Freedom of religion

Freedom of religion or religious liberty, also known as freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the right not to profess any religion or belief or not to practice a religion, often called freedom from religion.

Freedom of religion is considered by many people and most nations to be a fundamental human right. Freedom of religion is protected in all the most important international human rights conventions, such as the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In a country with a state religion, freedom of religion is generally considered to mean that the government permits religious practices of other communities besides the state religion, and does not persecute believers in other faiths or those who have no faith. The concept of religious liberty includes, and some say requires, secular liberalism, and excludes authoritarian versions of secularism.

Freedom of religion includes, at a minimum, freedom of belief (the right to believe whatever a person, group, or religion wishes, including all forms of irreligion, such as atheism, humanism, existentialism, or other forms of non-belief), but some feel freedom of religion must include freedom of practice (the right to practice a religion or belief openly and outwardly in a public manner, including the right not to practice any religion). A third term, freedom of worship, may be considered synonymous with both freedom of belief and freedom of practice or may be considered to fall between the two terms.

Crucial in the consideration of religious liberty is the question of whether religious practices and religiously motivated actions that would otherwise violate secular law should be permitted due to the safeguarding freedom of religion. This issue is addressed in numerous court cases, including the United States Supreme Court cases Reynolds v. United States and Wisconsin v. Yoder, and in the European law cases of S.A.S. v. France, as well as numerous other jurisdictions.

Symbols of religious freedom are seen in significant locations around the world, such as the Statue of Liberty in New York, representing hope for religious refugees; the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, which dates from 1701 and is the oldest continuously active synagogue in Europe; and the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, a symbol of religious inclusivity and freedom of worship. Other key sites include the Bahá'í Gardens in Haifa, Israel, which emphasize the unity of humanity and freedom of belief, and Lutherstadt Wittenberg in Germany, where Martin Luther's actions sparked the Reformation, symbolizing a fight for religious reform and liberty.

In a historic setting freedom to worship has often been limited in practice through punitive taxation, repressive social legislation, and political disenfranchisement. An example commonly cited by scholars is the status of dhimmis under Islamic sharia law. Stemming from the Pact of Umar and literally meaning "protected individuals", it is often argued that non-Muslims possessing the dhimmi status in medieval Islamic societies enjoyed greater freedoms than non-Christians in most medieval European societies, while duly noting that the protection was limited because of regulation by and obligations to government such as taxation (compare jizya and zakat) and military service differed between religions. In modern concepts of religious freedom, the law is usually blind to religious affiliation.

In Antiquity, a syncretic point of view often allowed communities of traders to operate under their own customs. When street mobs of separate quarters clashed in a Hellenistic or Roman city, the issue was generally perceived to be an infringement of community rights.

Cyrus the Great established the Achaemenid Empire ca. 550 BC, and initiated a general policy of permitting religious freedom throughout the empire, documenting this on the Cyrus Cylinder.