January 2012
IRLA Mourns Loss of Human Rights Champion
Dr. Abdelfattah Amor "spoke out fearlessly against fanaticism and intolerance"
The death of Tunisian human rights lawyer Professor Abdelfattah Amor represents a great loss for the international religious freedom community, says Dr. John Graz, secretary general of the International Religious Liberty Association.
Professor Amor, who served from 1993 to 2004 as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, died on January 2 after suffering a heart attack. A Muslim, Dr. Amor was widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost advocates for religious freedom for all people of faith. In 1995, he was one of the few UN representatives to visit Iran, and he subsequently issued a groundbreaking report on religious intolerance and repression in that country. At the time of his death, Dr. Amor was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee, and had recently been appointed as president of Tunisia’s National Commission for the Investigation of Corruption and Bribery
“Dr. Amor was a man of tremendous courage and integrity,” says Dr. Graz. “He spoke out fearlessly against fanaticism and intolerance, and defended the right of every person to live according to his or her conscience. It would be difficult to overestimate his contribution to the cause of freedom. He also was a friend to the IRLA and we had the great pleasure of working with him in a number of different capacities through the years. On behalf of the IRLA, I want to express my heartfelt condolences to Dr. Amor’s family and friends as they mourn his loss.”
Dr. Amor was a consistent supporter of the work of the IRLA and was a guest speaker at the 4th and 5th IRLA World Congresses in Rio and Manila. Several IRLA leaders were contributors to a special book prepared in Dr. Amor’s honor on his retirement from the University of Tunis. In November last year, Dr. Graz and Dr. Ganoune Diop, deputy secretary general of the IRLA, spent a number of hours with Dr. Amor in Geneva.
“At our meeting he expressed his desire to spend the coming years with his family,” says Dr. Graz. “Dr. Amor was both a colleague and a friend and I will miss him greatly. He not only contributed enormously to the defense of religious freedom, but he also played a significant role within Tunisia, his home country, following the 2011 revolution. His work on behalf of human rights will long be remembered.”
Reintroduced law jeopardizing status of some churches in Hungary
The situation in Hungary is very complex, says religious liberty advocate
Jan. 09, 2012/Elizabeth Lechleitner/ANN
The saga of securing official church status in Hungary continues, despite what religious liberty advocates called encouraging news late last year when the Constitutional Court struck down the country’s controversial Law of Churches.
Prior to that ruling, more than 300 minority faiths -- among them the Seventh-day Adventist Church -- were set to lose official legal status in Hungary on January 1, after which they would undergo a reapplication process.
With the New Year, those churches are facing a similar situation.
The country’s Constitutional Court overturned the Law of Churches purely on technical grounds, and on December 30 Hungary’s majority conservative party “easily” reintroduced and passed essentially the same law, effective January 1, said Dwayne Leslie, the Adventist world church’s legislative representative in Washington, D.C.
Hungary’s Parliament claims the law is necessary to weed out businesses or individuals posing as churches just to gain the accompanying rights and privileges. Furthermore, the majority government maintains that the law doesn’t infringe on religious liberty. It doesn’t “forbid” worship according to any faith tradition, Hungary’s minister of state for government communication, Zoltan Kovacs, wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece.
Kovacs said the law merely outlines how churches can gain official recognition “if they show themselves to be popular enough.” One condition requires a church to prove a decades-long history in the country and count more than 1,000 members.
The Hungarian government is “making efforts to explain to the international community that this is not a human rights issue,” said Ganoune Diop, the Adventist world church’s representative to the United Nations.
“The situation in Hungary is very complex, and there are several issues at play, from economic to judicial and legislative -- and in front of these issues, religion. The government sees the de-registration of churches as a response, in part, to the tremendous challenges the country is facing,” Diop said.
Some experts have even predicted a further recession on Hungary’s horizon, he added.
“We must voice our concerns over the de-registration of churches, but whatever we say about the situation in Hungary must be prudent and sensitive to the context and sovereignty of Hungary,” Diop said.
Many members of the international religious liberty community maintain that regardless of the country’s internal struggles, the law poses undue challenges for legitimate religious organizations.
“Now we not only have an objective standard of what constitutes a church, but we also need a two-thirds vote of Parliament just to become an official religion, and we think that’s problematic,” Leslie said.
Currently, 82 of the some 300 minority religions de-registered under the latest law have reapplied for official status, among them the Seventh-day Adventist Church, denomination officials in Hungary said.
Religious liberty analysts said provisions of the new law indicate that those churches that have already applied for status will not experience a gap in official recognition. They’ll maintain previous recognition while a decision regarding their ultimate status is pending in Parliament.
Members of Parliament have indicated that they’ll arrive at a decision by the end of February, analysts said. Church leaders in Hungary report that “communication with the government” suggests that the Seventh-day Adventist Church will regain official church status.
“One positive improvement in the new law is that it does not prohibit denominations to use the term ‘church,’ even if they are not accepted by Parliament,” said Ócsai Tamás, president of the church’s Hungarian Union Conference. Churches to which Parliament does not grant official recognition will receive a “religious association” status, he said.
“Hopefully some churches in Hungary -- including the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has been operating in the country for more than a century -- will have a positive answer [next month],” said John Graz, director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the Adventist world church.
“We encourage all believers to pray for religious freedom in Hungary, so our church and others can continue to operate for the good of the nation as in the past,” Graz said.
Top Seventh-day Adventist leadership in Hungary and the church’s Trans-European Division will continue to closely monitor the situation, along with the denomination’s global religious liberty community.