PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS – A Practical Guide to Developing Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Legislation their religions or beliefs or receive public support in the same manner as adherents to a State religion.963 Other positive duties include satisfying all obligations stipulated by article 27 of the Covenant and by the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, which requires States to “take measures to create favourable conditions” that enable persons belonging to minorities to “express their characteristics”.964 The passages that follow concern States’ obligation to ensure equal enjoyment of the right to freedom of religion or belief, and questions of discriminatory infringement or denial of freedom of religion or belief. This includes the question of whether establishing a State religion gives rise to discrimination concerns as relates to religion or belief minorities, as well as equality and non-discrimination in the area of establishing religious or belief communities, and ensuring equal abilities to practise freely. Given the focus of the present guide on equality and non-discrimination, the present section does not treat in detail all aspects of the right to freedom of religion or belief. 1. State religion and religious and belief minorities Complex questions arise with respect to the rights of religious or belief minorities in situations in which a State establishes an official religion or provides a majority religion with legal or political primacy. The Human Rights Committee, in its general comment No. 22 (1993), has set out that: The fact that a religion is recognized as a State religion or that it is established as official or traditional or that its followers comprise the majority of the population, shall not result in any impairment of the enjoyment of any of the rights under the Covenant, including articles 18 and 27, nor result in any discrimination against adherents of other religions or non-believers.965 Other positive duties, including the requirement to take measures to create favourable conditions for minorities to express their characteristics, have been noted above. The Beirut Declaration and its 18 Commitments on Faith for Rights explicitly refer to preventing the use of the notion of “State religion” or “doctrinal secularism” to discriminate against individuals or groups or reduce “the space for religious or belief pluralism in practice”.966 The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights held, in Amnesty International and others v. Sudan, that full respect for freedom of religion in a particular State could not be applied “in such a way as to cause discrimination and distress to others”.967 The Commission also held that it was “fundamentally unjust that religious laws should be applied against non-adherents of the religion”. In the same case, the Committee noted that: “Tribunals that apply only Shari’a are thus not competent to judge non-Muslims, and everyone should have the right to be tried by a secular court if they so wish.”968 Moreover, the Commission identified other discriminatory behaviours against Christians, including coercion to convert to Islam, the expulsion of missionaries and unequal food distribution in prisons.969 140 963 See A/HRC/37/49, para. 29. In the case of Waldman v. Canada, the Human Rights Committee held that “if a State party chooses to provide public funding to religious schools, it should make this funding available without discrimination. This means that providing funding for the schools of one religious group and not for another must be based on reasonable and objective criteria. In the instant case, the Committee concludes that the material before it does not show that the differential treatment between the Roman Catholic faith and the author’s religious denomination is based on such criteria. Consequently, there has been a violation of the author’s rights under article 26 of the Covenant to equal and effective protection against discrimination.” See Human Rights Committee, Waldman v. Canada (CCPR/C/67/D/694/1996), para. 10.6. 964 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, art. 4 (2). 965 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 22 (1993), para. 9. 966 A/HRC/40/58, annex II, commitment IV. See also A/HRC/37/49, paras. 28–29; and OHCHR, #Faith4Rights Toolkit (2021), module 4. Available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Press/faith4rights-toolkit.pdf. 967 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Amnesty International and others v. Sudan, communications Nos. 48/90, 50/91, 52/91 and 89/93, Decision, 15 November 1999, para. 72. 968 Ibid., para. 73. 969 Ibid., paras. 74–76.