December 15, 2023, witnessed the tenth version of the Non secular Freedom Awards, that are given yearly by the Basis for the Enchancment of Life, Tradition and Society (Fundacion MEJORA), linked to the Church of Scientology, and recognised with Particular Consultative Standing by the Financial and Social Council of the United Nations since 2019.
The occasion, held on the headquarters of this spiritual denomination positioned in a refurbished historic constructing, introduced collectively authorities, teachers and representatives of civil society to recognise the work of three main specialists within the defence of this elementary proper protected not solely by the Spanish Structure but additionally by the European Conference on Human Rights and the Common Declaration of Human Rights, which celebrates 75 years since its signing.
Among the many diplomats, current had been the Embassy of Bosnia Herzegovina and the one of many Czech Republic who expressed the assist of their individuals for the elemental proper of freedom of faith or perception.
The Secretary Common of the Basis MEJORA, Isabel Ayuso Puente, welcomed the attendees, highlighting the rising significance of interreligious dialogue and the popularity of the optimistic contribution of religions to society: “Interreligious dialogue is changing into more and more vital and obligatory and that faith in a roundabout way kinds an vital a part of society“, a message that she supported with a video based mostly on The Strategy to Happiness, the non-religious ethical code written by Ronald Hubbard, founding father of Scientology.
On behalf of the Ministry of the Presidency, the Deputy Director Common for Non secular Freedom, Mercedes Murillo, despatched a message by which she congratulated the award winners – Igor Minteguía, Francisca Pérez and Mónica Cornejo – for his or her “excellent contribution to the research, evaluation and understanding of the authorized and social points of spiritual freedom”. Murillo burdened “the necessity to proceed working in the direction of the creation of situations that permit for a fuller train of spiritual freedom within the context of more and more open and plural societies“.
Earlier than giving solution to the award winners, the director of the Pluralism and Coexistence Basis, Inés Mazarrasa, highlighted the assist of this public establishment for the publication of a e-book “10 Años de promoción y defensa de la Libertad Religiosa” that may compile the articles of the 30 award winners on this decade, due to funding from the inspiration she leads. She defined that the work of the Basis seeks to disseminate “the defence of spiritual freedom” and the “recognition of spiritual variety”. In her opinion, “actively defending rights” equivalent to spiritual freedom is important to “protect them” within the face of the “threat” of “regression”.
Afterwards, the president of the Basis MEJORA, Iván Arjona, who additionally represents Scientology to the European Union, OSCE and United Nations establishments, introduced the publication venture, explaining that the work can be out there in each bodily and digital codecs, to make recognized completely different views on freedom of perception in several areas of life and that a number of debates can be held with college college students to as soon as once more placed on the desk “the necessity to enhance consciousness of this elementary proper to have the ability to consider and apply the faith that brings out the most effective model of your self“.
The primary of the 2023 award winners to take the ground was Professor Igor Minteguía, who has been educating State Ecclesiastical Legislation for 25 years. This skilled from the College of the Basque Nation thanked the award for his contribution to the “defence of freedom of conscience as a elementary aspect underpinning coexistence in an more and more plural and sophisticated society“.
All through his profession, Minteguía has printed quite a few works on the safety of minorities and freedom of conscience. His traces of analysis embrace the research of the boundaries between inventive freedom and non secular emotions. In his speech, the prize-winner burdened that the message he has at all times conveyed to his college students has been “the defence of freedom and of those that are completely different, even when they don’t share and even reject his imaginative and prescient of actuality“.
After this heartfelt speech, it was the flip of the following awardee, Professor Francisca Pérez Madrid, from the College of Barcelona, who targeted a big a part of her speech on itemizing severe conditions of spiritual persecution in international locations equivalent to China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria.
She acknowledged that “when discrimination is ignored, we shouldn’t be stunned that it turns into persecution“. He thought-about the response of worldwide organisations and democratic governments to be “lukewarm” and referred to as for a evaluate of the factors for granting asylum in instances of spiritual persecution.
Pérez, who has additionally been specializing in this elementary proper for greater than 1 / 4 of a century, additionally talked about what she referred to as “political persecution”, when some governments think about it essential to restrict faith to realize, in accordance with them, social welfare.
She warned of legal guidelines that “silence the voice of dissent” within the face of official doctrines that have an effect on spiritual selections, referring to freedom of expression “threatened by a tradition of cancellation“.
Nevertheless, she stated that the rising curiosity in inter-religious dialogue and the awarding of the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize to the wrestle of ladies in Iran after the demise of Mahsa Amini had been optimistic points, which she stated confirmed that there was a degree of no return within the defence of spiritual freedom.
To shut the awards ceremony, it was the flip of the final awardee of the night time, anthropologist and professor on the Complutense College of Madrid, Mónica Cornejo Valle, who defined how the research of standard religiosity in Spain allowed her to see that “spiritual beliefs and practices had been somewhat mistreated”, which led her to take an curiosity in spiritual variety. Cornejo defends anthropology’s “respect for variety” to enhance society, “de-dramatising” these variations.
“Embracing variety means listening, listening with consideration, listening with compassion too. And typically once we are listening, we hear issues that aren’t to our liking and that is going to occur and can proceed to occur,” he acknowledged.
Cornejo additionally criticised using the time period “sect” within the media and even typically within the courts to refer to spiritual minorities, which in his opinion responds to “worry of what’s completely different” and displays “a scarcity of respect for spiritual freedom and variety“. He considers it obligatory to remodel the tradition in an effort to transfer in the direction of “actual tolerance and actual respect” that enables coexistence.
Arjona inspired in his closing remarks that “faith or perception will not be one thing you could have, it’s not one thing you do, in the long run, it’s one thing you might be. So nobody has the appropriate to trample on, to undermine, to belittle what you might be, as a result of you’re a religious being. You’re a soul… it’s the essence of each one among us. It’s us … and I invite you in your every day life, in your work, whether or not you might be devoted to the range of beliefs or not, to legislation, housewives, plumbers, academics, attorneys, activists, diplomats, to remember the fact that nice want of the human being to be free and pleased with what he’s”.