Everyone is born free and is given a choice to believe and practice whatever they want for themselves until it doesn't hurt others feelings.
If we flip on the annals of history, we get to know that some fourteen centuries ago , The Holy Prophet (pbuh) composed the written document ''The charter of Madina,' that promises the basic human rights to all the residents of the land.They were given a protection to adopt and practice the religion without any fear. Therefore,no one was allowed to hound or harrass anyone in the name of religion or any political affiliation.
Religious intolerance, is a phenomenon when a person or a group of people specifically targets or refuses to tolerate the religious convictions and practices of others in the same society.
The religious intolerance, and active persecution of religious minorities is not new in the world history.
People have been victimized and even tortured to death for practicing a minority faith.
The beliefs and dogmas of any individual should be taken as a sacred contract between the creator and an individual.
Moreover, Europe and America equally share a bad history of religious intolerance Back in the 16th century, even more specifically after "the Peace of Westphalia" which ended the 30 Years' War (1618–1648), between Protestants and Catholics.
In Nazi Germany, smaller religious minorities such as the Baháʼí Faith was banned in Germany, while the ethnic profiling of the Jewish community was on the rise along with the genocide of its adherents.
The United Nations upholds the right to freely express one's religious beliefs, as listed in the UN's charter, and additionally in articles 2 and 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 2 forbids discrimination based on religious grounds.
Article 18 protects the freedom to change one's religion.
In 1998 the United Nations passed the International Religious Freedom Act, mandating that the United States government to take action against any country found to violate the religious freedoms outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[12]
The Human Rights Act 1998 in the United Kingdom), makes restricting the rights of an individual to practice or change their religion illegal.
in article 9, and discrimination on the basis of religion illegal in article 14.However, these clauses in the UN document will remain useless till these are not implemented in due letter and spirit.
We can quote so many examples of such sheer negligence of human rights.
Mob lynching in the pretext of sacred cow has become an order of the day in India, no one is saved there. Hence , minorities like Muslims,Christians and Sikhs have been facing worst form of description and persecution, the entire world including UN remain dumbstruck as always.
The The recent burning of a copy of the Quran in Sweden has sparked a wave of shock and anger in the Muslim world, but the disrespect of religions over the course of history says a lot about current times.
Historical sources indicate that incidents of demonizing Islam shows a deep-rooted animosity against Islam.
The incidents of burning the Qur'an traced back to the Middle Ages.
In Spain’s Valencia and Toledo regions, a copy of the Muslim's holy book was burned by order of the church between 1498 and 1500, and the distribution of the book was restricted in the middle of the 16th century .
In July 2010, Terry Jones, pastor of the Christian Dove World Outreach Center in Florida, US, repeating the action of his predecessors, announced the burning of 200 copies of the Qur'an on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
For centuries, many Western countries have had some sort of legislation, known as blasphemy laws, to protect religious beliefs and deter public insults of religions.
However, in some countries, like Sweden, where all these illegal actions have been legalised, insulating and disrespecting any religion is seen as a freedom of expression.
Since acts of burning the Qur'an, ensuing the religious sentiments of Muslims do not fall under the ambit of this criminal proceedings. Whereas in the same countries people have been penalised talking about Halucast.
Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices on January 7, 2015, was attacked as a reaction of publishing the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
In 2017, Denmark repealed its 334-year-old blasphemy law, while Germany is still contemplating taking a similar steps
In March 2009, Pakistan presented a resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that called upon the world to formulate laws against the defamation of religion.
We need to wait till concrete steps are taken to crush these wicked elements and they will be prosecuted before the law.
Meanwhile,The UN General Assembly adopted by consensus on Tuesday a resolution declaring March 15 as International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
Muslim countries need to sit together and do more than just to remain shocked and grieved.They need to condemn such shallow acts done in the namesake civilised nations in the name of freedom of expression. Government officials must do more than just tweeting out hollow condemnations.
This is an irony that such incidents repeatedly happen. Muslims around the world must reflect on why they remained failed to answer the hate mongers in a way that they think thousand time before doing any adventure against the community of two billion people.
