The HDIM is organized every year by the OSCE Office for ODIHR and is Europe’s largest annual human rights and democracy conference. The conference gathered OSCE participating States, civil society, international organizations and other relevant actors to share good practices, discuss challenges and present recommendations for future improvements.
On 13 September 2018, our Head of Legal and Policy team, Tamás Kádár, attended the HDIM and took the floor on behalf of Equinet during the Working Session on ‘Fundamental Freedoms, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief’. During his speech, Tamás stressed the importance to set up equality bodies as a tool in promoting equality and fighting discrimination on all grounds, including religion or belief. Specifically, he recommended the following actions:
- That OSCE Participating States that have not yet set up equality bodies consider doing so to contribute to better promotion and protection of the rights of religious communities and to tackle discrimination based on religion or belief;
- OSCE Participating States that have already set up national equality bodies are requested to ensure that their mandate covers religion and belief in all fields of life, and that there are enough guarantees of their independence and effectiveness;
- The need to further legal certainty as the case law on religion or belief across Europe appear to be contradictory on occasion;
- There is a need for a strong and protective legal framework that is consistently applied in all countries.
Read the full statement here.