Human Rights Protection Challenges Affecting Christians – Forced Migrants in Europe

Abstract

The migration flow that rushed to the European region from African and Middle Eastern states and other parts of the world and grew significantly in the second decade of XXI century, has given rise to new human rights protection challenges, exposing, among others, the veiled trend of de-Christianization of Europe, which has been emerging for a considerable time. The right to freedom of religion is guaranteed by all major international human rights treaties at both universal and regional European levels. Contrary to this, freedom to openly embrace and profess Christianity is increasingly restricted both in the national legislation of European states and in the interpretation of the relevant international legal norms by international and regional human rights institutions. The article presents the data, provided by non-governmental and international intergovernmental organizations, confirming the above mentioned trend affecting forced migrants in Europe, namely, the persons who left their places of residence to defend their Christian beliefs and seek protection in Europe, and other persons who fled in order to seek protection for some other reasons, converted to Christianity and became victims of human rights violations due to the adoption of Baptism and do not receive adequate protection from the competent state authorities in Europe. The applicable practice of international human rights institutions, including judicial practice, is analyzed and specific measures to improve the situation, comprising the ideas of technical solutions, are proposed.