Hasan and Eylem Zengin v. Turkey, No. 1448/04, ECtHR (Former second section), 9 January 2008

The refusal of exemption of the student from the religious education course breaches the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Art. 2 Prot. No. 1 ECHR

Article 2 of the first additional protocol to the ECHR protects the need for teaching in an objective, critical and pluralistic way, without any purpose of indoctrination. Pluralism, as a condition of democracy, does not exclude the legitimacy of religious teaching, in primary and secondary public schools, even if confessional oriented, provided that it is objective and pluralistic or that the possibility of total exemption is granted. Therefore, the refusal by national school authorities to grant total exemption from a religious teaching which is not pluralistic, critical and objective breaches the right to education.