Chair,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States on the draft resolution contained in document L.41 as orally revised.

The EU is strongly opposed to all forms discrimination, hostility and violence, including those based on religion or belief. In many parts of the world, people are killed, attacked, persecuted or discriminated against because of their alleged race, their religion or belief, or other aspects of their personality.

As the main sponsor of the annual resolutions on "Freedom of Religion or Belief" in New York and Geneva, the EU advocates a comprehensive and universal approach which seeks to eliminate all forms of incitement to discrimination, hostility, violence and intolerance directed against persons because of their religion or belief, including non-believers.

For this reason, we are concerned with the approach of addressing only one religion through a General Assembly initiative. In our view, rather than singling out one specific religion, the UN should be impartial. By singling out a particular confession, we risk undermining the very universality of our approach.

In addition, by using the term ‘Islamophobia’ instead of ‘anti-Muslim discrimination’ or ‘anti-Muslim hatred’, the OIC initiative focuses on protecting religion as such which is an approach that undermines the protection of the individual human rights of persons, such as the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to debate and criticize religion as enshrined in art. 19 of ICCPR.  This includes democratically elected politicians. The UN should focus on the protection of the right of persons to freedom of religion or belief, as a human right, including the right not to practice a religion. In the spirit of the United Nations, we should speak up against injustice and abuse, because it is the individuals who suffer.

Based on this approach, the UN recently adopted the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief  (on 22 August). This international day addresses all forms of violence and hatred, against victims from all religions and beliefs. It covers all aspects of Anti-Muslim hatred. The initiative in front of us today presents an unnecessary duplication in this regard.

Moreover, it is the EU’s standing position to oppose the multiplication of international days.

For the EU, there were four priorities  throughout the negotiation process:

1) Religion-neutrality of any initiative related to Freedom of Religion or Belief;

2) The need to use the internationally agreed definition of Freedom of Religion or Belief, as stated in the ICCPR article 18: freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice, which includes the right to change religion and not to believe.

3) Addressing the situation of persons and not the situation of religions as such; and

4) Not infringing upon other fundamental freedoms such as the rights to freedom of opinion and expression.

In our view, the best way to achieve this would have been to make the title more inclusive and universal, by not singling out one religion.

Our proposal was to call it an ‘International Day for the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief’, which would correspond to the UN Declaration adopted in 1981. Such an international day would have addressed all individuals facing discrimination, regardless of their religion or belief.

Our proposals sought to correct the imbalance in the text by proposing provisions that would clarify that the Freedom of religion or belief protects every human being’s right to believe or to hold an atheistic or non-theistic belief, and to change religion or belief. It does not protect any religion or belief as such.

To this end, the EU engaged constructively in the negotiation process from the outset. We regret that not all of our main concerns have been taken into account.

However, notwithstanding these reservations that we still maintain with respect to the resolution, the EU did not oppose consensus today. 

Thank you.