PREVIEW
What special rights might religious minority groups need?
There is a declaration that relates to the rights of religious minority groups. This declaration and some important articles are listed below.
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981)
This declaration was adopted in 1981. As a declaration, it is not legally binding in Myanmar. Some of the human rights relevant for religious minority groups in this declaration include:
Articles 1 and 6: Rights to choose and practise one’s own religion, including freedom to worship, assemble, appoint leaders, and celebrate holidays and ceremonies
Article 2: Freedom from discrimination and intolerance
Article 5: Right for parents and guardians to make decisions for the family based on their religion or belief, including education for their children
REFLECTION/DISCUSSION
Why do you think there has not been a legally binding document written specifically for the rights of religious minority groups?
Educator’s notes
Note that the process to draft and adopt new treaties often takes many years and involves representatives of many governments and organisations from all over the world. Those tasked to draft the text of new treaties need to agree among themselves on the exact wording of articles and this is a challenging, time-consuming and often conflicted task. These persons might also have very strong, personal religious beliefs that influence what rights they want to include or exclude. Since treaties in the human rights framework of the UN are supposed to be universal and applicable in all states of the world, this means that the final text of treaties needs to be agreeable to very diverse governments and representatives of states. It could be difficult to find agreement over a minimum set of human rights that everyone accepts.
New treaties also do not come into force immediately after they have been adopted. Instead, treaties typically include articles that specify the minimum number of states that need to become States Parties to those treaties in order for them to come into force. Not until the required number of States Parties have ratified a new treaty will it become legally binding. This means that even if a treaty on the rights of religious minority groups was adopted in the UN, it would not immediately be legally binding and could remain legally non-binding for several years.
FOCUS ON MYANMAR:
The White Rose Campaign
In May 2019, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a group of around 200 extreme nationalists went to three different Islamic prayer houses in Yangon and forced them to stop. Police responded in the following days by offering protection to the worshippers and two of the leaders of the mob were charged with causing “fear or alarm” to the public under section 505(b) under the Penal Code.
The day after, the Buddhist monk Ashin Seindita started handing out white roses to affected Muslims. “I came here to show solidarity and humanitarian spirit after what happened last night,” the respected monk said. “I would like to show appreciation to all our Muslim brothers… It is not only a gesture of peace to those mobs but also a goodwill message to all other citizens.”
This began the White Rose Campaign, which saw a team of over 100 volunteers giving out around 15,000 flowers to Muslims at 23 locations across Myanmar during Ramadan. “It is a campaign intended to show our loving kindness to our Muslim friends here in Sagaing, following the forced shutdown of three prayer houses in Yangon,” said Ma Suu Chit, who was a local campaign organiser. Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims participated in the campaign, including a joint prayer at an iftar dinner, which is the meal eaten by Muslims after sunset during Ramadan.
“[This is] a warning to extremists that many in Myanmar do not share their unjust views,” said Ko Thet Swe Win, who volunteered in the campaign.
REFLECTION/DISCUSSION
The White Rose Campaign was an interfaith campaign because it involved members of different religious groups working together. In this case, members of the religious majority group worked with members of different religious minority groups to show support for a particular religious minority group.
Do you believe that interfaith activities are important for the promotion of the rights of religious minority groups? Why or why not?
အမျိုးသားရေးဝါဒီ
လှုပ်ရှားသွားလာနိုင်မှု
အမွေအနှစ်
ကိုလိုနီဝါဒ