Is Religious Freedom a Universal Human Right - Research Paper Example

The United Nations passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which contained religious freedom as one of the fundamental rights. (Davis 2002:217). Due to genocide and atrocities leashed out in the World War II, nations around the globe joined together to form varied regional and global organizations so as to make sure that such religious and racist discrimination would never again happen. Majority of these international organizations established human rights norms, which their member nations committed to practice.

Analogs to the Bill of Rights of USA, these international human rights agreements describe the particular positive and negative obligations of the nations as regards to their citizens. The first and foremost among those duties of nations is to make sure that their citizens are at liberty to believe and practice their religion without having any fear of discrimination and persecution. (aclj.org 2014). It is necessary to make religious freedom as a universal human right due to the fact many atrocities and genocides have been unleashed by the name of religion in the past.

For example, in China, unregistered religious groups were compelled to register and those religious leaders refused to obey the government’s orders were persecuted. Minority Christian’s homes and churches were destroyed by the Muslim mobs in Pakistan, and non-Muslims were awarded the death sentences for their comments, which was criticized as “anti-Islamic” or “blasphemous.” Virtually, all non-Muslim religious worships were banned and those who have disobeyed the Saudi-Arabian government orders were awarded imprisonment.

Starting from 1997, onwards, the German government placed the Church of Scientology under constant surveillance thereby German government interrupted the Church’s mail, tapping its phones.