Tag: Constitution

Maldives to EU: ‘Islam shall be the basis of all laws’

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Only Muslims can be citizens of the Maldives is Muslim, and citizenship is revoked if one chooses another faith. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
The Maldives government has told the European Union it will not consider amending its constitution to allow for religious freedom in the country, reports Maldives-based news site Avas Online. A report by the EU’s Electoral Follow-up Mission (EFM), published last week, said the Maldives had implemented none of the 22 . . . Read More

Bolivian Christians can still evangelise … for now

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Bolivia's president repealed a controversial new penal code in which evangelism alongside terrorism would be a crime. (Photo: Flickr / CC / Szymon Kochański)
After much criticism, Bolivian president Evo Morales announced earlier this week that his government would repeal a new law that seemed set to make evangelism a crime. The new penal code, adopted by Bolivia’s parliament in December, placed the “recruitment of persons for their participation in religious organisations or cults” . . . Read More

What makes Pakistan’s small religious minorities so significant?

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What makes Pakistan’s small religious minorities so significant?
Pakistan conducted its first census in 19 years in July. All the results have now been released, except those on religious minorities. The government has provided no explanation. On 22 November a small group of protesters, mostly Christians, gathered outside the Press Club in Lahore, the major city in Pakistan’s . . . Read More

Religious freedom in Nepal ‘teetering on the edge’

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Within less then 24 hours after the provisions on religion were approved by the Constituent Assembly in September 2015, 3 churches in the eastern Jhapa district were bombed. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
Nepali president Bidhya Devi Bhandari last week signed into law a bill criminalising religious conversion and the “hurting of religious sentiment”, as two parliamentarians warn religious freedom in the country is “teetering on the edge”. Nepali MP Lokmani Dhakal and Canadian MP David Anderson expressed their concerns after an international . . . Read More

Georgia set to pass Constitutional amendments that ‘violate’ religious freedom

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Georgia set to pass Constitutional amendments that ‘violate’ religious freedom
Georgia’s parliament is tomorrow (26 September) set to sign into law changes to the country’s Constitution, including restrictions to freedom of religion or belief, which, human rights defenders say, will be used to “legitimise” violations. The proposed amendments would restrict religious freedom on the basis of “state [national] security or . . . Read More

Minorities fear backlash over Sri Lanka’s proposed new constitution

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Minorities fear backlash over Sri Lanka’s proposed new constitution
Sri Lanka’s minority religious groups are concerned after Buddhist hardliners reacted angrily to the President’s proposed new constitution. President Maithripala Sirisena’s new constitution, proposed on 9 Jan., would decentralise power in a bid to prevent ethnic tensions in the country, but Buddhist hardliners say it contains provisions that regulate the . . . Read More

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