Freedom of religion

Freedom of religion is widely considered a fundamental human right. For example, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "four freedoms" is "freedom of worship". It also appears in the United Nations General Assembly's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 18):

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

However, some countries do not even pretend to observe this. In Saudi Arabia (which abstained on the Declaration), the practice of religions other than Islam is banned, and some other Muslim countries forbid Muslims to leave their religion.

The above definition of the right is of course vague, and needs to be interpreted in practice. Exactly what is it that people have the right to do? No one would seriously argue that people should be free to do whatever they want in the name of religion (e.g. human sacrifice). At the other end of the scale, there are certainly some secularists who think religion should be given no concessions at all in whatever laws society wishes to pass for reasons other than religious. Such explicit concessions are in fact not uncommon. A well-known example is conscientious objection to military service, which is allowed in some countries.

One international convention that gives a more precise definition is the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, which specifies just two rights:

1. the right to attend religious services
2. the right to private consultation with a clergyperson

Other clauses implicitly deny the right to observe dietary laws or days of rest.

When courts are asked to interpret human rights charters etc., they have a widespread tendency to interpret this right in a fairly minimal sense, similar to this, as a matter of law, leaving it to society and the political process to decide how much further to go. For example, the European Court of Human Rights has generally upheld bans on Islamic headgear.

Freedom of religion overlaps freedom of speech in the right to say what one believes. This, too, however, can be subject to restrictions. For example, in 2001, a street preacher named Harry Hammond held up a placard whose operative words were "Stop immorality. Stop homosexuality. Stop lesbianism." He was fined by an English court. He died shortly afterwards, but posthumous appeals were lodged on his behalf. These were rejected all the way up to the ECHR. In contrast, when a Swedish court sentenced a clergyman named Åke Green to four weeks for preaching against homosexuality, a higher Swedish court overturned this, saying the Swedish law was nullified by decisions of the ECHR. The difference seems to be that Green confined his remarks to his church.