JULIA – A QUICK REVIEW OF THE SITUATION AROUND EUROPE: THIS IS NOT A COMPREHENSIVE PICTURE.  WE KNOW THAT THERE IS UNDER-REPORTING BY REFUGEES OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF PROBLEMS BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID OF REPRISALS OR THEY HAVE NOT LEARNED TO TRUST THE AUTHORITIES AND DO NOT WANT TO COMPLAIN.  AT THE SAME TIME, THERE ARE NOT MAJOR PROBLEMS EVERYWHERE. FOR EXAMPLE, HUNGARIAN PARTNERS REPORTED THAT, AS FAR AS THEY COULD TELL, REFUGEE CENTRES WERE BEING RUN WELL AS FAR AS RESPECT FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF OF EVERYONE WAS CONCERNED. 

At least some information came from partners in Norway Sweden, Finland, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland Austria, Hungary & Greece. Marnix will share about the Netherlands shortly.

Here’s a glimpse of the kinds of problems reported.

The authorities are struggling.  Sometimes staff are excellent. But others are often unaware of Freedom of religion or belief issues or difficulties. They are too busy, even overwhelmed. Or they do not stop to think of the value of faith. They can be very independent so what happens in different centres varies a lot. Refugee Centres are understaffed and not staffed at night. Staff are not trained in Freedom of religion or belief. They do not necessarily have a chance to get to know refugees and work out what’s happening.  Sometimes staff are Muslim.  This is a well-meaning idea but, without good training and supervision, they can sometimes be ill-equipped to bring about Freedom of religion or belief for all.

In many places, the authorities or Red Cross declare the refugee camp to be a religion-free zone. But that is impossible when the refugees have faith – and desperately want to keep it – and that’s the situation for the vast majority of refugees.  They have lost everything, they do not want to lose their faith too. The default position in a “secular” camp therefore can be that the majority take over – and that means Islam.   Often the authorities want to be welcoming to Muslims but forget the others.

Problems include intimidation, bullying, mocking some violence, some exclusion from, e.g. the kitchen or common room, because Christians are seen as unclean or it’s used as a prayer room. Belongings are stolen.  Non-Muslim girls and women feel compelled to wear a headscarf. The Muslim call to prayer is everywhere. (It’s broadcast on phones) And there is nowhere else to go to get away.    Sometimes, complaining will make matters worse.

Serious incidents may get a reaction from authorities. But aggressors do not get moved, the victim does. That may protect the victim but does not punish or solve the reasons.

Many Muslims are converting to Christianity. Their families and friends are often horrified and may react dramatically. Swiss partners reported that Believers of Muslim Background (BMB) children or the children of BMBs are harassed at school by Muslims.

Over recent years, there have been isolated cases of BMBs (refugee or not) being attacked, even murdered by Muslims. With so many converts now – 1000s, could this violence mushroom? In the past, sometimes, e.g. in Norway, the authorities have been reluctant to state that the murderers were Muslim and did so because of the widespread Muslim belief that apostasy should be punishable by death. As the European Evangelical Alliance has been saying constantly, we must speak truth but speak it with careful language. We must be very careful not to exaggerate the problems caused by some Muslims or refugees. But we should not hide or ignore these problems them either.

Is the answer to separate Christians from Muslims? This is not ideal. It is not challenging the root problem – of intolerance towards other faiths and of conversion.  New arrivals into Europe must be helped to understand and accept Freedom of religion or belief!   This is vital.  We have 100s of 1000s of new Europeans who have no experience of freedom of religion or belief.  That is not their fault. But they need to learn that freedom of religion or belief is important.  Obviously, for safety reasons, sometimes a Christian or indeed Yazidi refugee or refugee family must be moved to safety.  But, ideally, faith minorities should stay where they are, with adequate safeguards. And we should demand that refugee centres always ensure that there is a good group of refugees from a faith minority so that there is support and strength in numbers.

There is the long standing & widespread problem of asylum cases involving BMBs not being handled right. This is especially the case if conversion has taken place in Europe.  The authorities do not know how to fairly assess if conversion is genuine and are reluctant to seek advice from members of the faith community who could help.

It is important to remember that it is not just Christians facing difficulties. There are Yezidis. And there are problems within Islam – Shia versus Sunni, Kurd versus other nationalities, liberal versus more dedicated Muslim. It’s not always purely about religion but politics and identity… and stress. Refugees are stressed, on edge, often traumatised, easily upset so they can spark off each other.  But also, extremist Muslims are seeking to recruit among refugees.  This is the picture regarding problems facing refugees themselves but there is a wider problem that affects all of us. This is caused by dangerous Islamic extremism and the fear of that extremism and how the authorities respond.

Islamic terrorism in Europe does not impact our Freedom of religion or belief – it is too lethal for that.  Islamic extremism does impact the freedom of religion or belief of moderate Muslims or of BMBs.

But it is ill thought through government policies that could impact on Freedom of religion or belief if we are not very vigilant.

Some countries are aiming to train or supervise the training of imams. This may sound like a good idea? But they are likely to want to interfere in the training of priests & pastors too. What will be the criteria for what is acceptable teaching? Do we want government to control what religious leaders are allowed to preach?

In several countries, including France, Spain & Italy, for some time, some local governments have wanted to limit the building of mosques. So as not to discriminate, Evangelical churches and other faith minority premises cannot be built either.

There’s a broader problem. If you accept the idea in public discourse that religion is dangerous and not fit for 21^st century Europe, all faith groups can be tainted.

In the UK, the government appears to be pushing ahead with its counter extremism strategy, despite widespread criticism.  The policy is designed to stop non-violent extremism. But it does not define what non-violent extremism is. Extremism disruption orders could stop public expression of views that appear to stir up hatred – but there are no clear definitions and so this could hit anyone with robust views.

There is also the desire to regulate non-school teaching. It would require anyone who teaches children for more than 6 hours a week to have to register with the government and to have their teaching inspected if there is a complaint.  This hits churches (with Sunday school and, for example, an after school club), youth camps, everybody.  If your teaching is deemed to cause upset or be against “British values”, you will be put on a register and be unable to teach children.

Is this such a bad thing?  Time will tell.  If you teach a child about sin, or heaven & hell, the child gets upset and the parent complains, you have caused distress. If you pray for a child and the prayer does not appear to be answered, that may cause distress?  And there is no way that teaching a conservative view of marriage will be seen as conforming to “British values”. Basically, there’s a very strong chance that Jesus would be regarded as a nonviolent extremist.

So…   yes, our governments need to be wise as they seek to stop Islamic terrorist attacks or the radicalisation of Muslims. But we must not be naïve. Any restrictions on the freedom of religion or belief of Muslims  a) Will make matters worse and b) Is likely to badly impact other faith communities too.

MARNIX – IT’S THE TIME TO PUT SPOTLIGHT ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF ISSUES AND TO SHOW THAT IT IS VITAL FOR EVERYONE, NO MATTER THEIR BELIEF OR WORLDVIEW AND FOR A HARMONIOUS SOCIETY.  THE ARRIVAL OF REFUGEES MEANS THAT GOVERNMENT REALLY NEEDS TO THINK ABOUT HOW TO AVOID TROUBLE BETWEEN FAITH GROUPS. LET’S HELP THEM.

The authorities are understandably afraid of religious extremism.  Some politicians want to deny freedom of religion or belief to Muslims because of radical, dangerous Islam.  We really need to get our response right regarding the jihadists, and it is definitely frightening.  But, in some countries, many politicians see all of Islam and all Muslims as dangerous and/or they see their nation as Christian and do not want its character changed. This is the worst thing to do if you want to avoid dangerous extremism or the lesser problem of ghettos. So-called Islamic State is fostering the idea of Muslims at war with socalled Christian Europe, that Europe hates Muslims so the rightful response is jihad. Every time a populist politician says something Islamophobic, jihadists are delighted because it helps their recruitment strategy and provides a barrier to integration.

Some politicians see religion in general as a problem because it clashes with a liberal secular mindset. They believe and hope that faith should disappear from public sight, that religion belongs to the past, that it is a direct threat to rights that are regarded as more important, including LGBT, gender, children’s & even animal rights. Allowing freedom of religion or belief in all its breadth is not a priority for them. Hence the UK counter extremism policy. We have already seen how the British government is overreacting to the danger of radical Islam, using this chance to push a strong secular agenda. The liberal secular mindset also leads to the policy in some places that refugee centres must be “religion free” – as if that were possible. They erroneously perceive enforced “no-religion secularism” as neutral.  They imagine that everyone will learn to conform to a liberal, secular mindset.  This not going to happen. It does not happen now. It certainly will not happen with most of the newly arrived Muslims.  This is OK. Diversity is here to stay.

Ignoring the freedom of religion or belief issue in the refugee centre does not work and is an injustice. Ignoring the freedom of religion or belief issue in society does not work and is an injustice.   We already have multi-faith & multi-cultural societies. People do not all believe or want to live their lives the same. The arrival of refugees who will stay makes the need urgent for the authorities to work out how we live together with our deepest differences.

Our task – and there is a positive opportunity – is to persuade society not to ignore trouble, or future trouble between refugees over faith and not to ignore the problems that can occur with a multi-faith / cultural society.  Instead, we have the opportunity to face the challenges honestly and to find fair and workable solutions.

What do we do?

In Germany, NGOs worked with the Christian Democrats (CDU) to put on a major parliamentary hearing on the issue of freedom of religion or belief problems for refugees. It shone the light upon the issue.  A report has just been published this weekend. This can be followed up with specific actions.  We should seek to provide training on freedom of religion or belief for those running reception centres and for those in local government who do not know how to enable successful integration and who do not realise why faith is so important to most refugees.  But they also do not know or will not face the fact that many Muslim refugees are not used to allowing freedom of religion or belief and find it hard to tolerate other faiths and incredibly difficult to tolerate a Muslim converting to another faith.      (They may also struggle with LGBT and women’s issues. Training can include this too).

Aim to create resources and provide short training for refugees about tolerance of minorities, about everyone’s Freedom of religion or belief rights and, while this may not be what they are used to, this is “How we do things here”, it is the law and it is a benefit for them too. They will have their freedom of religion or belief respected.  It is about respecting difference.

You could copy the Swiss project of a Culture School, run by a Christian charity. This is a course of 3 evenings, supplementing government classes, on living and working in Switzerland, core values, rights, responsibilities, customs, what is polite and expected. It includes matters of faith & equal opportunities.   More information can be found at www.kultur-schule.ch   But training needs to be broader than this – because most people do not understand freedom of religion or belief and why it is important.  Our task is to explain why it is a foundational right for everyone, of any faith and none. It is the right to believe what you believe and to live your life according to that belief, provided that this will not cause really genuine harm to others.

As you highlight the need for training connected to refugees, there is the opportunity to underline the need for broader training anyway on freedom of religion or belief. Politicians, journalists, civil servants, social workers, police, health staff, teachers. And actually society in general.

In schools, let’s advocate for excellent teaching on different faiths and also freedom of religion or belief – not replacing normal Religious Education classes if these are different….

We need teaching which explains

• Why freedom of religion or belief is important.
• What it means for you. But what does it mean for others?
• Responsibilities as well as rights.
• The need for a civil public square in which everyone can live, speak and act according to their beliefs, religious or secular, but that they must respect others’ rights too.

We need a “civil public square”. Here are some key messages.

• Freedom of religion or belief has to be for all, not just Christians. Exclusive rights would be unbiblical, unjust and politically impossible.
• A “civil public square” is a vision of public life in which people of all faiths and none are free to enter and engage public life on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed and accepted to be just and free for all other faiths too.
• A civil public square says that all are welcome, provided they adhere to democratic values.
• There is respect for difference and accommodation of difference. We are not all the same. We do not all have to be the same. We need respectful coexistence of different faiths and cultures. This is vital if our societies are to hold together.
• Your religious freedom is respected provided you are not causing genuine and proven harm to others. But all are responsible for the religious freedom rights of others.
• There is no watering down of faith, no hiding or compromising. There can be vigorous debate but no imposition, no compulsion. Where there are clashes of rights, we have to find workable solutions for all sides.
• The key point for society is that Freedom of religion or belief is essential for human beings to thrive and to be free. A “civil public square” is essential if we are to live together with our differences. And we were different long before the refugees came along.

Of course, massive challenges remain everywhere because the concept of a “civil public square” is weak. There are clashes between secular, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish and other worldviews. And dangerous Islam is a genuine threat.

But, with the challenges of the refugee situation highlighting the worldview clash and freedom of religion or belief issues, we have an opportunity to help not just refugees to have their freedom of religion or belief respected, not just to help them all understand, value and respect freedom of religion or belief but also to persuade society as a whole that it is time to value and ensure freedom of religion or belief for everyone, that it is vital for harmonious society and vital to avoid religious inspired terrorism.

If a country can embrace faith and worldview diversity, with full freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience in the workplace etc., with reasonable accommodation as a way of negotiating clashes, then that country can be proud that, when it says it values diversity and protects minorities, it is really doing so.