DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Call to prayer

**acceraStoof** · 01-01-2008, 09:26 PM

Dear Effie,

Take a fairly recent example such as the battle fought over the antiproselytism statute in Greece, (http://www.cesnur.org/conferences/ri...montgomery.htm).

In Him,
Shawn

The last paragraph of this reads : "The Greek Cases and the European Court’s Conservatism

Commentators have quite gencrally remarked that the European Court of Human Rights hesitates to upset the legal systems of the Member States, even when this would hardly result in a state’s departing from the well-established and highly respected human rights club represented by the ECHR. [8] In the Greek proselytism cases, this has meant that, whilst the Court has clearly tried to uphold freedom of evangelism in general by vindicating the applicants, it has (1) refused to declare the Greek antiproselytism statute incompatible with the Convention, in spite of its patent ambiguities and provable chilling effect upon freedom of religious expression, and (2) narrowed permissible evangelism to the minimum, restricting it in effect to "transactions among equals," even though it should be obvious that hierarchical and superior-inferior relationships are part of the very fabric of all societies and that to remove legal protection for evangelism in such contexts is to open a Pandora’s box for religious repression and the discriminatory treatment of minority religious positions."

If it were up to me there would be no antiproselytism statute in Greek law. In practice it is probably applied only when minors are involved, if even then - "transactions among equals".

In Thessaloniki, I have been frequently stopped by well dressed young men who start talking about Christ and the bible - Evangelists.
I haven't seen anyone arresting them. There is a 24 hour Evangelist radio programme in Greek that no-one seems interested in closing down.

This law does not exist to entrap Evangelists - I believe it is meant to protect our young people against e.g. satanists, who are very active in Europe and who also like to attract young people to their ranks. Does freedom of religion include satanists?

01-01-2008, 09:26 PM	#21
acceraStoof Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 516 Senior Member	Dear Effie, Take a fairly recent example such as the battle fought over the antiproselytism statute in Greece, (http://www.cesnur.org/conferences/ri...montgomery.htm). In Him, Shawn The last paragraph of this reads : "The Greek Cases and the European Court’s Conservatism Commentators have quite gencrally remarked that the European Court of Human Rights hesitates to upset the legal systems of the Member States, even when this would hardly result in a state’s departing from the well-established and highly respected human rights club represented by the ECHR. [8] In the Greek proselytism cases, this has meant that, whilst the Court has clearly tried to uphold freedom of evangelism in general by vindicating the applicants, it has (1) refused to declare the Greek antiproselytism statute incompatible with the Convention, in spite of its patent ambiguities and provable chilling effect upon freedom of religious expression, and (2) narrowed permissible evangelism to the minimum, restricting it in effect to "transactions among equals," even though it should be obvious that hierarchical and superior-inferior relationships are part of the very fabric of all societies and that to remove legal protection for evangelism in such contexts is to open a Pandora’s box for religious repression and the discriminatory treatment of minority religious positions." If it were up to me there would be no antiproselytism statute in Greek law. In practice it is probably applied only when minors are involved, if even then - "transactions among equals". In Thessaloniki, I have been frequently stopped by well dressed young men who start talking about Christ and the bible - Evangelists. I haven't seen anyone arresting them. There is a 24 hour Evangelist radio programme in Greek that no-one seems interested in closing down. This law does not exist to entrap Evangelists - I believe it is meant to protect our young people against e.g. satanists, who are very active in Europe and who also like to attract young people to their ranks. Does freedom of religion include satanists?
	Quote