Religious Freedom Reference library
Encyclopedia of Human Rights
...Nations following World War II, freedom of thought, conscience, and religion was enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, affirmed alongside freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and other rights. The twentieth century had seen militant atheism rise in the Soviet Union, a Holocaust that murdered six million Jews as the “Final Solution” to the Jewish “problem,” and the partition of India and Pakistan essentially along religious lines. Recognition of the failed efforts of the League of Nations to conclude treaties to...
Islam Reference library
Encyclopedia of Human Rights
...Article 10 stated that Islam was the religion of unspoiled nature and treated proselytizing for other faiths as predatory and exploitative—prohibiting “any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism.” With this prohibition, the Cairo Declaration seemed to set the stage for penalizing apostasy from Islam, but without expressly stipulating that Islamic law barred conversions from Islam and required that apostates be executed. Article 9 called for the state to ensure the means...
Constitutions and Human Rights Reference library
Encyclopedia of Human Rights
...The drafters of both acts also differed with regard to religious freedom: Americans emphasized the importance of religious tolerance and the separation of state and church but distanced themselves from the French attitudes that approached, at times, a level of ideological atheism. Despite numerous similarities, the first French and American bills each retained their own specific flavor. Naturalistic Language of the First Bills of Rights The language of the first American and European constitutional bills of rights was predominantly naturalistic. The...
