I am particularly glad to address this assembly on the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. My committee, especially, shares the Helsinki principles, according to which security and human rights are strictly connected.
Religious freedom is, of course, one of the basic rights.
In fact, I would say that religious freedom has been one of the greatest achievements of the central and eastern European countries in the last 10 years. Believers were denied the right of freedom of religion and conscience during the period of communist regimes. As we know, there still are problems there for those called the nontraditional denominations, but big steps have been made since the rule was silence and the shadow for believers. That was one of the main fields of activity of the Helsinki movements in general, and of the Italian Helsinki committee in particular. The main problem in regard to this issue is that the world has a tradition of intolerance rather than a tradition of religious freedom.