Freedom of thought, conscience and religion in Eastern Europe
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 25 April 1980 (8th Sitting) (see Doc. 4522, report of the Committee on Relations with European Non-member Countries). Text adopted by the Assembly on 25 April 1980 (8th Sitting).
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Noting that the forthcoming CSCE Conference in Madrid will provide the opportunity to review the implementation of the Helsinki Final Act by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies ;
2. Concerned that Basket I, Principle VII (respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief), of the Act continues to be subject to violations to a greater or lesser degree in all Eastern European communist countries ;
3. Aware that such violations are contrary to the guarantees of these freedoms that are contained in the constitutions of these countries and in the Charter of the United Nations, the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed and/or supported by these countries ;
4. Appreciating that European religious culture extends across those ideological frontiers that divide West from East, and recognising that the right to worship God counts among the most fundamental human rights of all, and that the foundation of this right lies in man's unalienable dignity as a human person,
5. Calls upon its members to exert pressure on governments, parliaments and internationalorganisations with a view to securing such measures at the Madrid Review Conference that willprovide for the complete toleration of freedom of worship and conscience, including the following
5.1 the establishment of a special commission of the conference empowered to investigate fully and to report on any evidence submitted to it by the individual citizen or groups of citizens ofany participating state of discrimination and persecution for religious belief, and to publish its findings ;
5.2 the release and rehabilitation of all prisoners who have been imprisoned for appealing to the provisions of the Final Act since 1975 ;
5.3 an amnesty for all prisoners condemned on grounds of belief and conscience ;
5.4 the lifting of all restrictions on the practical expression of freedom of belief and conscience.
