On December 17, 2010, the German Bundestag in Berlin passed a parliamentary resolution defending the fundamental human right to freedom of religion around the world. The motion – symbolically scheduled for the final day of the legislative session before the Christmas recess – is an important element of the ruling CDU/CSU-FDP coalition’s “value-based foreign policy”. It underlines Germany’s new commitment to make the promotion of religious freedom and the protection of Christian minorities a cornerstone of its foreign and security policy. Concrete changes can already be observed.
For example, in response to the deadly New Year’s Day attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria, CDU/CSU Bundestag Leader Volker Kauder decided to travel to Egypt last Saturday in an important show of solidarity with the beleaguered Christian minority there. He also told the government of Hosni Mubarak to do more to protect the Copts against future terrorist strikes. This type of visit by a top German political leader in direct response to an anti-Christian terrorist strike in a majority-Muslim country is not only unprecedented but also reflects the strong support of Chancellor Angela Merkel for this new emphasis in Germany’s foreign policy.
According to the Bundestag resolution, freedom of religion is severely limited or non-existent in 64 countries, which are home to about 70 percent of the world’s population. As highlighted by the NGO Open Doors’s latest World Watch List of countries where persecution of Christians is worst, severe violations of religious freedom can currently be observed in the Middle East, Northern Africa, Central Asia, and North Korea.
During the December 17 parliamentary debate, conservative CDU/CSU Bundestag Leader Volker Kauder, a key driver behind this resolution, focused primarily on the violent persecution suffered by many Iraqi Christians at the hands of Muslim extremists. Referencing the deadly terrorist attack and hostage taking at the Catholic Cathedral of Baghdad on October 31, Kauder warned: “We must not accept that “Christian-free” zones are created in the world in areas where Christians have had a homeland for thousands of years.” To emphasize the difficult situation of Christians in many Muslim countries, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group invited Bishop Warduni from the Catholic Church in Baghdad and the Catholic Vicar-General from Turkey as honorary guests during the Bundestag debate. In fact, as the resolution clearly points out, “Due to the expansion of Christianity and its rapid growth in countries where religious freedom is limited, Christians, with 200 million adherents, are the world’s largest persecuted religious minority and are frequently affected by violence.”
The Bundestag resolution emphasizes three key areas where religious freedom is currently under severe attack and should therefore be strongly defended. First, the right to publicly practice one’s faith and to attract new followers through preaching, missionary activities, etc. Second, the right to change one’s religion or to hold no religious beliefs at all. In many Muslim societies, for example, converts are often regarded as apostates and foes of Islam. As a result, they face social exclusion, imprisonment, torture, and even death. Similar treatment is reserved for those non-Muslims who dare to reject forced conversions to Islam. It should therefore come as no surprise that in recent years, hundreds of thousands of Christians were forced to leave their traditional homelands – not only in Iraq but also in Indonesia’s Molucca Islands, the Indian state of Orissa, etc.
Third, the Bundestag resolution on religious freedom also rejects the attempts by a number of Muslim countries to anchor the “protection of religion” in international law. At first glance, this might seem counter-intuitive. However, according to the German Bundestag, these efforts are designed “to massively limit the validity of human rights with the rationale of wanting to protect Islam”. The resolution’s language is very clear:
"It is with great concern that the German Bundestag views the fact that the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted by a narrow margin the resolution brought by Pakistan against the “defamation of religions” (A/HRC/RES/13/16). The goal of this resolution is, with the justification of protecting Islam, to introduce into international law certain collective rights and thereby to undermine the existing human rights understanding".
The Human Rights Council’s resolution on “Combating Defamation of Religions” – which strongly condemns criticism of religion and then makes special reference to “Islamophobia” – was adopted on March 25, 2010. While virtually all Western countries on that body opposed the resolution, they were narrowly defeated. As the Bundestag points out, “Criticism of religion is a component of freedom of expression and thus protected by international law.”
While all Bundestag parties agreed, in principle, on the need to protect religious freedom worldwide, the parliamentary debate exposed significant political and ideological differences over where exactly the German government should focus its efforts in that regard. In contrast to the ruling center-right CDU/CSU-FDP, which put the clear emphasis on the protection of persecuted Christians, the opposition left-wing SPD party along with the Greens and the Left Party called for more protection of Muslim immigrants in Europe and strongly criticized laws banning the construction of new minarets (Switzerland) or the wearing of burqas and other full-body garbs worn by Muslim women (France).
In the end, the Bundestag passed the resolution largely along party lines with support from the ruling center-right CDU/CSU-FDP coalition. The opposition left-wing SPD abstained from the vote after it failed to garner a majority for its own draft resolution. The Greens, in a surprise move, ultimately voted in support of the CDU/CSU-FDP government’s resolution (after failing to get their respective draft resolution passed).
It is encouraging that this Bundestag resolution and Germany’s strong push for international religious freedom is beginning to raise public and political attention to a core international human rights issue that has unfortunately not always been given appropriate top-level attention by European/Western governments in the past.
Ulf Gartzke is a contributor to The Weekly Standard blog.
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January 14, 2011
Niklas Anzinger, Student of Philosophy & Economics, Platinum Contributor (708)
thank you for your interesting article. Sometimes I´m so busy with international press that I miss everything that is happening in Germany. This resolution is indeed a good sign, though in my experience the current German government officials´ claims are likely to turn out to be mere rhetoric (e.g. support of Israel, condemnation of Iran´s nuclear ambitions).
Regarding the persecution of Christians, I remember, Wolfgang Schäuble claimed Christians in countries where they are politically persecuted should be given asylum more easily. Wasn´t this claim objected by the majority in the political and intellectual establishment? What do you think of that claim?