The International Journal for Religious Freedom (IJRF)

Religious freedom and war

Oleksandra Kovalenko — 2023-12-14

The ongoing war in Ukraine creates many challenges for religious communities in Ukraine, as armed conflict provokes the violation of human rights in any country. The article focuses on violations of Freedom of Religion and Belief in Ukraine since 2014 – in the occupied Crimea and on the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as well as during the first two months after the full-scale aggression of Russian Federation in Ukraine in February 2022, including the destruction of the religious sites, killings of the priests and persecution of various religious groups.

Abrasive rights

Arie de Pater — 2023-12-14

Freedom of Religion or Belief, or FoRB, provides for autonomy of religious communities, including freedom to organise themselves, to train their leadership, and to educate their members, without government interference. Tensions between the tenets of the religious community and the wider society are inevitable. In this article, we justify religious autonomy through three lenses: transactional, traditional FoRB, and minorities. If people are free to join and leave the community, religious autonomy should prevail. We then analyse European cases that illustrate the tension between religious autonomy and non-discrimination.

How secular and religiously free are Europe’s “secular” states?

Jonathan Fox — 2023-12-14

This study uses data from the Religion and State (RAS) project to examine the extent to which 43 European states are, in fact, secular and religiously free. I find that these European states engage in substantial levels of support for religion, regulation, restriction, and control (RRC) of the majority religion, and government-based discrimination (GRD) against religious minorities. This is true of both countries in Europe with official religions and those which declare separation of religion and state (SRAS) in their constitutions. This demonstrates a distinctly European pattern of state-religion relations that is influenced in no small part by anti-religious forms of secularism.

Atheism in judicial discourse

Adelaide Madera — 2023-12-14

Starting from an analysis of the Italian model of church-state relationships, the present paper focuses on the status of atheistic convictions in Italy. Since the 1990s, where the Union of Atheist and Rationalist Agnostics claimed its right to start negotiations to enter into an agreement with the State, Italian courts have faced the crucial issue of the legal definition of a religious denomination. The decision of the Constitutional Court no. 52/2016 has been the final result of a lengthy and troubled process. The paper will explore the coherence of the decision with the Italian Constitutional framework, with the ECHR and with article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Finally, the paper will investigate on the option of enforcing an updated law regulating religious freedom and its predictable impact on non-religious communities.

Criminotheology

Tatiana Vagramenko — 2023-12-14

Following their ban in 2017, the state targeted Jehovah’s Witnesses as harmful sectarians in the context of a ‘conservative twist’ in Russian politics grounded in late-Soviet anti-sectarian models and narratives. The active use of religious instruments in the political setup has led to a growing securitization of religion in Russia, where ‘non-traditional’ religiosity and religious non-conformism have been criminalised and blended with terrorism and extremism. The article focuses on forensic expertise in religion used in trials against believers and discusses how the forensic analysis of religious teachings for criminal evidence (criminotheology) have construed Jehovah’s Witnesses as dangerous extremists.

Religious freedom and the subversive adaptation of Christian converts from Hinduism

Aruthuckal Varughese John — 2023-12-14

This paper explores how converts to Christianity tend to navigate a complex social landscape by occupying hybridized sites seeking to remain Hindu while following Christ. This strategy is especially visible in Krista Bhakta (Christ followers) movement, the upper caste groups who see a cultural continuity with the Hindu traditions. Using “hybridity”, a concept that Homi Bhabha popularized to capture the mixing of Eastern and Western cultures in postcolonial literature, this essay explores how it can be applied in the religious sphere that adopts this subversive tool within political and cultural spheres.

Challenges to individual religious freedom in the Indigenous communities of Latin America

Dennis Petri — 2023-12-14

Whilst Indigenous autonomy is generally regarded as something positive, the existence of human rights abuses inside Indigenous communities has received relatively little attention in legal scholarship. Human rights abuses include severe violations of religious freedom, particularly of converts away from the traditional religion. Based on original empirical field research conducted in the Nasa Indigenous territories in the southwestern highlands of Colombia (2010–2017), I discuss the challenge of balancing the right to self-determination of Indigenous Peoples and the individual human rights of people living in Indigenous territories, particularly religious minorities. I show this has implications for the analysis of “minority in the minority” situations beyond the context of Latin America.

Noteworthy

Janet Epp Buckingham — 2023-12-14

The noteworthy items are structured in three groups: annual reports and global surveys, regional and country reports, and specific issues. Though we apply serious criteria in the selection of items noted, it is beyond our capacity to scrutinize the accuracy of every statement made. We therefore disclaim responsibility for the contents of the items noted. The compilation was produced by Janet Epp Buckingham.

Book reviews

IJRF — 2023-12-14

Grievous religious persecution: A conceptualisation of crimes against humanity of religious persecution (Werner Nicolaas Nel)
Liberty for all: Defending everyone’s religious freedom in a pluralistic world (Andrew T. Walker)
Faith in courts: Human rights advocacy and the transnational regulation of religion (Lisa Harms)
Religion and world politics: Connecting theory with practice (Erin K. Wilson)
Secularism(s) in contemporary France: Law, policy and religious diversity (David Koussens, translated by Peter Feldstein)
A principled framework for the autonomy of religious communities: Reconciling freedom and discrimination (Alex Deagon)
Religious accommodation and its limits (Farrah Raza)