From the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe, all describe freedom of thought, conscience and religion as a fundamental right of human beings. The order in which these rights are cited goes from the broadest to the narrowest: everyone has a thought and a conscience, not necessarily a religion. Despite the well-established nature of these rights, a semantic shift has occurred over time towards a different formulation that ends up hindering or ignoring them. The American formulation “freedom of religion and belief”, supposed to cover the same content, has imposed itself in its original formulation: “freedom of religion or belief", especially in the European Union, in place of the previous one. But does it really cover the same concepts?
A translation that is not faithful to the original meaning
It must be noted that if we translate the English expression literally, it gives: freedom of religion and belief and not of conviction. The difference is important: a belief is experienced and does not need to be demonstrated, while a conviction is the fruit of reasoning. One belongs to the realm of the irrational, the other to that of reason. If the official translation in French seems more satisfactory by introducing the word conviction, it does not remove the partial nature of the English formulation. Because freedom of religion and belief is a right that only concerns those who have a religion and a belief. Atheists, agnostics or those indifferent to religions are not in reality concerned by freedom of religion and belief. We could leave it there and be content to note this semantic difference, but the problem is that it is not insignificant and that it leads to a series of attitudes, behaviors and political actions whose incomplete nature can be deplored.
Visible practical consequences
The English formulation, which claims to take into account all religions and beliefs, implies that every human being has at least one religion or belief. However, we know that this is false for the three categories mentioned above. The use of this formula induces at best a failure to take into consideration the rights of these social groups, at worst an intrinsic devaluation of what they are on the grounds that they lack a "natural" characteristic which would be religion or belief. It is impossible not to make a connection with the situation of atheists in the United States who complain of being poorly regarded.
Indeed, in the Anglo-Saxon world, Locke's philosophy of tolerance remains very present and we know well that it was only advocated between people with a religion. Atheists were not understood because they were considered unreliable precisely because they are non-believers.[1]. It is therefore logical that the motto "in God we trust" appears on American dollars and that the newly elected president takes the oath of office on the Bible. The same logic could naturally lead to imposing compulsory religion classes in school curricula, while allowing everyone to choose their religion so as not to "harm anyone".
And yet, paradoxically, the American association American Atheists writes on its website: "we fight for true religious freedom." [2], acknowledging that they do not benefit from it, but they continue to use a formulation that omits the freedom they are demanding. Moreover, they remain in a very American logic and say they support "the separation of religion from government" (and not the separation of religions and the State) [3]In other words, they consider that religions must be protected from the abusive actions of the State, whereas in France, the Republicans of 1905 sought to protect the Republic from the excesses of the Catholic clergy.
Let us mention a very concrete consequence of the use of religious freedom in place of freedom of conscience. In 2016, the European Commission created the position of a special envoy for freedom of religion and belief outside the European Union and entrusted it to the Slovak Jan Figel. Originally, the aim was to advocate for an end to discrimination affecting religious minorities and Eastern Christians in particular.
While it seemed legitimate for the European Union to intervene in the Middle East or in Africa to protect these populations, it was much less justifiable for it to restrict its action to believers. And yet this is what happened since Jan Figel acted above all to encourage dialogue between religions by increasing the number of meetings with religious leaders, but he never spoke out, for example, against the bill under discussion in the Egyptian Parliament in 2018 which aimed to penalize atheism. One of them, Ahmed Harkan, a former Salafist turned atheist, was prevented from leaving the country and threatened with death as an apostate from Islam. He had started a hunger strike in 2019 to demand his freedom.
At the end of this mandate, which was very controversial, particularly within the European Parliament, Jan Figel was not reappointed and the position remained vacant for several years. It was renewed in 2022 and Frans van Daele, a former Belgian diplomat, both recognized and respected in his country, was appointed.
The secular associations had asked the Commission to change the name of this special envoy to "special envoy for freedom of conscience and religion", which would have removed any ambiguity about the content of his mission. They were not followed on this point, but the envoy's mission letter specifies the extent of his mission to non-believers and it must be acknowledged that Mr van Daele seems to have understood the need to remain vigilant on the issue of freedom of conscience of people who have no religion. He has formally committed himself to this and is at the disposal of the secular associations to report on it. It is clear, however, that this situation cannot be satisfactory because there is always a risk that in the future, when a new special envoy is appointed, the freedoms of atheists, agnostics and those indifferent to religions will once again be forgotten.
This question remains: why refuse to systematically adopt the wording included in our declarations? Why refuse to return to it when we have deviated from it? Is it the force of habit? The consequence of American pressure in this matter? The consequence of the action of religious lobbies who fear above all the secularization of society? The fear of politicians of having to face a negative reaction from religious leaders? We do not have the answer and perhaps all these factors contribute to the maintenance of current usage.
The growing decline in religious adherence and practice recorded in the European Union, year after year by various international studies, makes the thesis of religion as a natural component of the human being increasingly indefensible. In several countries of the Union, those who say they have no religion are now in the majority.
Oddly enough, many people predict a return of religions in Europe, even though there are no solid statistics to support such a claim. One can only suggest that the religiosity of those who are attached to a religion seems to be increasing. But this concerns a tiny minority and cannot justify continuing to ignore the freedom of conscience of all in favour of the freedom of religion of a few.
