The moment
On 10 December 1948 the UN General Assembly, meeting in Paris, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by 48 votes to none, with eight abstentions from the Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Article 18 declares that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to change religion or belief and to manifest it in teaching, practice, worship and observance. The 1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights made the right binding on the states that ratified it, and a declaration of 1981 spelled it out; Pew counted 58 countries with high or very high government restrictions on religion in 2023.
People: Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Malik, P. C. Chang, René Cassin