Press Release

Published 30.01.2009 Author: FSPC/WEF

Open Forum Davos 2009: Religion and human rights

“Are religion and human rights a contradiction?” This was the topic of the third of seven panels of the Open Forum Davos 2009. The debate introduced by Micheline Calmy-Rey attracted lively participation from the public.

In her opening contribution the Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey emphasized the “valuable contribution of the religions to the protection of human rights”. At the same time Calmy-Rey condemned the religious fundamentalism which has the same face in every religion. Democratic and pluralistic states must clearly oppose any violations of human rights with a religious motivation. “Tolerance is not laissez-faire,” Calmy-Rey emphasized

“Human rights do not pursue any religious aims,” remarked Frank Mathwig, who is responsible for ethical questions in the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (FSPC). Mathwig also pointed to the independence of human rights and human dignity from moral categories. Dignity is given to every human being regardless of what he or she thinks or does. “Moral concepts of dignity are wrong,” Mathwig argued, because in that way any human being could be denied dignity and thus also human rights.

For Serap Cileli, writer and women’s rights activist, the right to the free choice of a partner, sexual self-determination and the free choice of profession are three fields in which the religions are still in part restricting the freedom of women today. This cannot be tolerated in a democratic and enlightened society.

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