Canada: Religious freedom abroad? Good. But charity begins at home.

State use of apostasy and blasphemy laws is on the rise, according to the State Department, most worryingly against Muslims who promote interfaith tolerance.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Canada.Com
By Michael Den Tandt | January 8, 2012

As they get set to roll out Canada’s new Office of Religious Freedom, Conservatives face suspicion from opposition benches, as well as from left-leaning human-rights organizations such as Amnesty International, that this is a clumsily disguised attempt to curry favour with Christian evangelicals.

It’s a fair question. If the Office of Religious Freedom, to be established as a sub-branch within Minister John Baird’s Foreign Affairs department, becomes a vehicle uniquely for the defence of Pakistani Catholics or Egyptian Copts, it may do more harm than good. Rather than protecting the right to have faith, the government would be perceived as aligning itself with one faith, Christianity, over all the others.


If, however, Baird truly intends to champion religious freedom globally for all, including those who choose to be agnostic or atheist, then he has a great deal of important work ahead. For rarely, judging from the latest report from the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Religious Freedom, have there been more instances of governments violating people’s inalienable human right to worship as they please, or not worship at all.

Al Qaida, still the reigning champions of theistic hatred, in 2010 attacked Sufi, Shia, Ahmadiyah and Christian holy sites in Pakistan. The Taliban assassinated Abdullah Haleem, who was director of Haji and Religious Affairs in Kandahar. Iraqi extremists attacked the Our Lady of Salvation cathedral in Baghdad, killing 50.

State use of apostasy and blasphemy laws is on the rise, according to the State Department, most worryingly against Muslims who promote interfaith tolerance. In Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, converting to any faith but Islam is considered apostasy and punishable by death.

Anti-Semitism is flourishing on every continent – as seen in desecrations of cemeteries, racist graffiti, accusations of blood libel, holocaust denial and other historical revisionism. In 2010 there was a rise in anti-semitic cartoons in print in Poland, Spain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

In eight states in Germany now, teachers are not allowed to wear Islamic headscarves in schools. In the state of Hesse, civil servants may not wear headscarves at work. In Burma, the Theravada Buddhist-dominated authoritarian government restricts the practice of Christianity, Islam and any strain of Buddhism other than the majority’s. In Russia in 2010, the state levied criminal charges against people in possession of banned religious literature.

What can Canada hope to do about any of this? Perhaps a fair bit.


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