In its address to the UN Human Rights Council, the World Evangelical Alliance proposes better training on religious freedom for state officials and politicians.
Lisbon, Portugal. / [link]André Lergier[/link], Unsplash.
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance (AEP) have addressed the protection of religious freedom in Portugal at the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations, in Geneva.
The statement of the evangelical bodies was given at the Human Right Council's 58th session, that adopted the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) outcome of Portugal, on 24 March.
They started by thanking the Portuguese government for its “acceptance of the recommendation to intensify efforts to ensure effective responses to tackle discrimination, Islamophobia, hate speech and other related intolerance against ethnic and religious minorities”.
However, the evangelical alliances also stressed their concern about “the ongoing political instability in the country, the increasing sympathy for populist political groups, and the rise of xenophobic and racist extremism”.
That is why they called on Portugal to “promote more widespread training in various ministries and government departments”, so that “all public servants can effectively comply with the Religious Freedom Law without discrimination”.
Furthermore, the evangelical entities asked the government to “integrate through legislation evangelical theological schools and seminaries into the national education system”.
[photo_footer] WEA communications and advocacy officer, Markus Hofer reading the statement on Portugal. / WEA [/photo_footer]
Evangelical Christians in Portugal commend the Portuguese government’s decision to protect the freedom of religion and conscience of patients, health care professionals and others “notably protecting conscientious objection in the medical field”.
Nevertheless, they lamented that such freedoms have not been protected “in the implementation of a law criminalising so-called conversion therapies”.
For the WEA, “teaching religious views to believers according to their theology should never be considered a crime”, but the Portuguese law is worded in such a way that “can give rise to interpretations along those lines, which can lead to serious limitations on freedom of religion and expression”.
In order to avoid that, they urge the Portuguese governmento to “review all legislation regarding gender self-determination to ensure recognition of social and religious perspectives that do not accept personal gender self-determination”.
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