A/78/207 religious identity on documents of fundamental importance, such as birth certificates and/or identity cards. These documents are often necessary for access to essential services. The freedom of religion or belief of children 4 and the right of all to determine – and to not be obliged to declare – their religion or belief should not be forgotten. 14. Registration of one’s religion or belief and its display on identity cards or other analogous documents are likely to enable discrimination and exclusion. Once registered, it may be difficult or impossible to remove or change that religious affiliation, thereby impeding the right to adopt or change a religion or belief. 5 In other cases, one can chose from only a limited set of “recognized” religions or beliefs, 6 resulting in stigmatization, marginalization and coercion with regard to the religious affiliation of others. Those violations of freedom of religion or belief are often conditioned by constitutional or legislative orders, or by established practices, which make the registration of religious or belief communities themselves unnecessarily cumbersome or impossible. 7 15. The right to change one’s religion or belief is inherent to freedom of religion or belief. Furthermore, all human rights instruments prohibit discrimination based on religion or belief. Those rights apply to all religions and beliefs, including those of a non-religious nature. The mandate holder has long expressed concerns about the denial of citizenship, and of equal citizenship, due to religion or belief. 8 Such denials represent serious violations of freedom of religion or belief, equality and non-discrimination and risk further violations across the entire corpus of human rights. 16. As international law requires the declaration of religion or belief to remain voluntary, the Special Rapporteur reiterates that no mention of religious identity or affiliation should be required on official documents. 17. Regarding the registration of religion or belief communities, States must play a facilitative role in ensuring that access to legal personality is quick, transparent, fair, inclusive, non-discriminatory and voluntary. 9 B. Local, municipal and regional governments or authorities 18. Devolved local, municipal and regional authorities 10 vary in their levels of autonomy, their functions and the manner in which they are appointed or elected. They may have their own autonomous judicial institutions, plural legal systems, their own sets of laws and law enforcement agencies and their own official religion. Others may serve to administer and implement laws created by central Governments. Regardless of their heterogeneous interactions with rights holders, they are centrally implicated in the State’s international obligations, including with regard to freedom of religion or belief. They can be the principal violators of freedom of religion or belief. 19. Several recent communications issued by the mandate holder contain references to alleged violations or weakening of freedom of religion or belief arising from local __________________ 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 23-14116 Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 14. Submission provided by Sisters in Islam. Submissions provided by the Indonesian Civil Society Coalition for Freedom of Religion or Belief, Komnas Perempuan (national human rights institution in Indonesia) and Minority Rights Group. A/HRC/19/60, paras. 41–44 and 73. A/63/161, paras. 31–36. See www.osce.org/files/f/documents/9/9/139046.pdf. These may include mayoral offices, city or regional councils or legislatures or autonomous executive or legislative authorities of states within a federation. 5/24