Category: Human Rights

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Speaking Against Latin America’s Roe V. Wade

A case that is potentially the Roe v. Wade of Latin America is now being considered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. The plaintiffs in Beatriz v. El Salvador are asking the court to declare the right to abortion to be an internationally recognized human right.

Such a declaration would be a major setback for the right to life on an international scale. The right to abortion is absent from the world’s treaties, conventions, and covenants with the exception of the Maputo Protocol of the African Charter of 2003, where this right was inserted at the behest of its powerful advocates in the West. Until recent years, Latin America has been a region of strong pro-life laws, though in the past decade, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and other states have liberalized their abortion laws. A declaration of the right to abortion in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, including some 20 countries in its jurisdiction, would advance the profile and status of abortion rights around the world.

These stakes make all the more significant the testimony at this trial of Paolo Carozza, a human rights lawyer who is a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School and the former President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. His testimony is one of the most eloquent, forceful, and succinct statements of the human rights of the unborn that one can find. About 10 minutes long, it merits viewing and being shown in classes, lectures, and forums on the right to life. (Here is ND Law’s story on his testimony.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqFRmYT5710

Professor Carozza’s testimony is a refreshing exception to the abortion paradox, which is that the right to life of the unborn, easily the most widely violated human right in the world, enjoys little support from, and even faces the opposition of, organizations whose purpose is to promote human rights and to work for the end of their violation. On conservative estimates, about 12 million abortions take place every year around the world while over a billion have taken place since 1920, when the Soviet Union became the first country to legalize the practice.

Only a few organizations and activists advocate for the right to life of the unborn: C-FAM, Human Life International, Women Without Frontiers (which campaigns against forced abortion in China), the Holy See, Professor Brian Scarnecchia, William Saunders, the pair of scholars Thomas W. Jacobson and William Robert Johnson, and perhaps a few others. They are mice that roar, up against lions that promote global abortion rights. These include the world’s major human rights organizations. Amnesty International, the world’s oldest and largest human rights organization, decided to promote the legalization of abortion in August 2007. Human Rights Watch promotes “reproductive rights” that include abortion. A coalition of United Nations officials, certain states, non-governmental organizations, and certain international lawyers work assiduously to find abortion rights in treaties, conventions, and international initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals where no such rights are stated, and to promote abortion rights through organizations such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank. The abortion paradox also enfolds a silence about abortion among other organizations whose mission is to promote human rights and social justice broadly, including human rights, peace and social justice centers at universities, even many Catholic universities.

The result is wide popular ignorance of the global scale of abortion, far too little influence exerted for the protection of unborn life around the world, and the advance of abortion rights among international organizations and countries that we are witnessing. We need more of Professor Carozza’s testimony.

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The Catholic Church in Nicaragua is Under Caesar’s Sword

The Catholic Church is being repressed at the hands of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. His government placed under house arrest the Bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando José Álvarez, on August 3, shut down Church radio stations on August 1, and has banned religious protests and processions. In March, it forced into exile the papal nuncio to Nicaragua.

Ortega represses the Catholic Church to secure the rule of himself and his party. He has been president since 2007 and won a fourth consecutive term in 2021, an election in which he faced no political opposition and had indeed arrested his opponents. The Catholic Church is the remaining civil society organization that retains, or struggles to retain, freedom from the state, as this piece in the New York Times explains well:

But as Mr. Ortega, 76, last year began to purge the few remaining dissidents in politics, civil society, news media, academia, business and culture, the Catholic churches in this deeply religious Central American nation assumed an increasingly pivotal role. More than sources of spiritual solace, they became the only places in the country where citizens could speak their minds and listen to speakers who were not appointed by the state.

Mr. Ortega’s already authoritarian rule tipped into systematic repression last year when it became clear that he lacked a popular mandate to win another term in the general elections held in November. To retain power, he turned the country into a one-party state, jailing all opposition presidential candidates and then moving to silence all other dissident voices. Now, with the last influential clergyman silenced, Nicaragua has reached a milestone, according to human rights activists, former officials and priests: cementing its position as a totalitarian state.

In the book God’s Century (2011), coauthored by Monica Duffy Toft, Timothy Samuel Shah, and myself, we advanced the thesis of late political scientist Samuel Huntington that the Catholic Church was a motor of the wave of global democratization that began in 1974. The Church opposed dictatorships most powerfully in countries such as Poland and the Philippines in the 1980s, where it had preserved independence from state in authority in its governance, finances, personnel, and other aspects of authority, and was co-opted by authoritarian and violent states such as Rwanda and Argentina, where it was weaker and far less independent. Doubtless Ortega perceives this. He must control the Church, he reasons, if he is to remain in power unopposed.

Exemplary among global responses has been that of Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, Italy. Here is his view as reported in an article in the National Catholic Register.

Cardinal Zuppi underlined that “with dismay and incredulity we receive news of the harsh persecutions that the people of God and their pastors are undergoing because of fidelity to the Gospel of justice and peace.”

“In recent weeks we have followed with concern the decisions taken by the government against the Christian community, also implemented through the use of force by the military and police forces. Lately we have learned of the arrest of H.E. Msgr. Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, Bishop of Matagalpa, together with other people, including priests, seminarians and laity,” the cardinal said.

It is a “very serious act, which does not leave us insensitive and which induces us to keep our attention high on what happens to these brothers of ours in the faith,” and which took place in circumstances and contexts that “arouse particular apprehension not only because they take it aims at Christians who are prevented from the legitimate exercise of their beliefs, but because they are part of a moment in which the most elementary human rights appear to be strongly threatened.”

Italy’s bishops, therefore, join “the requests of the international community, which have also found a voice in the recent declarations of the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres. We therefore ask the political leaders to guarantee freedom of worship. and of opinion not only to the exponents of the Catholic Church, but to all citizens.”

Nicaragua reminds us that the persecution of Christians, and religious freedom in general, continues to be violated around the world. The Under Caesar’s Sword project serves as a forum for educating the world about the persecution of Christians.

This coming Monday, August 29th, begins a six-week online course, “Under Caesar’s Sword: Christians in Response to Persecution,” taught by The Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. It is not too late to sign up!

This past summer, Notre Dame student Joseph London updated the Country Profiles of Under Caesar’s Sword, which describe persecution in 25 countries and serve as a resource for education. The profiles were first developed around 2015-2017 and so have needed to be updated. The countries alas do not include Nicaragua, whose persecution was not acute in 2014, when Under Caesar’s Sword’s research scholars were recruited to study designated countries first hand.

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The Darker Story in China

Much has been in the news about China and its role in the origin of the coronavirus. Far less has been said about the colossal lies and violence that the ruling Communist Party has perpetrated in suppressing the truth about the virus, the victims of the virus, and the virus itself, even while thousands of new cases are being reported. The story comes from the great human rights dissident, Chen Guangcheng, in collaboration with William Saunders, one of the leading human rights advocates in the United States.

Meanwhile the Party, perhaps thinking that it swings free from the virus, has found the energy to resume removing crosses from Christian churches. Read here.

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Forgiving ISIS

In all of the back-and-forth since the recent beheadings of Coptic Christians by ISIS, one reaction is startling  — that of Coptic Bishop Angaelos, who extended forgiveness.  See here.  Forgiveness is hardly an obvious or natural response and is certainly not an easy one.  It is not something to which anyone has a right and it does not preclude condemning or fighting ISIS.  Why did Bishop Angaelos forgive?  He explains:

It may seem unbelievable to some of your readers, but as a Christian and a Christian minister I have a responsibility to myself and to others to guide them down this path of forgiveness. We don’t forgive the act because the act is heinous. But we do forgive the killers from the depths of our hearts. Otherwise, we would become consumed by anger and hatred. It becomes a spiral of violence that has no place in this world.

Bishop Angaelos was able to see a purpose in these horrific deaths:

I learned a long time ago that when one prays, one prays for the best outcome, not knowing what that outcome would be. Of course, I prayed that they would be safe. But I also prayed that, when the moment came, they would have the peace and strength to be able to get through it. It doesn’t change my view of God that these 21 men died in this way. They were sacrificed, but so much has come out of it. They brought the imminent dangers to marginalized peoples, not just Christians, but Yazidis and others in the Middle East, to the attention of the whole world.

He calls for united efforts on behalf of persecuted Christians — and all those who are denied their religious freedom.

I would like to see us all start to work towards human rights generally, because when we’re divided into different departments or organizations any change will be fragmented. If you look at the rights of every individual, God-given rights, we can all start to work together and safeguard any people who are persecuted anywhere. Of course, the vast majority of persecution falls squarely right now on Christians in the Middle East and that needs to be addressed. But, as a Christian, I will never be comfortable just safeguarding the rights of Christians. We need to help everyone.

His and other reactions to persecution on the part of Christians, ranging from non-violent protest to behind-the-scenes diplomacy to taking up arms, will be the subject of a major conference that the Center for Civil and Human Rights is holding in Rome on December 10-12, 2015.  Entitled “Under Caesar’s Sword: An International Conference on Christian Response to Persecution,” the conference commemorates the 50th anniversary of Dignitatis Humanae, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty.

All are invited!

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Religious Repression is China’s Answer to Vatican’s Outstretched Hand

It is a wintry season for religious freedom in China.

Freedom in general is suffering in China, as this article in the New York Times explained vividly at the beginning of the year.  The Maoists are back, apparently.  Religious freedom, whether for Muslim Uighurs, Tibetan Buddhist, Falun Gong, or Christians, is worsening distinctly.  China already holds a position in the most repressive tier of the world’s violators, as attested by the the rigorous rankings of the Pew Forum.  It seems little interested in moving upwards.

Take the case of Beijing’s treatment of the Catholic Church.  Over many months, Pope Francis has been signaling interest in rapprochement, even declining to meet with the Dalai Lama in the Vatican late last year so as not to offend the Chinese government.  But this regime is not returning the affection.

For the Catholic Church, religious freedom is in one sense a more demanding claim than for other religions: it involves respect for its transnational communion of bishops, centered on the Bishop of Rome, the successor to Peter. Dating back to the 1950s, the Government of China has strongly managed, regulated, and constricted the Catholic Church through the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), which rejects the authority of the Pope over the Church by requiring bishops to be ordained under its own authority.

In this manner, China’s regime violates the freedom of the Catholic Church with respect to its essential structure. The Church’s authority to ordain its own bishops is the prerogative that it has insisted upon most vigorously against the encroachments of kings, emperors, and dictators, dating from the Investiture Conflict of the 11th century, to Henry VIII’s seizure of the Church in England in the 16th century, to the French Revolution, to modern Communist dictatorships.

Admittedly, complexity has entered the relationship between the Vatican and China in the past three decades or so as the Vatican has come to recognize the authority of many bishops ordained under the CPCA. Still, the fundamental denial of the Church’s freedom by the CPCA arrangement persists. Over the past half-decade, the Chinese government has become more entrenched in its hostility to the Church’s hierarchy by ordaining several bishops against the wishes of Rome.  A news story of today reveals that China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs intends to continue this practice.  In addition, the government has imprisoned a bishop who refused to join the CPCA soon after his ordination and persists in holding Chinese Christians in jail for worshipping contrary to government regulations.

Accompanying these stories are the reports that have surfaced over the past year of the Chinese government destroying churches and removing crosses, especially in Zhejiang Province.  One news story reports that that “2014 saw the worst persecution of Chinese Christians in a generation.”  During this year, 60 churches were destroyed in Zhejiang province.

Still another recent story in the Financial Times documents the general climate of increasing religious repression in China.

Updated, February 2, 2015.  See this story on China’s crackdown on western textbooks.

 

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Religious Freedom: The Indispensable Work of Brian Grim

Some of the most important arguments for religious freedom come from the work of scholar Brian Grim and his collaborators.  Grim teamed up with sociologist Roger Finke to write The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century.  One of the most interesting arguments there is that religious freedom is correlated with a whole range of other good things.  They make a strong argument, for instance, that the restriction of religious freedom is correlated with violence.  Now, Grim is making the case that religious freedom is good for business — and hence for economic growth, which in turns encourages stability and peace in a virtuous cycle. He has founded the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation to promote the idea.  Explore the links here to see what he is up to.

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Beneath Hong Kong’s Umbrellas: Religion

Key to the leadership of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution is religion.  This should not be surprising.  In the long wave of democracy movements beginning around 1974, religion has played a major role.  My colleagues Monica Toft, Tim Shah, and I found that among 78 democracy movements that we studied, religion played a prominent role in 48.

John Lindblom, a doctoral student in the World Religions World Church program in the theology department here at Notre Dame, notices what many others have not: religion’s role in the Hong Kong protests. He has been involved in China-related teaching, research, and work since 1997.  Here’s John:

 The pro-democracy protests unfolding in Hong Kong during the past week, appear to have reached a decision point as of Sunday, with student leaders and government officials agreeing for the second time to hold negotiations after the first round of talks were canceled by protestors. At issue is the Beijing government’s announcement that the pool of candidates for the 2017 election to Hong Kong’s top office, the Chief Executive, would be pre-selected by the Communist Party, while protesters demand genuine democracy with universal suffrage and free and open elections. The first planned talks were canceled after protesters were violently attacked on Friday by counter-protesters who students claim were gang members (who spoke Mandarin, indicating they are from mainland China, not Hong Kong) sent in by officials to disrupt the peaceful demonstrations.

Tens of thousands of protesters, mostly students, have taken to the streets in a movement called “Occupy Central” (Hong Kong’s administrative district) since last weekend, and tensions have escalated step by step during the past week, after police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse protesters, who responded with greater numbers and firmer resolve, carrying umbrellas and wearing face masks and goggles. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying rejected their demands that he step down, while stating that students would be treated “with the greatest tolerance.” By Saturday, however, there were warnings that if students did not disperse and allow civil servants back to work Monday morning, that a “tragedy” may ensue. On Sunday, government and university officials urged students to disperse, stating that they had effectively made their voices heard. Even Hong Kong’s retired archbishop, Cardinal Joseph Zen, who has joined students the streets and strongly supported them in this movement, urged them in a Facebook post Sunday “not to sacrifice a single one” in this cause. As of Sunday night, most protest sites had only a fraction of their earlier numbers, and sites near government buildings showed walkways cleared so that government workers could reach their offices on Monday. Whether or not large numbers return to the streets remains to be seen.

In addition to Cardinal Zen, many among the students leading and participating in the demonstrations are Christians. As quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Joseph Cheng, a political-science professor at City University of Hong Kong and a supporter of the protesters said, “Christians, by definition, don’t trust the communists. The communists suppress Christians wherever they are.”

Beijing’s has used familiar rhetoric in its statements, writing that cadres and the masses “resolutely oppose” the protests, that these protests are an instance of unrest being instigated by a small number of troublemakers, and that this matter is China’s “internal affair” with which foreign entities must not “interfere.” A commentary on the English website of the People’s Daily, China’s largest state-run newspaper, quoted numerous non-Chinese experts to express opposition to the Occupy Central movement. One Catholic news source, Asia News, wrote in late August that Beijing fears that a “germ of democracy” could be implanted in the former British colony and from there “infect” mainland China. The People’s Daily, for its part, commented on the front page of the Chinese edition on Saturday, “As for the ideas of a very small minority of people to use Hong Kong to create a ‘color revolution’ in mainland China, that is even more of a daydream.”

To those who remember the pro-democracy movement of 1989 in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, these events and words bear a sadly familiar and ominous tone. We hope and pray that the violent Tiananmen Square massacre (which is remembered by thousands every year in Hong Kong, and to which there is a permanent memorial sculpture at the University of Hong Kong) will never be repeated. In fact, Beijing’s words and actions before, during, and since the Tiananmen movement are the same. Almost always, the CCP blames the unrest on a few lawless instigators, claims that force is needed to regain or maintain stability, and tells outside actors not to interfere with China’s internal affairs. This is the most important test to date for China’s promise to maintain a “high degree of autonomy” as promised for Hong Kong. Students and many others see Beijing’s actions in recent years as incremental encroachments on their previous way of life, which, shaped by 150 years of British colonial rule, is completely different from that in mainland China. Simple gestures such as students continuing to do their homework while sitting in the streets, and cleaning up after themselves at protest sites, indicate that their intentions and commitment to non-violence are genuine, yet their frustrations and fears are real. As recent history has shown, a peaceful resolution to conflict is rare when confronting the Chinese government, but in this case we must still hope and pray that the planned talks will move forward, an agreement will be reached, and a tragedy, which could have enormous repercussions for Hong Kong, China, and the rest of the world, will still be avoided.

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More on Hong Kong

The latest from Victoria Hui (see earlier posts below):

Tensions in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution were diffused at the eleventh hour last night (Oct. 2, HK time), but could rekindle any time unless protestors find a third alternative between escalating and retreating. Tensions were building up last evening as Hong Kong protestors surrounded the Chief Executive’s office  and threatened to occupy other government office buildings if CY Leung would not step down by midnight. In response, the police were seen to stockpile tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and even bullets for AR-15 at the Chief Executive’s office. Observers could finally take a deep breath when CY Leung announced that he would appoint the Chief Secretary Carrie Lam to open negotiations with students. However, few people are optimistic that the negotiations would amount to anything. Not only that Mr. Leung refused to resign as demanded by protestors, Beijing has also stepped up its hardline position that it will not change the arrangements to vet candidates for the CE election in 2017 — which caused the protests in the first place. Protestors will thus continue to feel that they have to escalate to more disruptive actions or the movement would lose momentum and die out. But protestors have a third alternative. Scholars have argued that methods of dispersal — such as consumer boycotts and nonpayment of taxes — could be as effective as methods of concentration — such as the massive demonstrations that are on display now. If targeted boycotts hurt the interest of business tycoons whose support CY relies on and if nonpayment of taxes make bureaucrats unable to administer Hong Kong, then protestors would have a higher chance of compelling concessions and avoiding direct clashes with the police. And the movement will be sustainable in the long-term even when people have to go back to school or to work.

 

 

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The Right to Proselytize

Few issues relating to religion and global politics are as controversial as proselytism.  Even those sympathetic to religion’s place in politics are often reluctant to take the final step of giving the nod to proselytism.  Those who are skeptical see proselytism as the quintessence of the problem with religion.  Political Science Ani Sarkissian of Michigan State, a rising star in the study of religion and global politics, then, argues boldly in claiming that proselytism is closely associated with the rights, freedoms, and representational mechanisms that are the bread and butter of liberal democracy.  She writes the following in a post for Arc of the Universe:

Proselytization—the act of trying to change the religious beliefs, affiliation, or identity of another individual—is a controversial issue in discussions of religious freedom. On the one hand, proponents argue that proselytization is a human right, akin to the rights of free expression and conscience. On the other hand, proselytization brings up difficult questions regarding how to balance the rights of some groups to expand their faith versus those of others to protect their traditions. Although international law does protect the right of individuals to change religion, it also allows for limits on coercive attempts to convince others to convert. This leaves open to interpretation how states regulate proselytization.

My current research examines the relationship between restrictions on proselytization (and related activities such as conversion, foreign missionaries, religious publications, and public preaching) and various measures of democracy in countries around the world. Using data from the Pew Research Center, I find that restrictions on proselytization lead to lower quality of democracy. Restricting proselytization is related not only to restrictions on association, organization, the media, cultural expression, academia, personal discussions, property ownership, economic opportunity, and personal social freedom, but also to how well democratic procedures—namely, elections—are followed.

As laws against proselytization fall under the category of limits on expression, they affect both the procedural and rights aspects of democracy. Procedurally, restrictions on expression curtail political competition by reducing the number and variety of voices in the political marketplace, thus limiting political choice at the time of elections. In terms of democratic rights, restrictions on religious expression can signal a regime’s unwillingness to tolerate other expressions of civil rights. This suggests that restrictions on religion are fundamentally motivated by politics rather than theology. I expand on this argument in my forthcoming book, The Varieties of Religious Repression: Why Governments Restrict Religion, and will continue to explore the topic of proselytization in greater detail in the upcoming months.

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On The Events in Hong Kong

Victoria Hui, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, has worked in the democracy movement in Hong Kong and now serves on the Academic Advisors Committee of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. She  discuss protests in Hong Kong and the Communist Party’s crackdown on social media as Beijing tries to prevent the democratic protest from spreading to the mainland.

Hui says… 
 
International media have reported on how hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong protesters have maintained nonviolent discipline and order. International observers see images common to nonviolent movements around the world: strength in numbers, determined faces in front of riot police, slogans, songs, and more. Beneath such broad strokes of similarities, Hong Kong is unlike other cases given the constitutional structure of “one country, two systems” agreed to between Beijing and London. While Hong Kong has only semi-democracy, people are free to protest. While the police sometimes make arbitrary arrests, the independent judiciary inherited from the colonial era routinely releases activists. This constitutional structure presents a very open political space unseen in the rest of China and yet makes it difficult for activists to mobilize the largely contented population. Against this backdrop, the unprecedented use of riot police and the firing of tear gas seemed to have galvanized popular support for the protesters fighting for genuine democracy and increased sympathy for nonviolent actions.
More from Hui in this Notre Dame news story.