LEGAL FRAMEWORK

The constitution states a person has a right to freedom of thought, conscience, or religion, including the right to worship, alone or in community with others, and to change religion or belief. These rights may be limited by laws that are “reasonably required” in the interest of defense, public safety, order, morality, health, or protecting the rights of others. The constitution provides religious groups the right to establish and operate private schools and to provide religious instruction for their students without interference from government.

The law requires religious groups to register with government. To register as a religious group, Christian groups must apply through one of the country’s three umbrella religious bodies, the League of Churches, the Swaziland Conference of Churches, or the Council of Swaziland Churches for a recommendation that is routinely granted and does not impede registration, according to church leaders. The application process requires a group to provide its constitution, membership, and physical location, along with the relevant umbrella body’s recommendation, to the MCIT, which then registers the organization. All legal entities, whether for-profit, non-profit, religious or non-religious, must register with the MCIT. For Indigenous religious groups and non-Christian religious organizations, authorities consider proof of a religious leader, a congregation, and a place of worship as sufficient grounds to grant registration. Registered religious groups are exempt from taxation, but contributions are not tax deductible. The government does not disclose the numbers and types of religious groups registered. The MHA is responsible for the oversight of religious groups, once they have successfully registered with the MCIT.

Religious groups must obtain permission from the relevant local government to construct new buildings in urban areas. In rural areas, prospective builders must obtain permission from the appropriate chief and chief’s advisory council. In some rural communities, chiefs have designated special committees to allocate land to religious groups for a fee.

Christian religious instruction is mandatory in public primary schools under a directive from a former prime minister. Schools incorporate Christian prayers into the daily morning assembly. Christian education is also compulsory in public secondary schools. There is no procedure to opt-out of this requirement. Religious education is permitted but not mandated in private schools.

The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

GOVERNMENT PRACTICES

The government registered some religious groups during the year but did not disclose how many were registered, nor their identities. Some religious groups continued to say that registering via the MCIT was unwieldy, bureaucratic, and subject to excessive processing times, prompting some groups to simply not register. In contrast, religious groups continued to say the MHA provided professional assistance and oversight of religious affairs in the country and acted in the interests of faith communities and churches.

The government continued to require all faith groups, including Christians, to obtain advance permission from local traditional authorities (umphakatsi) or municipal offices to hold major events, such as all-night prayer vigils or public days of prayer. Authorities continued to review events for potential security risks. According to religious leaders, these procedures constituted restrictions on these common and popular activities, but there were no reports of groups being denied permission to hold events. Some religious leaders continued to say, however, that delays in obtaining government permission for their activities were unreasonable and sometimes only resolved by bribing the relevant civil servants whom they believed delayed and denied applications, with tacit support from their superiors, until a bribe was paid.

Some groups said they opted not to request permission to hold public events, or canceled events already scheduled, because they did not want to attract unwanted attention. For example, Islamic leaders scheduled a public discussion of the Hamas-Israel conflict in Gaza to take place at an Islamic community center on November 3, but canceled it themselves, when the King announced that a Sibaya or national “peoples’ parliament” would take place on the same day. Islamic leaders said they made the decision out of respect, to avoid appearing to compete for attention with the King.

Religious groups reported unequal treatment by municipal bureaucracies in their requests to erect buildings in urban areas. Hindu groups, for example, said they have not requested authorization to build facilities because of the level of government scrutiny they felt they would face. There are no Hindu temples or structures in the country, and Hindus worshipped in family groups in homes.

Public schools commonly incorporated Christian prayers into their daily assemblies, while prayers from other faiths were not permitted. Religious leaders continued to require all children to be present during these prayers, but said non-Christian children were not otherwise pressured or proselytized. According to religious leaders and civil society organizations, school administrations continued to permit and fundraise for only Christian religious youth clubs to operate in public schools. Other religious group leaders said they wanted to openly practice their faiths at schools and in other public places, but they chose not to complain about the Christian youth club policy in the interest of interfaith harmony.

Representatives of various religious groups, including some Christians, continued to say the government’s policy mandating Christian instruction in schools was harmful to society because it fostered “ignorance” of other religions. The Baha’i Community reported in December that after more than 20 years of smooth operation of the Baha’i primary and high schools in the country, which are partially funded by the government, the government was “interfering” with the Baha’i School Board and the board’s management of its schools, requiring separate bank accounts with government signatories for the schools, and refusing to process the school’s application to be privatized. The Baha’i Community said the dispute had nothing to do with how the Baha’i ran the school but began after the school fired a Swati vice principal because he did not represent their values.

Other groups, which included the Muslim community, Seventh-day Adventists, the Catholic Church, and representatives of the Jewish community, continued to object to the government’s policy mandating Christian instruction in schools. Muslim community leaders said the directive increased misperceptions of their faith because children learned about Islam from often erroneous information on social media instead of from materials taught in school. The latest conflict in Gaza further illustrated the point, they said, because students would not have the opportunity to discuss the conflict in class and therefore would be misled about its origins and impact. Muslim leaders also said the emphasis on Christian instruction in schools affected religious attire. They said the prescribed school uniform in schools made no provision for Muslim attire such as long sleeved and long skirted garments for girls. Local imams said that some Muslim parents, already concerned by what they said was discrimination against their children by some school administrators, preemptively transferred their children to different schools to avoid the perceived risk of heightened discrimination after the October 7 Hamas attacks. There were no reports of such incidents in schools, however.

The Christian instruction requirement was established and implemented under a directive from the then prime minister in 2017, without being codified in law. In 2020, the government announced a plan to review the compulsory Christian education requirement, but a review has not taken place; the government did not provide an explanation of the delay.

Seventh-day Adventists continued to raise the issue that many government-run activities, such as testing in schools, voting in elections and being nominated to run for office took place on Saturdays, their Sabbath, without accommodation or exception. For example, some Adventists who wanted to run in the 2023 national elections could not, because the in-person candidate nomination process was held only on a single Saturday, with no exceptions or alternative days, forcing them to choose between running for office or following the practices of their faith.

Leaders of all faiths continued to say religious groups were increasingly restricted and excluded from government- and community-led dialogue and engagement, because of what they viewed as the government’s overt preference for Christian Swati religious-ethnic unity. They also said the government openly advocated Zionist Christian practices above all others. Many religious groups reported in private a desire that the government be more inclusive and host events promoting religious tolerance of all faiths, but non-Christian faith leaders said they did not raise this issue during the public Sibaya in November, out of concern their petitions would be deemed inappropriate by the other Sibaya participants who were overwhelmingly from Indigenous communities. The non-Christian leaders said that if they made any such request to the King at the event, they would have been criticized by other groups and could have faced reprisals by community authorities, such as unexplained expulsion of their children from schools, loss of business licenses, and lack of police protection, although they did not report examples of these during the year.

Many religious groups reported they were not invited to government-led prayer breakfasts and religious gatherings during the year; they claimed invitations were only extended to faith groups aligned with the King. Churches aligned with the monarchy included the League of Swaziland Churches and other affiliated Zionist churches, which celebrated the traditional monarchical calendar in collaboration with government.

Non-Christian groups continued to report authorities provided preferential treatment to Christian groups, such as free broadcast time on state-owned television and radio, the Eswatini Broadcast and Information Service (EBIS) and Eswatini TV. Both EBIS and Eswatini TV broadcast daily Christian sermons for free – programs received from a third-party Christian media organization (and not from churches directly). EBIS said that it was traditional for the station to cater mostly to Christians, because Eswatini was a mainly Christian country. EBIS said government policy would not allow a non-Christian organization to purchase broadcast time even if EBIS offered. Local newspapers welcomed advertisements from any religion, and they charged the same fee regardless of the affiliation. One exception was The Observer newspaper, which printed a weekly Christian column popular with readers, without a fee paid by the columnist for inclusion.

Non-Christian groups, whose leaders were often foreigners, also said that civil servants discriminated against them by granting fewer work permits to them because they were foreign. Such permits, issued by the government Training and Localization Board, are required for all foreigners working in the country. Leaders of non-Christian faith groups said legislation was needed to protect the right of equal access to the media and government services for all.

The monarchy, and by extension the government, continued to align itself and its official calendar only with Christian faith-based traditions and it supported Christian activities such as commemorating Christian holidays and Christian-influenced traditional cultural holiday rituals, while not making equal efforts to recognize or observe the holidays of other faiths. Official government programs often opened with a Christian prayer and several government ministers held Christian prayer vigils which civil servants were expected to attend. Authorities, however, generally did not interfere with non-Christian religious groups holding private observances if they did not compete for official recognition or proselytize publicly. For example, the government did not interfere with Baha’i-owned businesses closing on Baha’i holidays. Muslim leaders continued to say they did not request or draw attention to the practice and recognition of Muslim holidays but celebrated the holidays privately within their own communities.

Citizens were frequently urged to attend royal festivals and events celebrating traditional Swati culture and religious beliefs. On March 26, the government issued a statement banning Easter religious gatherings other than the April 9 prayer service attended by the King. The government retracted the ban after a public outcry from citizens saying the government was infringing upon their constitutional right to worship freely.