Talk:Freedom of religion by country

Gender segregation at holy sites in Israel

@Sir Joseph: I reinstated my edit including a picture of the Western Wall and Dome of the Rock, as this is an issue of religious freedom: it imposes Orthodox Jewish interpretations of Jewish law on Jews who may not be Orthodox. Critically (and I wasn't able to include this in the edit summary), this includes a ban on woman-led prayer services, and thus doesn't constitute equal access to the site. It represents a divergence in practice from previous custodianship of the wall before Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem in the 60s. During Jordanian rule 1949-1967, non-Israeli Jews were allowed to pray at the wall (Jordan refused entry to Jewish Israeli citizens and those who had Israeli stamps in their passports for any reason, including pilgrimage), during British rule there were a variety of policies enforced, and for most of Ottoman rule all Jews were allowed to pray without interference. It's a big enough issue that organizations like Women of the Wall exist to contest it, and are willing to risk being arrested in the process.Rosguill^talk 22:29, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Do we have this on all the Muslim countries who don't allow women to lead prayers or require segregation? If not, then it's POV. I also don't think we need to include pictures in this article and it seems to me that the picture you chose to add to this article is undue considering the entire article doesn't really have pictures for any other country. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I think a distinction can be made based on government enforcement of these rules, as opposed to leaving it up to religious authorities to self-police. I would invite the inclusion of such content for the sections on Saudi Arabia, etc. but do not have the sources on hand to add it myself right now. As for the inclusion of pictures, they are included in other places where visual explanations of information is important--this doesn't apply for 99% of the content in the article, and currently is mostly used to illustrate complicated borders of ongoing conflicts.Rosguill^talk 22:41, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Jews and other non-Muslims are forbidden from praying on the Temple Mount for example and there are sources and pictures of non-Muslims being arrested for praying on the Temple Mount. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:43, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's a direct equivalence to be drawn between a photo showing a segregated prayer space (without an active arrest) and a photo of someone being arrested at a prayer space. These are both issues that IMO bear mentioning in the article, but the visual aid doesn't really explain anything in the latter example. Moreover, I'm not aware of any similar policies of gender-segregation being enforced by government police at other holy sites, but would be happy to include them if provided sources.Rosguill^talk 22:49, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

You can't see how if a non-Muslim wants to pray somewhere and that person is arrested that it is a problem of freedom of religion? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:51, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Re-read my response, it's not that it's not a problem (and for the record, I added content highlighting this as a religious freedom problem in multiple different sections), it's that a photo doesn't add anything. If people are completely barred from a location, what does showing a photo of the site add? However, if there is active segregation within the holy site (and not just barring people from attendance), adding a photo of the site clarifies the extent of the segregation. Segregation could mean anything from "group A gets unfettered access while group B gets a tiny corner with a terrible view" to "group A and group B both get equivalent and proportional access". Adding a photo clarifies the extent of the policy.Rosguill^talk 22:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Adding a photo of a non-Muslim being arrested for praying adds to the article, same as your photo. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:58, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I am drawing a distinction based on the ability of a visual aid to describe the situation in a way that cannot be easily described in text. It's pretty straightforward that if group A is completely banned from a site, they are not able to go to that site. As I illustrated above, segregated attendance within a site can take many forms that are not easily describable in text, but can be quickly evaluated by looking at a photo. For the record, I'm not opposed to adding photos for these other examples, but your original argument was I also don't think we need to include pictures in this article, so I was responding as to why an exception should be made to include the photo of the Western Wall. If you're now taking the stance that we should be adding photos for other examples of violations of freedom of religion, that's a different discussion. (also, minor quibble: It's not my photo WP:OWN)Rosguill^talk 23:05, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Again, when you're highlighting only one religion then it's UNDUE POV. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 23:34, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I object to framing this as being undue weight between religions, particularly as you haven't provided an example where a visual aid depicting segregation would be equally useful other than vaguely referring to Muslim holy sites in general (the most notable of which, Kaaba, Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, Cave of the Patriarchs and Al-Aqsa Mosque make no mention of segregation on their Wikipedia articles; the Western Wall article does). However, as the physical separation of men and women at the Western Wall is a minor issue even within the section of the Western Wall (the prohibition against women leading services is arguably more important), I'm willing to drop this issue and remove the photo. Rosguill^talk 00:15, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

"Undue" content in United States section

@Sir Joseph: How exactly is [1] removing undue content? I've been overhauling this article section by section and have included similar levels of detail for every section for which sufficient information was available (for the sake of argument, consider the specific examples of the sections for France, Germany, Syria, China, Egypt). You can contest the POV nature of individual claims, but removing the entirety of coverage of discrimination and societal attitudes toward Native Americans, Muslims, and atheists without discussion is uncalled for, especially when they are backed up by sources. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:13, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

this article is about freedom of religion effig is a government issue. We don't highlight cases of discrimination. Further, brd says you don't revert but discuss first. I also within why you didn't include discrimination against Jews when the FBI says they are the largest victim group in the USA.Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:26, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Can I have a citation for that FBI claim? Based on the articles where I was expanding content from, I saw some comments about surveys that around 30% of the population were polled to have expressed antisemitic sentiments, with a lot of controversy in the articles about what even constitutes an antisemitic sentiment, compared to figures well above 40% for Muslims and atheists, (the issue of Native Americans has more to do with actual government interference/persecution than societal attitudes). We can absolutely include it in the article with sourcing. As far as government influence versus societal attitudes, I have been adding content about relevant societal attitudes for virtually every country where well-documented cases of discrimination or persecution exists–why are you only objecting now? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:34, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

"Jews and Muslims were the most targeted groups in the US for religious-motivated hate crimes in 2016, according to the FBI, accounting for 54% and 24% of offences respectively." https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/27/antisemitism-us-rises-anti-defamation-league see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_United_States Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:40, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Ok, let's add that. Additionally, I reviewed the articles again and it seems I misremembered my search for sources on treatment of Jews in the United States. The Religious freedom in the United States article makes no mention of Jews other than in a historical context regarding the extension of political and religious freedoms to Jews in the colonial era. Religious discrimination in the United States makes no mention at all, although it does include a See Also link to the general article for antisemitism. Doing some further digging, there is a United States section in the Antisemitism article, which has relevant information that we could add, although it actually reports that the percentage of the population expressing antisemitic attitudes is ~15%, with higher rates around 30% for the specific views of some political or ethnic groups. I see that there is an article on Antisemitism in the United States that will take me longer to review, although I'm somewhat dismayed that it wasn't linked directly from the aforementioned articles given its length (and have since added it)._signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:44, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Splitting article?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

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Propose to split the article by region (i.e. Freedom of religion by country/Asia)? At 461kB it's awfully long for an article that's almost entirely text. Rob3512 _chat? ^{what I did} 06:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I'd say this RfC is premature. It's been my intent for a while to eventually move a lot of the content to articles for each of the countries and shorten the summaries here, and I have said as much in my edit summaries. Since it isn't a high-traffic page, I didn't prioritize splitting out the content because I liked the repetitive rhythm of copying information from US gov International Religious Freedom Reports, but also feel like more effort should be put into actually finding additional sources for a full article (not that this standard is anywhere near close to where most of the existing Freedom of religion by country articles are). If you think it's a problem, I can start moving the more complete countries now. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 06:58, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I'd say that you should start doing the moves and creating the articles, both because this article is really getting long, and to take advantage of the low traffic to this page right now, because _{when this topic inevitably comes up in the news again, people will flood here and do all kinds of damage. :p} You could tag the new articles with {{in use}} or {{stub}} until you or another editor can expand it and grab some sources. Rob3512 _chat? ^{what I did} 09:14, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

That's a good point. Also, having moved out some of the content for two countries, while the article will be significantly shorter when I'm done with my planned edits, it's still going to be too long to be comfortably read in one article, so I'd say I agree with the suggestion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:47, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely split by continent. No reason not to, and no need to summarise the information further. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I think we can shorten this article greatly first. We need to keep this article within the scope of the article first. This is about Freedom of Religion. But for example, if you look at the US section, it is way too large for the article and it has extra stuff that has nothing to do with Freedom of Religion, as the LAW mandates, not how people might be treated by other people. That is not the scope of this article. I think that is a major fundamental problem with this article, with many countries in this article. If it's fixed with many countries, the size problem would be rectified. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:53, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I would disagree with this assessment of the article's scope––freedom of religion needs to include an assessment of the extent to which society supports people's free right to practice. Having the government say that all religions are equal and that everyone can practice equally doesn't mean anything if religious minorities are being lynched while authorities turn a blind eye. One concrete example of this would be Bangladesh: if we adopted this adjusted scope, all we would say about the country would be that the "Constitution establishes Islam as the state religion but also allows other religions to be practiced in harmony" and other bureaucratic minutiae. This would elide over the fact that there have been arson attacks against the Hindu minority in the country on a regular basis, and that several prominent atheists have been assassinated by vigilantes for their beliefs. What's more, reliable sources agree with this holistic approach–all of the US government international religious freedom reports include significant sections on societal attitudes in countries and how they affect people's right to practice. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:03, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

• Split by region immediately. Also focus on official government policy. Where the policy is not enforced over several regimes, or where public behavior is pervasively contrary to the law, mention this and give reference to the section of the country's article that goes into some detail. But more stable policy should take precedence over its enforcement under one or other government. Attitudes towards Judaism and Zionism (distinguished), and disputes over the nature of Islam, are topics for other articles and should be mentioned here only if a country is quite exceptional in these regards. Jzsj (talk) 07:34, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

• Given that no one seems opposed to splitting the article at this time, what is the proper procedure for doing so? Should we just create Freedom of religion by country/Asia, Freedom of religion by country/Africa etc. and have this article just have sections with {{main}} hatnotes pointing at the continent-specific article pages? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:16, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Sounds good to me. Jzsj (talk) 22:23, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

    I've gone ahead and implemented the split and am removing the RfC tag as the main issue the RfC was raised for has been dealt with. Feel free to continue discussing other ideas for article in a new section. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:06, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Transcluded sections

I have changed the article to use {{transcluded section2}} which adds a hatnote "This section is transcluded from " and edit & history buttons above the transclusion & __NOEDITSECTION__ which supresses the usual section edit buttons. In my view this makes it easier for editors to edit the content - click on edit & it takes them to where the text is rather than the code.

By the way I like the structure of the article to transclude the lead sections from the main articles - its a great way to give cascading information where a person can drill down for more detail without duplicating & the information remains consistent. --Find bruce (talk) 04:05, 19 December 2019 (UTC)