Freedom of religion and belief is one of the fundamental human rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The rights are enacted in an international treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which came into force in March 1976. Article 18 provides that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion’; this includes the right for individuals to change their beliefs and to express their beliefs in public and in private, individually or with others. Other provisions of the ICCPR prohibit discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs and protect people against the incitement of religious hatred.

The donor of this badge, Peter Stanley, writes:

I bought this badge to show that badges were being used to express all sorts of groups’ ideas and beliefs, including evangelical Christian groups.