Religion Under Attack

Sunday 13 November 2011 6:00PM

One third of the world's population is experiencing increased religious persecution according to Pew Research Center's recent study on religion in the public sphere. Brian Grim, Director of Cross National Data, talks about the implications, while Gregor Puppinck of the European Centre for Law and Justice discusses the seminal case which challenged the presence of the crucifix in Italian schools. Ilhan Yildiz from Karatekin University explains the religious outlook of present-day Turkey.

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Rachael Kohn: Restrictions on religion are increasing in 12% of the world's countries, but that 12% contains almost one-third of the world's population. Hello, I'm Rachael Kohn, and today The Spirit of Things on ABC Radio National takes a look at where increased restrictions on religion are occurring and what that means on the ground.

News report: It is gruesome footage. Police stand by while a mob start attacking houses belonging to Ahmadiyya followers. Then the killing starts. Three men are stripped naked, stoned and beaten to death. The footage is too graphic to show. Police, outnumbered by the crowd, just stand by.

Rachael Kohn: The persecution of the Ahmadiyya sect in Indonesia is just one example of the restrictions on religion which can be lethal. Where it's happening and at what rate and intensity in 198 countries and territories is the subject of a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published in August.

I had a preview from Brian Grim in July when I attended the Religion and Law Symposium held at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Other speakers at the conference were Gregor Puppinck, the director general of the European Centre for Law and Justice. He tells me about the seminal case of the crucifix in Italian public schools. And I also hear about conditions in Turkey from Professor of Philosophy, Ilhan Yildiz.

When it comes to global religious research, the Pew Forum has distinguished itself as the leader in this field. I spoke to Brian Grim, its director of Cross National Data.

When was Pew established?

Brian Grim: Pew was established maybe 18 years ago, some of the projects, but about six years ago it was formed into a research centre with different projects, and one of the projects is the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that I work for.

Rachael Kohn: And that is partially funded by the Templeton Foundation?

Brian Grim: Yes, our primary funder is the Pew Charitable Trust, but the project that I work on looking at religion across the world is funded both by the Pew Charitable Trust and the John Templeton Foundation.

Rachael Kohn: Well, Pew has certainly been in the news quite a lot lately, it has become such an important instrument of finding out about the world we live in and what it's about. And most recently we've been reading about the rise of religious restrictions and religious violence that has been widely reported in the press as a result of Pew research. Tell me, just as a background to that, there are a lot of people who think that atheism and non-religion is growing, but what about religious affiliation? Is that growing or staying the same?

Brian Grim: That's a subject of other reports we do, but we're finding that religious affiliation is growing in some places and in some places it has taken a step back. The region where religious affiliation is least is Europe and some of the westernised countries, but most of the world lives outside of Europe and in those parts of the world religion continues to grow, even in China which was staunchly atheist for many years, now they have let up some of the restrictions and we are seeing many people becoming active in religion these days.

Rachael Kohn: I think I heard recently that there are more Christians in China than there are in Australia.

Brian Grim: That appears to be the case, right.

Rachael Kohn: In your research Brian, how important have you found religious freedom as a value to be registered by people?

Brian Grim: As part of our project, the Pew Templeton Global Religious Futures project, we are looking to analyse religious change around the world and how that impacts societies. So this can be through demographic growth, it can be through changing ideas about religion and theology, but it can also be impacted by how governments restrict religions around the world as well as how societies react to other religions. So we look at these two ways that religions are restricted, from governments and from people in society.

And these are part of the overall picture of the world today. And I can give two examples. First, we saw restrictions on religion rising in the Middle East and North Africa in the period before the Arab Spring. So government restrictions were tightening on religious practice and beliefs in that region from 2006 to 2009, and then that region has recently had a series of revolutions, and restrictions were rising in Egypt, for instance.

So our reports don't go on to say that the restrictions on religion are causing these types of revolutions, but it is certainly part of the social and political mix that has generated these revolutions in the Middle East.

Rachael Kohn: If religious restrictions are fairly high in the Middle East, would they be targeting actually Muslims or minorities?

Brian Grim: It varies from country to country, but restrictions in general are high or very high in most of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, and the restrictions do tend to target minorities or groups that government considers a threat. So, for instance, in Egypt the restrictions often fall on Muslim groups like the Muslim Brotherhood who the government for many years viewed as a threat to their very existence.

In some other countries, like Saudi Arabia, the restrictions come from a Sunni majority country that has very strict interpretation of what proper Islam is, and then they would fall on Sunnis who don't agree with that, people that are more Sufi in their practice or Shia Muslims, of which there is a substantial minority in Saudi Arabia.

Rachael Kohn: Brian, you said in your previous comment that restrictions on religion may result in the eruption of revolutions like we've seen in the Arab Spring, but I wonder whether, say, in the case of the former Yugoslavia, whether the removal of restrictions on religion resulted in conflict between religious groups?

Brian Grim: Certainly in the former communist countries there were high restrictions on many aspects of life, not just religion. And then the sudden removal of these restrictions was associated with some higher conflict, but it's a much more complicated picture, as you can imagine, because the Soviet Union and the communist states had forced different ethnic groups and religious groups and cultural groups to form into one country that may not have been a natural grouping.

So it wasn't necessarily the particular restrictions on religion but this overall social engineering, that once the engineers left, then the system was somewhat left to run on its own, and you saw a lot of problems.

Rachael Kohn: Where else are the restrictions on religion very significant?

Brian Grim: The region of the world where we see a lot of restrictions, outside of the Middle East, is Asia Pacific, but it's a very diverse region. There are some surprises. Japan has some of the lowest restrictions and social hostilities involving religion of any country in the region.

But then other countries like China have extremely high restrictions on religion from the government, and also a growing level of social hostilities involving religion, which is surprising to the Chinese government and concerning because their philosophy is that restrictions on religion are needed to keep a peaceful and harmonious society.

But as social hostilities involving religion (including religion-related terrorist activities) are happening, the paradigm is being challenged because the restrictions have not prevented these hostilities that have happened throughout the country, also in Tibet. Instead the restrictions seem to be part of the grievances that these groups are having and they are responding to.

Rachael Kohn: What about religious restrictions in the West, in Europe and in America? We are here in America, what did you find there?

Brian Grim: First about America, since we are here, we find that government restrictions exist in the United States on a variety of levels. For instance, if you received some funding from the government to carry out a social program as a religious organisation, you can't proselytise when you are using those funds to carry out a program. So many restrictions on religion that are imposed around the world, people think, oh well, that sounds fair and that's reasonable, that keeps things fair and safe. But what we find is that when these restrictions tend to pile up, you have a much more restrictive environment that allows for less freedom.

We find some of that happening in Europe. Europe tends to regulate things a bit more than the United States. So in some of the Eastern European countries like Russia you find many more restrictions than you would find in western Europe.

There are growing moves to restrict religion, like in France the new laws imposing bans on women wearing burkas in public have gone into effect. And even the attempt to keep public life secular or free from religion restricts religions' ability to engage in public dialogue, so that would be also a type of restriction we would pick up.

Rachael Kohn: Is there any sense, though, of a scale in terms of restriction, that is minor restriction or limited restriction as opposed to unilateral overall restrictions that can be imposed on a particular religion from even practicing, from educating their children and so forth, as we see in Iran?

Brian Grim: On our website you can find information on every country of the world and their level of restriction. And some have minor restrictions that just may be restrictions regarding registration or certain activities, but some can be very severe.

So in Afghanistan, for instance, if you are a Muslim and you want to change faiths, that is considered apostasy, and by law that is punishable by death, which is ironic because the constitution guarantees freedom of religious practice. But then they also have a clause that no law can contradict the sacred law of Islam, which then means your freedom of religion has to be judged by a religious law, and the religious law says that's a crime, to leave Islam, and therefore you should be punished for that. So that would be on the upper end of the scale of restrictions.

Rachael Kohn: That's the importance of your study obviously, that it can be incredibly superficial to just look at the declarations and government statements about freedom as opposed to how it's actually practised.

Brian Grim: Yes, so most countries have some statement of protection for religious freedom. There are only seven countries in the world where their constitution does not provide any protection for religious practice or some sort of attempt towards providing religious freedom. But in many countries, even where they provide that protection, they will contradict it in their own constitution. So, many countries will say religious freedom is provided as long as it doesn't offend the morals of the country.

This can get a bit tricky when you think of the European context. In Europe there is a growing trend to define morality in secular terms, and so what happens when a secular country says 'these are our morals, we believe X, Y and Z', and then a traditional religious group, Christians or Catholic Church in Europe, says 'no, we actually think that is immoral'.

So then you have a conflict between what a secular public is defining as moral and a religious body defines as moral, and they could start to run afoul of protection of religious freedom because they're not being in step with the morals of the country.

So these contradictions within a constitution are important to watch, and we did find in our study that restrictions rose substantially more in countries where there was some contradiction to the religious freedom clause than in countries where it was provided without any contradiction or just some minor qualifications.

Rachael Kohn: Brian Grim is the primary researcher of the global study, 'Rising Restrictions on Religion' for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, published in August this year.

News report: Tens of thousands took to the streets of Pakistan's largest city to make their voices heard. The demonstration in Karachi was ostensibly about changes to blasphemy laws, but it is a loud and highly visible sign of an increasingly polarised country. The blasphemy issue came to a head after a Christian mother of five, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to death following accusations she made derogatory comments about the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

Rachael Kohn: I think I've asked you this before but it comes to mind again; what is the relationship between restrictions on religious freedom and outright violence?

Brian Grim: In our study at the Pew Research Centre we looked at this correlation. And generally we find that as government restrictions increased, that coincides with higher social hostilities involving religion. And we don't find many countries where there is low government restrictions and high social hostilities. So where government restrictions are higher we see high social hostilities involving religion-related violence, from communal violence to religion-related terrorism or higher incidence of religiously biased hate crimes.

Our study itself doesn't get into the causal factors behind that. You know, the chicken and the egg question, do the hostilities come and the government imposes restrictions, or are the restrictions there and then the hostilities? But we did look at a particular type of restriction which were blasphemy laws. So in a large number of countries in the world there is some law that penalises blasphemy, speaking ill of God, apostasy, as I mentioned, in Afghanistan, that's leaving your faith, and that is penalised, or criticism or defamation of religion where you speak out against a religion.

We found that in countries that have these types of laws, that in the years of our study restrictions and hostilities went up in those countries instead of down. So whereas these laws are often promoted as a way to increase harmony and decrease social tensions, the data it seemed to show quite the opposite picture, that where these laws exist, that the tensions have risen rather than dropped.

Rachael Kohn: Well, the populations that you identified as the most restricted were Christians, which might surprise people, and Muslims, which would surprise people even more. First of all, can you tell me the numbers involved or the percentages, and why? What are the conditions contributing to their restrictions?

Brian Grim: In our study we looked at whether a religious group was harassed or somehow abused in a particular country, but we didn't count up how many people of each religion. So these statistics don't reflect who is the most persecuted in the world, but it gives some indication of the overall problems religious groups are facing.

So Christians faced harassment in 130 countries, about two-thirds of the countries of the world, and Muslims faced some sort of harassment or abuse in 117 countries around the world. And oftentimes it is the minority group that is facing the problem. So, say, if you're a Catholic in an Orthodox country you may have a problem, or if you are a smaller Christian sect, like Seventh-day Adventists or Jehovah's Witnesses, you may face a problem in many different countries because you constitute a majority nowhere.

Likewise for Muslims we found that it was usually the minority sect of Islam that faced the problem. So sometimes it's a group that they themselves identify as Muslim, such as Ahmadiyya Muslims. But Orthodox Muslims consider them heretics because they believe that a prophet came after Mohammed.

So in a number of countries they are either outlawed or they're not allowed to call themselves a Muslim. In Indonesia, for instance, these Ahmadiyyas are banned from doing any proselytising, they're not supposed to expand as a community, and there has been an official fatwa, a religious edict approved by the government to this effect. And what often happens is once a government edict is put into place, then if social groups decide to take law into their hands and burn their mosques down, then that tends to go unpunished in many cases.

Another example is Pakistan, and Pakistan, they have a very strict anti-blasphemy law, and anyone who speaks out against Islam or criticises Islam in some way can be put to death by Pakistani law. They haven't done that, but often charges are brought against people, including Ahmadiyya Muslims as well as Christians, as well as other Muslims, and if the court throws the case out, there may be mob violence that takes the law into their hands and puts these people to death.

And we saw two politicians this past year in Pakistan assassinated who were trying to repeal this law, one by his own bodyguard, the Governor of Punjab, and another by armed attackers right in Islamabad who drove by and shot him in his driveway, and that was the Minister for Religious Minorities in the country. So it's a very sensitive issue.

The blasphemy laws are a very sensitive issue. People support them because they feel that criticism of religion is hurting our community, it is an offence against God, so they support them strongly. But oftentimes in the practice of putting these laws into effect, innocents are often accused, maybe for some grudge that someone has or even someone suggesting to change the laws is the one who's targeted, who committed no blasphemy at all.

Rachael Kohn: In America, where religious violence is not very prominent at all except here and there as the exception, there aren't blasphemy laws.

Brian Grim: Well, yes, that's the common perception, that there aren't, but there are some blasphemy laws on the books in the United States but they go un-enforced. So our constitutional protections usually override blasphemy law in a particular state. So ironically they are on some of the books in the US but they go un-enforced.

Rachael Kohn: Well, it would confirm your observation that enforcing blasphemy laws actually creates violence.

Brian Grim: Well, I don't know if it creates violence but it certainly is associated with higher levels of violence, that's true.

Rachael Kohn: One of the interesting revelations in the study is that despite the fact that a great deal has been done to combat anti-Semitism theologically and formally, nonetheless Jews were the victims of a great deal of social harassment.

Brian Grim: That's right, Jews follow Christians and Muslims as the third most harassed group, but there is a difference in the harassment of Jews. We find that in the large majority of cases it's social groups or individuals in society harassing Jews as opposed to governments.

When you look at the harassment of Christians and Muslims and other groups, it tends to be somewhat balanced between government harassment and social harassment, but for Jews, governments around the world are much less likely than social groups to harass Jews, and in some way that reflects all the efforts that have been done to prevent anti-Semitism and violent acts against Jews, at least on the official level.

Rachael Kohn: Tell me, what's the take-home message of your giant study? I mean, one looks at it and sees a great deal of violence associated with Islam and Muslim countries, and that seems to be something that is often internal to Islam.

Brian Grim: I think the take-aways are perhaps three things. One is that government restrictions on religion were rising in the Middle East and North Africa even before the Arab Spring happened. The second is that social hostilities involving religion in Europe were on the rise before the incidents in Norway this past summer with this lone gunman killing so many people. And then third, that we've found that government restrictions and social hostilities are increasing in countries that already had higher restrictions.

So there tends to be somewhat of a polarisation happening, although our next study we'll be able to look at these trends over time and see if that polarisation is actually a trend or just a minor blip that we're observing.

Rachael Kohn: How do you hope this study will be used?

Brian Grim: The value of this study is that we've established a baseline measure on government restrictions and social hostilities, and now we've done a second measure where we can see how things have changed. And I'll give a couple of examples that I think are helpful.

The largest English daily paper in Turkey, Today's Zaman, ran a story with a headline: 'Good news: religious restrictions in Turkey haven't increased'. Now, Turkey is high on both measures but their take was this is good news that Turkey has not become more restrictive in these years. They could have spun it the other way, that Pew once again comes out with a study and shows that restrictions are high in Turkey and debated that, but instead they looked at the trend and made their own conclusion.

Similarly some leading newspapers in Malaysia have highlighted that Malaysia is on the top-ten list of countries with highest government restrictions, and their headline was: 'Malaysia makes a top-ten list, but unfortunately it's not one we want to be on.' So it got people within countries to start looking at the data, looking at the information and engaging with it.

And that's really our hope, that this information is not meant as a criticism of any one country or a promotion of any one ideology but rather some concrete measures that people can look at and start to assess which direction is our country going on these things.

Rachael Kohn: I guess there's one category I've really overlooked and that is what about the restrictions on no faith, that is people who proclaim no faith? Did you incorporate data about that in your study?

Brian Grim: Yes, absolutely. So as we approached the topic of restrictions on religion, that includes restrictions on people being able to have a religion or have no religion. And so that's integral to both our definition of religious freedom and religious liberty and what we're trying to measure.

Rachael Kohn: Brian Grim, thank you so much for speaking to me on The Spirit of Things, it's been a great pleasure.

Brian Grim: Thank you, it's been great to be with you.

Rachael Kohn: Brian Grim is the director of Cross National Research at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, based in Washington DC. Details of the study and links to the Pew website can be found here.

Later we'll hear a about Turkey, but first the European Union: while it's having economic woes, thorny issues of religious freedom also make the news.

News report: For 2,000 years a symbol of Christianity, and still with the power to unite and divide. It's the presence of crosses in Italian schools that the European Court of Human Rights says is wrong, as it violates religious and educational freedoms.

Rachael Kohn: A lawyer who got involved in that issue is my next guest, the director general of the European Centre for Law and Justice, Gregor Puppinck. First he explains the Centre's purpose in connection to the Council of Europe, which is separate from the European Union, but promotes co-operation on the legal and human rights of all European countries.

Gregor Puppinck: It's an NGO, a non-government organisation based in Strasbourg. We mainly work on the Council of Europe issues, which is an organisation based in Strasbourg which covers 47 member states, including states like Russia and Turkey. And so yes, we work on the cases of the European Court of Human Rights, and on the legislative process of the Council of Europe.

Rachael Kohn: Would the Universal Declaration on Human Rights be an important instrument by which you decide cases?

Gregor Puppinck: Yes, the European Court of Human Rights based its decisions on what we call the European Convention of Human Rights, but this European Convention is very close to the Universal, it's almost a copy. So yes, it's true, this court based its decision on the international standards of human rights.

Rachael Kohn: And how many cases would you say come up annually that your centre is involved in?

Gregor Puppinck: Okay, my centre is involved with, say, a dozen cases every year before the European Court of Human Rights. We mostly pick up cases. So some people come to us to bring their case or to help them to bring their case before the European Court in the fields of religious freedom and to some extent in the bioethical field. And also we pick up cases and we intervene as a sub-party as we call it, because we provide amicus brief, which is expertise, to the court.

Rachael Kohn: Of course in Australia everyone has heard about the banning of the burka in France and in Belgium. Would that have been an issue where your centre was involved?

Gregor Puppinck: My centre is not directly involved on the national levels. We mainly focus on the European level, which means that if those cases, if those issues come to the European Court, and I guess they will come, we might get involved on those issues.

Rachael Kohn: You were involved, very personally involved, in a case in Italy that apparently was all over the press. I don't know whether Australians were so aware of it, but it involved something that Australians would be very interested in, and that is the public display of religious and specifically Christian icons, and in this case the display of a crucifix in a school. Tell me about that case.

Gregor Puppinck: It's name is Lautsi vs Italy, it's a very important case before the European Court of Human Rights. In this case it's the Court of Strasbourg, after a first decision banning the presence of crucifix has overturned its decision, its ruling, in favour of the legitimacy of the presence of the crucifix in Italian public schools.

So yes, it is a case concerning in fact more deeply the legitimacy of Christian traditions within the social life and institutions, and the legitimacy according to human rights. It is okay for state to keep its traditional, cultural, historical and also religious symbols in its institutions.

Rachael Kohn: How did the case begin? Who brought the case and why?

Gregor Puppinck: The case came from the north of Italy. A lady, a Mrs Lautsi, was asking the Italian government to take out the crucifix from the classrooms of her children. The Italian courts refused to take those crucifix is out, and she brought her case to the European level, arguing that the simple presence of this symbol on the wall of the classroom would infringe her right to educate her children according to her belief. So this is what she said, the presence of the crucifix infringed her right to educate her children according to her belief. So this was the discussion.

Rachael Kohn: So what was the outcome of her case, as she put it?

Gregor Puppinck: So the first decision taken by a small court...there are two levels of courts, a small one and the grand chamber. So the first time the case went to the small court, where we call the chamber, and the chamber decided by seven votes to zero, by unanimity, that the presence of the crucifix infringed the right of the mother to educate her children according to her non-belief. The court said in its decision that the schools should be cleaned from religious traditions.

Rachael Kohn: Cleansed from religious traditions, purely secular.

Gregor Puppinck: Yes, absolutely, this was the idea. They say that the school system should be aimed at educating the children within a critical scientific approach, and that the presence of a religious symbol could not be considered as going into this direction of what should be a modern, pluralist, tolerant and so on system of education, of state education.

So the court clearly has defined what should be the school system in modern Europe, even though there is nothing on this issue of course in the European Commission of Human Rights. But the court took the initiative to create the standard, to impose this standard of secularisation for the school systems in Europe.

Rachael Kohn: So that's an ideological position.

Gregor Puppinck: It's at least I would say a political decision. It's always difficult to make a distinction between human rights and politics, it's very connected. But yes, it has been understood by many states in Europe as a purely political and even ideological opinion from the court, which exceeds widely the competency of the court. The competency of the court should normally be just to decide if something infringes the convention. The court normally is not competent to define new standards of democracy or modernity. So this was the debate, whether or not the court could impose secularism on Europe.

Rachael Kohn: And when did you get involved in the case?

Gregor Puppinck: I got involved after the first decision. Frankly I believed that this was not a serious case at all. I believe that this case should have been dismissed since the beginning, and I have been very surprised since I saw the court ruled against Italy. I know that this case was proposed for dismissal at the beginning, but finally some judges within the court who had a particular interest on those issues pushed the case through the procedure.

So yes, I acted at that moment and so our strategy was really to come back to the law, to limit the ideological or political affirmation of the court and to come back to the normal interpretation of the convention, the requirements of the convention, so to explain to the court that the court shouldn't decide how a state should be but should just rule on what the state do.

Rachael Kohn: Right, so at that point were there other states in the European Union that wanted to come in support of Italy?

Gregor Puppinck: Yes, there are 21 states out of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe who officially gives their support to Italy and explained to the court is that they don't want human rights to expel all symbols of religion or Christianity. They don't want the court to impose secularism. So 21 countries back Italy. This was huge, it had never happened before, and I'm not sure it will happen again soon.

So yes, it was very big, and this has helped the court I think clearly to come back to a reasonable approach of the case and to a more strictly legal approach, outcome of the decision.

Rachael Kohn: And did this also entail an acknowledgement that Catholicism and that the Church was somehow basic to Italian historical, cultural identity?

Gregor Puppinck: Yes, absolutely. The court recognised clearly in the decision the fact that Christianity and especially Catholicism is the religion of the majority of the people and...Italy, you know, is where Rome is, so it's deeply Christian in its culture. So the court recognised that this is important, and this explains why the crucifix can be displayed.

Of course I think that the ruling of the court would be different if the crucifix were imposed in Turkey, because in Turkey there is no reason for having crucifix today in the classrooms. But in Italy the court says okay, Italy is special for that, and as long as the school system is not aimed at either indoctrinating or converting the students, it is okay, they can keep their symbols.

So the court makes a difference between having a symbol on a wall that does not force people to believe or not to believe or to behave, and having on the other hand for example compulsory religious teachings. Compulsory religious teaching is not permitted by the court because you force someone to do something, to pray or to do something. But the presence of a symbol on a wall is okay because you don't force anybody to look at it.

Rachael Kohn: So what was then the outcome of the decision which, as you say, put the crucifix back on the wall, as it were. Was there a reaction to that decision by arch secularists, perhaps communists?

Gregor Puppinck: Yes, of course there are some people, but mainly in other countries, who were very angry against the court. But we have to say that in Italy there were some polls, and there are about 89% of the population who want the crucifix on the wall.

But there are only 80% of the population who is Christian, which means there are more people who want the crucifix than Christians, which really shows that it is not only a question of religion, it is clearly a question of legitimacy of the religion in society, as long as you don't force somebody else, as long as you tolerate. So you have to tolerate the others, as well as the others to some extent have to tolerate the culture of the country where they live.

Rachael Kohn: I understand that you personally became knighted as a result of this.

Gregor Puppinck: Yes, the Italian government after the last decision, after it was overturned, they made me a knight, I'm very pleased for that, and it's always nice to have this kind of a distinction when you worked hard for the issue. So yes, it's an honour, and I'm happy with it.

Rachael Kohn: Dr Gregor Puppinck. I'm not sure how you address a Papal Knight. He's the director general of the European Centre for Law and Justice, housed in a very unusual building in Strasbourg, France, which you can see on its website, along with a fascinating set of religious freedom cases. Before we return to Gregor, this was one of the big stories in France this year:

News report: An evening in a local park with her children. But from Monday, Kenza Drider could be arrested during this simple pleasure. She will contravene a new law forbidding French citizens from covering their faces in public places. Its target is Muslim women.

Kenza Drider: I think that this is an Islamaphobic law. Muslims are being targeted. First it was about the veils and now it is about the full veil which is only worn by less than 200 Muslim women in France. This law is clearly against my freedom of movement, of conscience and of religion.

Rachael Kohn: Well, you are French, and you said something at the end of your paper today which was interesting, and that was that the French are a little bit blinded by their secularism. Can you elaborate on that?

Gregor Puppinck: Yes, Europe is very diverse. We have countries where religion is official, and we have countries like France and Turkey where there is officially in no religion at all and where the state does not even acknowledge the existence really of religions, they do not acknowledge religions. So yes, the French system of laicite that was elaborated in the past, maybe less today, do not acknowledge religion, and to this extent they are blind to the social reality of religion.

Religion has social dimension, we cannot do anything about that, it does exist and it will continue to exist. As well as societies have a religious dimension. And I believe that the modern or post-modern societies that we describe as being tolerant, pluralist and so on, they also have their own religion. I believe that the human rights ideology, to some extent, is also a kind of religion because it is the underlying values of our societies, and those are the reference upon which we rule and we decide.

So there is no society without a kind of religion and there is no religion without a social dimension. So this is a blindness. If we don't want to look at that, it's just a kind of blindness. And I think the difficulty for us in Europe, and of course for the court of Strasbourg who has to deal with 47 member states, is to acknowledge this reality. And in the meantime to grunt and provide for freedoms and rights. So how can we provide rights and freedoms still acknowledging the reality of the religious phenomenon and without fighting the cultural reality? I think that it would be very sad if we would have Italy without Christianity. It's like having France without wine.

Rachael Kohn: But it would also be like having France without liberty, equality and fraternity emblazoned on the walls of many buildings outside and inside. And I would want to ask you, in an equivalent way Catholicism is deeply identified with Italy, would you say that secularism is deeply identified with France, and is that the cultural reality that has to be acknowledged in questions of religious freedom, such as the wearing of the burka? Does that deep identity of French secularism have to be, in the end, the determining factor?

Gregor Puppinck: This is difficult. France, as well as Belgium, are very secular, and the Court of Strasbourg, as well as it acknowledges the Christianism of Italy, it acknowledges the secularism of France and Italy and Belgium. This is why I am sure the ban of the burka in France would be considered as legal, as okay by the European Court, because the court would recognise that laicism, secularism is an underlying value of France.

But on the other extent, the court cannot permit everything in the name of secularism. So there are limitations. And to some extent we are expecting the day when the court will say to France or even to Germany that their social model as secular cannot prevail on any personal or collective religious expressions.

We had recently a case, which I think is a very bad decision for the Court of Strasbourg, against parents, Christian parents who wanted to home-school their children. In Germany school is compulsory, you have to send your children to public school or to private school, but in schools, you cannot home-school your children. And those Christian parents they were objectors, they said no, I don't want my children to go to those teachings, and in particular to of course the ethical and morale and sexual education schools.

So they took out the children from school and they had been fined. They refused to pay the fine because they believed that it was just to refuse to send their children, and finally the parents have been sentenced to jail. So they have been sentenced to jail because they refuse to pay the fine, because they refused to send their children to sex and morale and ethical education, compulsory teaching in Germany.

But the Court of Strasbourg said it's okay because Germany can legitimately try to avoid the creation of parallel societies. And so for the cohesion of German society, according to its social model and vision, it is okay to fine parents and even to send them to jail because they want to home-school their children. And those parents were just evangelical Baptist parents, so nothing very dangerous.

But the social model, the idea of social cohesion, the idea of having a national model of society is sometimes too respected by the court. And when we see that Europe is more and more in a conflictual situation when we have a growing Muslim presence and when you have a growing extremist approach of Islam using the youth generation in Europe and especially in the UK, France and Germany, the authorities try now more and more to fight against all religions because they don't want to point out only Islam. So they restrict freedom of all religions. So this is really important.

Rachael Kohn: Very interesting times ahead for you. Gregor Puppinck, it's been wonderful talking to you, thank you so much for being on The Spirit of Things.

Gregor Puppinck: You're welcome, thank you.

Rachael Kohn: Gregor Puppinck of the European Centre for Law and Justice. It seems religious persecution for one is freedom for another, which is the Gordian Knot of this whole issue.

One of the speakers at the annual Religion and Law Symposium at Brigham Young University Law School was Ilhan Yildiz. He's head of the Philosophy Department at Karatekin University in Turkey, and he's conducted research on religious minorities, families, folk beliefs and honour killings.

Well, tell me about the religious make-up of Turkey, the religious groups that exist in Turkey and whether they have a freedom, for example, that Muslims would enjoy.

Ilhan Yildiz: Right now in Turkey there are many problems in terms of religious freedom, especially maybe you heard about the headscarf problem. Right now at the universities it is to solve it, but elementary school and high school problem is continuing.

Rachael Kohn: You're talking about the banning of the headscarves.

Ilhan Yildiz: Yes. But, you know, right now, no problem in Turkey at universities, but religious people say we would like freedom at high school and elementary school, like universities. Girls can go with headscarf.

Rachael Kohn: Tell me about the existing minorities in Turkey, the non-Muslim minorities. What kind of status do they have in Turkey?

Ilhan Yildiz: In the Turkish constitution right now they have many rights. They can open their churches, they can change their religious denomination on identity card, they can send their children to any school. But it is a complicated issue. Some of them, they cannot open a religious school. But some groups they are recognised by Lozan Agreement, they have already schools.

Rachael Kohn: You're talking about the Lozan Agreement and that had some effect on the status of groups in Turkey?

Ilhan Yildiz: They are orthodox Armenian and Greek churches and Jews denominations. They are recognised by the Lozan Agreement in 1923, and they have schools. But other groups, they don't have properties. They can open churches and they can pray freely, they can perform ceremonies, religious ceremonies, no problem in terms of law, regulations. But there are some problems with people, Turkish people.

Rachael Kohn: So the practice is not always in conformity with the law, is what you're saying.

Ilhan Yildiz: Yes, there is some tension between the people and the Muslim population.

Rachael Kohn: How has Turkey's efforts to become part of the European Union affected the question of religious freedom in the country?

Ilhan Yildiz: Turkey would like to be part of the European Union for the long-term, and they changed many regulations in terms of religious minorities. They have right now many rights after these changes due to European Union requirements. But we need to do more in terms of people's understanding. Legally, no problem. Turkey is like Australia.

Rachael Kohn: And so that's where your job comes in as an educator in the university, your job is to educate people.

Ilhan Yildiz: Yes.

Rachael Kohn: What do you think is the direction Turkey is going in? Because from the observers point of view, Turkey seems to be going in the direction of more conservative expressions of Islam and a movement against secular culture. How would you see it?

Ilhan Yildiz: You're right, people would like to understand Islam, but mostly Turkey supports secularism as well. I heard many speeches, the Prime Minister, you know, and he says we are a secular country and we are a Muslim country, we are a modern country and we have to be a model for Islamic countries. This is good I think.

Rachael Kohn: Let me ask you about your study which you spoke about today, which is about Turkish society, and in particular about women. Your study has looked at the violence against women. First of all, can you tell me how significant is the problem.

Ilhan Yildiz: Yes, it is a big problem in Turkey and other Islamic countries. Mostly they are uneducated people, but interestingly educated people abuse their wife and children as well. I learnt this from some studies and surveys. Behind honour killings there are other women, women against women.

Rachael Kohn: Ilhan, what was your experience with honour killing? How did you become interested in the subject?

Ilhan Yildiz: I was a professor at the University of Yuzuncu Yil in Van, east of Turkey, and I learned of some events regarding some girls, and I know these girls and I was upset because they are my friends...

Rachael Kohn: Were they actually killed?

Ilhan Yildiz: Yes, they are killed. I started to study about violence against women because of these events. In Turkey 35% women are persecuted by the men. It is a big problem, it's a big problem, and I thought I need to work on it and I can help maybe to solve this problem in Turkey.

Rachael Kohn: Let's hope he can. That's Ilhan Yildiz, Professor of Philosophy at Karatekin University in Turkey, and a member of the Turkish Republic Prime Ministry General Directorate on the Status of Women. Details of all guests on today's program can be found on our website, and of course you can download the audio, all at And if you'd like to follow me on Twitter you can @spiritofthings.

That's the program this week. Production by me and Geoff Wood, with sound engineering by Menny Wasserstrom.

In the coming weeks stay tuned for an Iranian expert on Sufism, some followers of the Goddess in Australia, a messianic discovery in Israel, and next week a couple of people who'll make you feel wonderful in body, mind and spirit. It's time to focus on you. We'll take you to your peaceful place. Sound good? Join me on The Spirit of Things next week at the same time.


Brian J. Grim
is a senior researcher and director of cross-national data at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, specializing in international religious demography, measurement of global restrictions on religion and cross-national social regulation of religion. Brian also is a principle investigator for the international religious demography project at Boston University's Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs.
Gregor Puppinck
was appointed director of the European Centre for Law and Justice after serving on the board for seven years. From 2003 to 2008, he taught Human Rights, International Law and Constitutional Law at the University of Haute-Alsace School of Law.
Ilhan Yildiz
is Head of the Philosophy Department at Karatekin University and Coordinator of the Bosnia Project, Prime Ministry, Government of Turkey. He is a member of the World Family Policy Center, the Committee on the Elimination of Discriminaton against Women, and the Turkish Republic Prime Ministry General Directorate on the Status of Women, and he is Editorial Advisor for the Religious Education Journal, Istanbul.

Further Information

Rising Restrictions on Religion
Brian Grim was the primary researcher of this global study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life. It found that restrictions on religious beliefs and practices rose between mid-2006 and mid-2009 in 23 of the world's 198 countries (12%), decreased in 12 countries (6%) and remained essentially unchanged in 163 countries (82%).
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Based in Washington DC, the Pew Forum is one of the leading centres for global religious research.
European Centre for Law and Justice
An international NGO for the promotion and protection of human rights in Europe and worldwide. The ECLJ hasheld special Consultative Status before the United Nations/ECOSOC since 2007. The ECLJ is a Christian-inspired organisation and bases its action on "the spiritual and moral values which are the common heritage of European peoples and the true source of individual freedom, political liberty and the rule of law, principles which form the basis of all genuine democracy" (Preamble of the Statute of the Council of Europe).
Karatekin University in Turkey
Mr. Ilhan Yildiz is Head of the Philosophy Department at Karatekin University.
Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age: Trends, Challenges, and Practices
The 18th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies of the J. Reuben Clark Law School took place on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, from October 2-4, 2011. This year's conference, 'Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age: Trends, Challenges, and Practices' saw more than 75 participants from 37 countries, including Radio National's Rachael Kohn.


Dr Rachael Kohn
Geoff Wood / Dr Rachael Kohn

Comments (7)

Add your comment

  • dave s :

    13 Nov 2011 5:03:34pm

    i have trouble seeing the problem .

    considering religiion poisons just about everything , it should be under attack .

    needless to say i don't condone things like what religions have done ( the inquuisition etc ) in the past to attack things they don't approve of .

  • valerie yule :

    13 Nov 2011 9:12:25pm

    Religious persecution is against the holders of the beliefs and harmless practices of a religion. Almost all religions have sects with practices which seem against public order, however.

    Almost all religions seem to have sects which do things that governments do not approve as being against the good of the whole people – not just a small section of Islam that goes in for full-face veiling (most Muslims do not), there are Christian sects that advocate or advocated public nakedness or polygamy, Hindu sects that advocated thuggee and suttee, many sects of many religions advocating killing other religionists, stoning adulterers, female genital mutilation, or opposition to contraception.
    The state can let religions do all sorts of things which do not affect national security or public order, and many of them are strange, but admissible. The presence of religious symbols seem one of these.
    It is a field for controversy, but solutions seem possible.

  • Ann Don :

    16 Nov 2011 9:47:26am

    When I first heard the program I felt like I had been hit in the abdomen with a sack of wheat. I was taught that religion was a set of rules laid down to regulate what beliefs and actions were sanctioned by men interpreting their understanding of what face of G-d had handed down to them. I used to think the Golden rule of "do unto others as you would they do unto you" applied. Somewhere along the line of the centuries and the present this seems to have fallen out of the dictionary and the page lost.

  • Kurodori :

    17 Nov 2011 4:03:46am

    It's about time! The more restrictions that are put on this pernicious, superstitious nonsense, the better.
    Perhaps in Australia we will eventually grow up and realise that Marx was right about 'the opiate of the masses', but I'm not expecting to live long enough to see that!

  • Anderson :

    17 Nov 2011 12:04:16pm

    No. Being told that you're not allowed to impose your religion upon others, and not allowed to force people to follow your religion's dogma IS NOT restricting religious freedom and it is not an "attack on religion".

    Grow up.

  • kram02 :

    17 Nov 2011 12:48:40pm

    My understanding of each of the 9 prominent and many less prominent messengers of God, is that they all taught very similar spiritual guidelines by which humanity may live , so that peace and spiritually were elevated. Along with this, were rules for the level of civilization attained in varying epochs to enhance the communities functioning, each new epoch requiring more advanced teaching, similar to the idea of education in schools advancing from primary through secondary then university etc.
    Unfortunately, the clergy that grew around many of the original teachings , often misinterpreted or changed the meaning of the original teaching,so as to lead to dissention and persecution, causing disunity and war.
    "If religion is the cause of war, it would be better that there were no religion" Baha'u'llah.
    We all need to encourage tolerance to other's points of view and to support the various cultures of this world which enhances our own existence, whilst encouraging education, peace and harmony.

  • Paul Baker :

    24 May 2013 12:20:56am



    A Einstein