All human beings have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet almost two thirds of the world\u2019s population live in countries where there are serious abuses and violations of this right. Millions of people suffer daily from intolerance, discrimination, hatred, hostility and violence because of their actual or perceived religion or belief, or lack thereof. Many pay with their lives.<\/p>\n
The European Union draws inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person. The Union and its Member States promote the right to freedom of religion or belief for everyone, everywhere. We work persistently to uphold this right at home and abroad, together with civil society, including churches, religious associations or communities, philosophical and non confessional organisations, and our international partners.<\/p>\n
Within the Union, our policies include specific initiatives to fight antisemitism and anti Muslim hatred, which we strongly condemn wherever they appear, along with discrimination and violence against Christians and members of other religious communities. Internationally, we are proactive within the United Nations by putting forward resolutions on the right to freedom of religion or belief and supporting the work of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights in this regard. Elsewhere we fund, among others, projects to strengthen civil society and institutions for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief in Asia, foster dialogue and peace to combat religious discrimination in the Sahel, and we are working with our partners to promote religious coexistence. This year the European Commission also appointed a new Special Envoy for the Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief to engage with third countries and raise global awareness about discrimination and persecution based on religion or belief.<\/p>\n
On this international day, we pay tribute to the victims of discrimination, hostility or violence for freely choosing, changing or leaving a religion or belief, for belonging to a religious community or being perceived as part of one, of for having no religion or belief. We call on all states to act against discrimination and violence based on religion or belief, and to respect, protect and fulfil this human right. This also entails not criminalizing apostasy nor abusing blasphemy laws. So long as discrimination and violence persist, we have a responsibility to engage constructively and keep working actively towards a world where freedom, respect, tolerance and peace for persons of all religions and beliefs are no longer an exception but the norm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All human beings have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet almost two thirds of the world\u2019s population live in countries where there are serious abuses and violations of this right. Millions of people suffer daily from intolerance, discrimination, hatred, hostility and […]","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":202556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43,42],"class_list":["post-202555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comunicati","tag-diritti-umani","tag-unione-europea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202557,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202555\/revisions\/202557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}