Overview:

• State privilege for the Catholic Church; also a degree of state privilege exists for Protestant Reformed Church of Equatorial Guinea.

• Also, Methodist, Muslim and Baha’i communities are exempt from renewal of registration.

• Hence, there exists a degree of separation between existential recognition and legal registration; however, existential recognition is not available to all groups; for most groups, only legal registration is available.

• Restrictions are imposed on where and at what times religious services and practices can take place.

• The rule of mandatory registration contravenes the Bielefeldt provision.

• Violations of freedoms during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate the government's censorious approach to religious activity and a lack of recognition and registration provision to protect such groups.

Positive elements:

• Nil.

Recommendations:

• Remove all instances of politicisation from the recognition and its procedures.

• Remove instances of partial recognition.

• Revoke state privileges in order to equalise the procedures for recognition and registration.

• Revoke the existent restrictions on religious activity.