These affirmations arise out of both the Church’s own experiences and its observations of the hardships faced by other religious organisations throughout history. Today, the governments of many nations, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Portugal and South Africa have recognised Scientology as a religion, and its religious nature has been confirmed in hundreds of judicial and administrative decisions in countries all over the world. However, in its infancy, the Scientology religion faced the ferocious enmity of vested interests who perceived the existence of religious conscience — and the emergence of a new religion that offered solutions to life’s problems — as somehow a threat to their own operations. Thus, the Church had to fight to win its religious rights. Its victories have blazed a path that many others have been able to follow.

Freedom of religion, of course, is articulated within the national constitutions of every European democratic nation and in many international human rights instruments. But more than written affirmation is needed. In his January 2004 report to the 60th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief pointed out: “in many cases, States have not met their human rights obligations as regards freedom of religion.” He emphasised that these “are not limited to the negative obligation to refrain from violating the right to freedom of religion or belief; they also include the positive obligation to protect persons under their jurisdiction from violations of their rights, including those committed by non-State actors or entities.”

As stated in one recent United Nations study: “The important guiding principle is that no individual should be placed at a disadvantage merely because he is a member of a particular ethnic, religious or linguistic group. Above all, in any multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-linguistic country, the strict application of the principles of equality and non-discrimination is an indispensable requirement for maintaining the political and spiritual unity of the State concerned and achieving understanding and harmonious relations between the various components of society.”

Freedom of religion or belief must include the right to possess the scriptures and texts of one’s chosen religion, to conduct religious services privately and publicly, and to bring up one’s children in one’s religious tradition, without interfering with their own right to freedom of religion or belief and their exercise of that right upon reaching maturity.

In this age of intercontinental travel and instantaneous worldwide communications, multi-cultural and multi-religious societies must be our destiny if the race is to survive. Thus it is a responsibility and mission that the churches of Scientology have endeavoured to fulfil since their beginnings.