Freedom of Religion and Belief in Turkey: Recent Challenges and Recommendations in the Context of European Integration

Dr. Özgür Heval Çɪnar is an associate professor in law at the University of Greenwich, School of Law and Criminology

Introduction

Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, from which stems the tenets of pluralism, tolerance, and open-mindedness, is one of the most basic freedoms of a democratic society. Several international human rights documents safeguard this freedom (e.g. Art. 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR). Turkey is a signatory to these conventions, but in practice, it has rarely lived up to its obligations.

The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) came to power in Turkey in 2002. The AKP pledged to introduce freedoms and, during 19 years in government, has made some significant legal changes in line with the political criteria of the European Union (EU); this was because Turkey started the accession negotiations for full membership in 2005. However, it has failed to address many restrictions related to the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. As a result of this failure, Turkey was named in the 2021 report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom as one of the countries where the most serious contraventions of religious freedoms take place. In this article efforts will be made to understand the situation as regards the right to freedom of religion and belief in Turkey, concentrating on the most topical issues.

(more…)

Continue Reading Freedom of Religion and Belief in Turkey: Recent Challenges and Recommendations in the Context of European Integration

Webinar: Advancing Religious Freedom in Different Political Regimes

Webinar Advancing Religious Freedom in Different Political Regimes held on 7 June 2021 to highlight opportunities and successful stories, as well as challenges and failures in promoting religious freedom globally. Each panelist reported on their work in respective political regimes, including Myanmar, Iraq, Turkey, and the work that the International Center for Law and Religion Studies has done with different political regimes.

Brett Scharffs concluded with these remarks: “We have to care for each other in order for us to claim that [human dignity is] universal…. There are ways of advocating that are uniquely Western, but that doesn’t undermine the universality of the values of human dignity. Everyone, everywhere, cares about their own freedoms. These are human values that really are universal even though our models of advocacy can take on cultural characteristics. And sometimes we have to be careful about that.”

Panelists: Brett G. Scharffs, Seng Mai Aung, Ján Figeľ, Mine Yildirim, Knox Thames, Elizabeth Clark.

Moderated by Dmytro Vovk.

(more…)

Continue Reading Webinar: Advancing Religious Freedom in Different Political Regimes

Dignitatis Humanae 2.0: Religious Freedom for the Good of All

In 2019, the International Theological Commission of the Catholic Church released the Declaration “Religious Freedom for the Good of All: Theological Approaches and Contemporary Challenges.” The Declaration studied the theme of religious freedom in the contemporary (more liberal, secular, pluralistic, and relativistic) world and offers an updated Catholic doctrine of this fundamental right developed in the 1965 Declaration Dignitatis Humanae.

This series offers a set of essays written from various perspectives—Catholic, Orthodox, and secular—and with different outcomes—more positive and supportive (Pin, Gas Aixendri, Künkler,and Stein), and more critical (Antonov and Patrick)—concerning both ideas and approaches articulated in the 2019 Declaration and its political implications.

(more…)

Continue Reading Dignitatis Humanae 2.0: Religious Freedom for the Good of All