Religious Liberty Skirmishes at Third Committee Meeting

The Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, made a statement at the morning session of the Third Committee yesterday morning. His statement concentrated on inter-religious dialogue as means to overcome religious discrimination and hate.

He was the last of three rapporteurs to speak at the morning session of the third committee, and no one seemed to expect much controversy. Instead, when the floor was opened for questions and comments, several countries began a skirmish with accusations flying back and forth.

The German representative at the third committee meeting was the first to level accusations at Iran, on account of the Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani who has been handed the death penalty on because of Iran’s apostasy laws. Germany also accused Egypt on account of the recent clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians. Both Iran and Egypt replied to the accusations. The Iranian representative told the third committee that his country only handed out sentences following the rule of law, and that the case concerned disturbing the peace rather than religious freedom. Similarly Egypt denied that the recent clashes in Egypt had anything to do with religion.

The Canadian representative in turn leveled accusations at China because of its tight reign on religious freedom. China responded to the Canadian representative by more or less telling him to “look in your own backyard” and to stop finger pointing and pressuring his country on human rights issues.

View online at: https://c-fam.org/turtle_bay/religious-liberty-skirmishes-at-third-committee-meeting/

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