European Union Agency "takes note" of Hindus' concern on religious equality in Malta

Nevada (US), June 27 (ANI): The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has "taken note" of Hindus' concern about equality of religions in Malta.

In a response to the communiqué of Bhavna Shinde of Forum for Hindu Awakening, FRA wrote: Thank you very much for drawing our attention to the Maltese Criminal Code, which you report as making one liable to imprisonment up to 6 months for publicly vilifying "Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion", while committing such an act against "any cult tolerated by law" makes one liable to imprisonment only up to 3 months.

The Fundamental Rights Agency does investigate issues such as the ones you mentioned, as part of our data collection. We have taken note of your concern and, if applicable, we will report in next year's annual report.

On this issue, Hindus recently approached various bodies of European Union (EU), Council of Europe, European Parliament; European and Malta Ombudsman; Malta President and other government offices; and even Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malta urging them to "ensure that Malta treats all religions and denominations equally in front of the law".

Meanwhile, in the recent past, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed and Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, prominent Jewish leader in Nevada and California in USA, in a statement on this issue, said that it seemed to imply that except Roman Catholic, other religions and denominations including Hinduism and Judaism were just one of the cults in the eyes of Malta. (ANI)