In a statement delivered to the Council, the organization invoked the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, alongside the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. These foundational documents, the organization argued, explicitly prohibit the misuse of religion to violate the UN Charter or core international principles. However, the intervention highlighted an “alarming rise” in the use of religious freedom language to justify systemic discrimination and the erosion of hard-won rights.
Humanists International noted that these efforts to “roll back the clock on equality” are frequently coordinated and well-funded across various religious and ideological lines. The organization specifically pointed to the targeting of women’s and girls’ rights, the denial of sexual and reproductive health rights, and the systemic marginalization of LGBTI+ individuals. Such tactics, the statement suggested, represent a fundamental distortion of the right to FoRB.
The rise of religious nationalism was also identified as a grave concern for the global humanist movement. The statement warned that when states attach themselves to exclusionary interpretations of religion, a dangerous precedent is set that encourages other nations to follow suit. This trend of religious nationalism disproportionately victimizes those from minority faith communities and those with no religion, who are often the first to face exclusion from public and legal life when a state adopts a singular religious identity. This position was recently reaffirmed by the Board of Humanists International.
Concluding the intervention, Humanists International reminded the Council of the Vienna Declaration’s core affirmation: that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated. The organization called on the international community to resist the fragmentation of rights and to ensure that religious freedom is never used as a pretext to undermine the universality of human dignity.
Featured Photo by Mathias Reding on Unsplash
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