Freedom of Religion: A Study on the Level of Understanding Among the Religious Believers in the Southern of Thailand

Abstract

One of the elements of freedom is the individual freedom in embracing his or her chosen religion, as well as practicing it without any force or distraction from any party. Thailand is known as a democracy country which permits freedom to the citizens in all aspects of life including the freedom of religion. However, the interaction between Muslims and Buddhists portrays the presence of doubt among each other. This is due to the implementation of few programmes that deny the rights for freedom of religion especially among the Muslims in the Southern of Thailand. Therefore, this study will investigate on the level of understanding on the freedom of religion among Muslims and Buddhists in the Southern of Thailand. There are two approaches that are used in this study which are the qualitative and quantitative methods. Findings from the descriptive analysis have proven that the respondents did not really understand the concept of freedom of religion as most of their answers for the questionnaires given are 4.49% said they strongly disagree and 8.7% said they disagree. Nevertheless, all in all most of the respondents are strongly agreed that they have understood the concept of freedom of religion. The findings are believed to be influenced by few factors which are the roles of both Islam and Buddhism that teach the believers to be aware of the importance of freedom of religion in a community, the declaration of the freedom of religion in the National Constitution of Thailand and the Human Rights 1948 and their roles in preaching the community to acknowledge the equal rights in a community, and finally the awareness of each believer that wants to have a peaceful and harmonious life.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s1p426