Exercising religious freedom during covid-19 pandemic

The article presents a review of pandemic aspects of religious freedom. It is noted that in democracies, freedom of conscience has not been reproduced without problems, and non-democracies have persecuted believers, often emphasizing that this does not impede religious freedom in their countries. Democracies find it harder to fight the pandemic than more authoritarian countries, but outside democracies, and in some cases not to the same extent, freedom of conscience suffers from both sporadic violations and persistent obstacles. In countries where believers have been persecuted, this disease has only become part of the repression and has intensified it, including vaccination, which is another means of discriminating against members of religious organizations who are persecuted. In the current situation, even authoritarian states have an understanding of the importance of collective immunity, and although totalitarian or authoritarian regimes promote vaccination, it does not promote freedom of conscience as such. In this study of religious freedom at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we emphasized its uniqueness in the constellation of all other human rights and freedoms, and at the same time the need to respect all these rights and freedoms for its realization. In our scientific work, we have warned against the inadmissibility of overgrowth of temporary restrictions on freedom of religion or belief due to the need to implement quarantine regulations to persecute believers outside of this global crisis. The vast majority of violations of religious freedom during the pandemic occurred in countries where even before the spread of the coronavirus, religious minorities were pressured, discriminated against and repressed.