OSCE Warsaw: Intervention By BPE Austria On The Subject Of Freedom Of Religion

By • on October 1, 2013

This intervention can also be found on the OSCE website.

Working Session 6 Freedom of religion and belief

Intervention on the topic Freedom of Religion

BPE Austria values the freedom of religion as an inalienable human right. But freedom of religion also means to have no religion at all or to leave a religion.

In some countries, apostasy from Islam means the death penalty. Unfortunately, even in the OSCE participating states apostates are threatened by their families or the community if they want to leave Islam. 

An immigrant from Pakistan, now an Austrian citizen, Sabatina James, has to live in a hiding place somewhere in Germany, protected by the police, because she converted to Christianity. In order to stop her, her family had lured her to Pakistan, locked her in a madrassa and forced her to marry her cousin. Fortunately was able to escape.

Sharia law stipulates the killing of apostates according to the Reliance of the Traveller, which is the canonical law. I quote: “When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.”

BPE Austria therefore recommends that measurements be taken by law enforcement and authorities to protect Apostates from Islam in the OSCE region and to consequently punish the perpetrators even if it means deportation.

As Geert Wilders puts it: “Any religion that invites you in but then will not let you out is no longer a religion.”

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