Opponents of a European initiative paving the way for governments to rule on the legitimacy of religious groups and reduce home schooling rights won a battle in mid April in the Council of Europe.
In Europe, where public education often includes teachings on morality at odds with churches and officially unrecognised religious groups are labelled sects, the stakes were high at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
Religious rights group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) disseminated a memorandum arguing that the report and resolutions of Rudy Salles, rapporteur of PACE’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, contravened the European Convention on Human Rights and rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.
Big Brother observatory
‘The clear and unwavering jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights regarding state neutrality towards religious groups, coupled with the growing number of judgments from the Court against High Contracting Parties for improperly monitoring religious groups, stands in sharp contrast to the recommendations set forth by Mr Salles’, the April 2 memo asserted. ‘Adoption of the Salles Report would further damage the rights of European parents in educating their children according to their own religious and philosophical convictions.’
A petition against the Salles Report (The Protection of Minors against Excesses of Sects), obtained more than 10,000 signatures. The report sought to establish a European observatory to monitor ‘groups of a religious, esoteric or spiritual nature to make it easier for national centres to exchange information’, according to a draft of the resolutions.
Salles, a member of France’s National Assembly, was criticised for connections with a French agency, the Inter-Ministerial Mission for Vigilance and Action Against Sectarian Excesses, which is accused of conducting witch-hunts against independent religious groups. In its memorandum, ADF argued that child-protection laws need not single out religious groups.
Limited toleration
Evangelical churches in countries with strong majority national churches, particularly in eastern Europe, have suffered from only limited toleration by national authorities and ‘a cultural climate of suspicion, which the original text of this resolution could have exacerbated’, a spokesman said.
The Parliamentary Assembly is one of the two statutory organs of the Council of Europe, which is composed of the Committee of Ministers (foreign affairs representatives) and the Assembly, representing the majority and opposition political forces in member states.
