Overview:

• Recognition and registration are amalgamated rather than ideally differentiated; likely due to the country’s affirmation of secularity, it places a focus on legal registration with little to no means for existential recognition.

• Government oversight of places of worship is not necessarily inappropriate as long as the government does not make undue impediments on how religious groups operate or style their places of worship; the degree of government involvement must be monitored to identify instances of abuse.

• There should be a separate legal category and separated procedures for registration for religious entities from secular entities although this is not practiced in Niger.

• Informational requirements look to be appropriate although require continued monitoring to ensure they are not unduly expanded.

• The rule of mandatory registration violates the Bielefeldt provision.

• The three year probationary period is excessive and is not something that group’s should be subjected, especially under the spirit of the Durham principles.

• Ongoing Islamist militant activity in the country should be resolved through mutual recognition, diplomacy, a more sophisticated system of religious education, and the government’s spreading of the message of diversity and religious pluralism.

Positive elements:

• Nil.

Recommendations:

• To become receptive, establish a recognition system that is able to recognise and register simultaneously and at multiple levels; revoke mandatory registration.