Statement on the Banning of the Wearing of Religious Symbols in Public
...ir religion? Or is a ban actually an infringement of a fundamental human right? EEA believes that this kind of ban restricts people's freedom of religion and expression unacceptably. Some might wear a religious symbol as a radical political act or as an aid to aggressive proselytism. Others might be forced by their community to wear their symbol. However, there is no evidence that the majority of symbol wearers belong to these categories. Rather, most choose to wear their symbol as a way of showing their obedience and loyalty to their faith. For some, it is an essential and non-negotiable religious practice. In reality, bans are very unlikely to thwart the rise of religious extremism. Instead, they are more likely to force some committed people of faith to choose between loyalty to their faith and their country: both pushing people towards extremism, and forcing identity conflicts between communities, rather than contributing towards genuine integration. If politicians seek to ban only religious symbols, it can only be because they believe that it is religious expression that is particularly dangerous. It seems to us that it is inconsistent to ban a skullcap and not, for example a shirt with a logo expressing a political opinion, or a commitment to a particular football team. EEA recognizes that State efforts to lessen the influence of a dominant religion over a country have sometimes been key to increasing the religious freedom and well- being of all the members of that society. At the same time, while religion can obviously be misused to cause great harm, secular political ideologies can be abused just as dangerously. Secularism seems to us to be as much a “faith” as the faiths that believe in a deity. In our view, the standard civil and criminal legal framework of any society should be the context for addressing any abuse and misuse of faith or ideology: picking on religious communities for partic...