Mr. Chairman
The United Nations, while promoting human rights and basic freedoms for all human beings, and
converting declarations into binding conventions and documents, also guarantees the rights of
minorities.
But over time and with the evolution of opinions, it became clear that the rights of minorities cannot
be solved only under the cover of general human rights. Supporting the rights of minorities without
considering the group aspect of the issue of minorities will certainly be incomplete and
meaningless.
Despite the complexity of the issue and sometimes the opposition of some member states, the
United Nations included an article in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of
1966, Article 27. which, in parallel, led to the formulation and approval of the declaration on the
rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities.
Unfortunately, some of the governments used the right of reservation when approving this
international document, in fact, they put their domestic laws first and interpret the concepts of
human rights declared in international documents as they understand them, and in this
interpretation, public order and their national security are considered For example, the American
and French governments have imposed restrictions on the most important international human
rights covenant, i.e. the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The performance of these countries has caused other governments to show their adherence to
international law in various ways, often by granting minimum rights to minorities.
They continued the discrimination in more hidden ways and by establishing laws that actually
limited the minorities and applied indirect discrimination.
For example, restricting the activities of the Muslim minority by combining humanitarian laws and
building construction laws and to prevent the activities of cultural-Islamic centers based in Europe.
As a result, we are far from reaching the ideal and the opportunity and realization of dialogue in
practice and implementation. Therefore, a solution should be explained in order to prevent
violations of regulations in dealing with religious minorities - to take effective measures, so as to
reduce the conflict and confrontation with international human rights assemblies.
Thank you.
Imam Ali center Ticino – Switzerland