The ECOSOC-accredited NGO CAP-LC (Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience) filed a written submission for the 48th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which starts in Geneva on September 13. The document is published on the Web site of the United Nations. CAP-LC expressed its concern for “the use of real estate seizures as a weapon to discriminate against religious and spiritual minorities.”
It may seem that real estate seizure or destruction is a minor problem when compared to arrests, killings, and torture. However, CAP-LC observed that “religion and spirituality live in the hearts of the believers, but they create communities, and communities cannot exist without places where they can gather.” Additionally, for religious and spiritual groups “land where devotees gather becomes sacred land. Religion and spirituality live in time and space. They separate portions of time and space from the daily temporal and spatial flow, appropriate them for themselves, and invest them with spiritual meanings. Taking their spaces away from spiritual movements means cutting their deepest roots.”
G2123897 Seizure of Real Estate as a Weapon to Discriminate Against