Communities and individual rights

Seyran Ates, a lawyer and writer living in Berlin, argues that human rights must have priority over religious practices. Her post, which is not long, merits being read in full. The argument she makes is really about the relation between human rights and demands or pressures inconsistent with these but imposed by religious or cultural communities. It should go without saying that in secular, democratic societies human rights must have priority where there is such a conflict. For communities only have legitimacy there as being voluntary, adhered to by their members as a matter of choice and without any implication that a participant's most fundamental entitlements can be overriden without their free consent. Communities are communities of individuals and may not properly arrogate to themselves disposal over the legitimate moral claims of those individuals.