Islam and Human Rights — Page 157
Articles 18-19 157 Articles 18-19 These articles are concerned to secure the freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion and expression, in cluding the freedom to change one’s religion and to mani fest it in teaching, practice, worship and observance, and the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. In essence every religion possesses a missionary char - acter. It starts with an individual and seeks to persuade and convince others of its truth and of the beneficent nature of the values it propounds. It must, therefore, stand for freedom of conscience, including the freedom to change one’s religion and the other freedoms mentioned in these Articles, which are all consequent upon freedom of con science; otherwise it would create barriers in the path of its own objectives. Some religions have set territorial or racial limits to participation in their communion, but Islam’s message is universal. It brooks no such limitation and proclaims these freedoms unequivocally and emphatically. Claiming, like all religions, to be based on truth, it naturally warns, constantly and repeatedly, of the dire