Status of Religious Freedom
Islam is generally considered to be the essential cohesive element unifying the country's various ethnic groups and castes. There is a cabinet-level Ministry of Culture and Islamic Orientation and a High Council of Islam, consisting of six imams, which, at the Government's request, advises on the conformance of legislation to Islamic precepts.
Mosques and Qur'anic schools are funded privately by their members and other donors. One exception is a small stipend to the imam of the Central Mosque in the capital city of Nouakchott provided by the government.
The Government does not register religious groups; however, secular NGOs, inclusive of humanitarian and development NGO's affiliated with religious groups, must register with the Ministry of the Interior.
Nonprofit organizations, including both religious groups and secular NGO's, generally are not subject to taxation.
The judiciary consists of a single system of courts with a legal system that conforms with the principles of Shari'a (Islamic law).
The Government observes Muslim holidays as national holidays. A magistrate of Shari'a, who heads a separate government commission, decides the dates for observing religious holidays and addresses the nation on these holidays.
Read more about this topic: Freedom Of Religion In Mauritania
Famous quotes containing the words status, religious and/or freedom:
“As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“I have been grateful to you from the day you turned your attention to the follies and fanaticisms of religious sects. Against those fools and impostors you employ the most appropriate weapons: to use others would be to imitate them. It is by ridicule that they must be attacked, and by scorn that they must be punished.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“An accurate charting of the American woman’s progress through history might look more like a corkscrew tilted slightly to one side, its loops inching closer to the line of freedom with the passage of time—but like a mathematical curve approaching infinity, never touching its goal. . . . Each time, the spiral turns her back just short of the finish line.”
—Susan Faludi (20th century)