby, Amélie Barras","doi":"10.1163/18710328-13021142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13021142","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000We engage with the practice of yoga in Californian public schools through a recent case to examine the discursive mechanisms at play when a practice is shaped as religious (or not). A correlation is made between the practice of yoga in schools and male circumcision, to think about its secular/religious vocation. This line of questioning is salient in exploring how law curates the body of the “secular” “modern” child. We argue that yoga, like circumcision, is an example of an ambidextrous practice that can be curated as either “religious” or “secular”. Section 1 provides a brief genesis of our legal cases and theoretical proposal for secularism as a curating practice. Section 2 offers discursive analyses of religious practice, as well as culture and health through yoga’s postures. Ultimately, we seek to critically examine the manner, mechanisms and methods through which different practices exercised by children or on their bodies are (re)shaped by/through the courts.","PeriodicalId":42092,"journal":{"name":"Religion & Human Rights","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18710328-13021142","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64687558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bans and Restrictions on Religious Broadcasting: A Review of the Arguments and Counter-Arguments","authors":"F. M. Powell","doi":"10.1163/18710328-13011162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13011162","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The ownership of broadcast stations by religious groups, the establishment of broadcast stations exclusively devoted to religious content and the inclusion of content of a religious nature within the programming of regular commercial, public or community stations are all practices that are common throughout the world. However, several countries have implemented bans or restrictions on the dissemination of religious content through broadcasting or the ownership of broadcast stations by religious groups. The present article aims to assess whether such bans and restrictions are compatible with the rights to freedom of religion and freedom of expression as recognized under international human rights law. For these purposes, the most common arguments in favour and against restrictions on religious broadcasting are explained and weighed against each other.","PeriodicalId":42092,"journal":{"name":"Religion & Human Rights","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18710328-13011162","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41881954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Religious Education” or “Teaching about Religion”? A Review of Compulsory Religious Culture and Ethics Lessons in Turkish Primary and Secondary Schools","authors":"Turgay Gündüz","doi":"10.1163/18710328-13021140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13021140","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Religious Culture and Ethics (RCE), a compulsory course in Turkish primary and secondary schools, is a highly debated issue with respect to education on religion. Discussions focus on whether the class is “religious education” with a confessional approach or “religious culture and ethics teaching” that adopts a non-confessional view. Following a short history of religious education courses in Turkish primary and secondary education, this study analyses the curriculum and the content of the RCE course from the perspective of two Islamic sects (madhhab) and religious education approaches to discuss the principal educational approach applied in the country. The study also analyses the argument that holds that RCE is a non-confessional lesson in terms of both content and application; and that, accordingly, there is no problem with its presence among compulsory courses in primary education. It is rather concluded that, since its inclusion within the primary and secondary education curricula as a compulsory lesson, RCE has never been non-confessional in terms of including other religions and beliefs as well as other sects within Islam. An examination of the sectarian sources of information on worship provided in these courses reveals that the current textbooks are explicitly grounded in the Hanafi School with regard to issues of Muslim obligations.","PeriodicalId":42092,"journal":{"name":"Religion & Human Rights","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18710328-13021140","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64687851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moral Panic and Power: The Means of Legitimisation of Religious Intolerance & Human Rights Violation against the Bahá’ís in Iran","authors":"Shabnam Moinipour","doi":"10.1163/18710328-13021157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13021157","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The case of the Bahá’ís of Iran, the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, is a “suspended” genocide and hence alarming. The human rights violations against the members of the Bahá’í community have been designed in such a way to draw as little international attention as possible. It is designed to eliminate slowly rather than to eradicate abruptly. Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic has actively pursued the policy of Bahá’í persecution. This paper focuses on one aspect of the tactics used by the Iranian regime to violate the human rights of the Bahá’í community in Iran. To do so, moral panic theory and Foucault’s power discourse have been used to offer an analysis of the Bahá’í persecutions as an underlying feature of Iran’s domestic policy of othering, religious intolerance and Shi’a supremacy.","PeriodicalId":42092,"journal":{"name":"Religion & Human Rights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18710328-13021157","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47234808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Legal Regulation of the Full-Face Veil in Public Spaces in Spain and Italy: Some Critical Reflections on the Applicability of the ECtHR Doctrine in S.A.S. v. France","authors":"Santiago Cañamares, S. Angeletti","doi":"10.1163/18710328-13021141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13021141","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper focuses on the use of the full-face veil in the public sphere, discussing the standpoint adopted by some local authorities in Spain and Italy and the content of different proposals that have been submitted to Parliament in both countries, aimed at restricting the use of this garment in public places. The doctrine of the ECtHR in S.A.S. v. France will be taken as a benchmark for a comparative study of this issue in both Mediterranean countries. It is assumed that from a legal approach the wearing of burqa is a very complex question that requires a detailed analysis of the different elements involved, including its social implications before giving it an enduring solution. A general ban can be detrimental for the goal of integration, and give way to new forms of discrimination. Therefore, prior to enacting any legislation that could affect fundamental rights, it should be considered what public interests are in real need of protection.","PeriodicalId":42092,"journal":{"name":"Religion & Human Rights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18710328-13021141","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46856626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}