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BELGIUM
Belgian law prohibits discrimination based on religion.
Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Anglicanism, Islam and Greek and Russian Orthodoxy each receive government subsidies, which all taxpayers must pay. Each also has the right to provide teachers at government expense for religious instruction in schools, though not all make use of this right.
In May 1997, a parliamentary commission published a report on the activities of alleged “sects” in Belgium. It created immediate controversy because the report urged selective discrimination against no less than 189 different religions, including a number of Catholic, Protestant and Buddhist religious associations. As was pointed out during a parliamentary debate on the report as well as by religious experts, its findings stigmatized members of these religions based on unverified information and hearsay. Although Parliament reluctantly accepted the report, it did so with the provision that the list of 189 religions named in it has no validity.
Although the recommendations of the report have been criticised as unconstitutional, their implementation is underway. A law covering the establishment of an “information centre” as well as a “coordination cell” on “dangerous sects” has been adopted by the Belgian Parliament. There are serious concerns about the undefined and arbitrary powers which will be available to the information centre and the coordination cell, especially as their activities are likely to include both intelligence functions and inter-ministerial cooperation. The Belgian Commission’s report has clearly opened the door to discrimination and the first steps down the slippery slope of religious intolerance have been taken.
Article II of the Constitution states that:
“The use of rights and liberties granted to the Belgian people must be assured without discrimination. To this end, law and decree guarantee the rights and liberties of ideological and philosophical minorities.”
Article 21:
“The state is forbidden to intrude in the nomination of the posting of ministers of any religion, and to forbid these ministers to communicate with their seniors and to publish their acts, except in the latter case for common responsibility with regards to press and publishing.”
Article 19:
“Freedom of worship, public practise of the latter, as well as freedom to demonstrate one’s opinions on all matters, are guaranteed, except for the repression of offenses committed when using this freedom.”
There is also a Belgian Cultural Pact of 16 July 1931 which states:
“Article 1: In application of article 6B and 59B, paragraph 7, of the Constitution, the decrees voted by any of the cultural councils cannot contain discrimination of an ideological or philosophical character, and cannot restrain rights and freedoms of ideological and philosophical minorities.”
Continued...
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