Tolerance – Buddhist in Countries with a Non-Buddhist Majority Each religion has their own values and its – compulsory or recommended – rules. Tolerance begins where the rulings of the religions differ.
To what extent should a Buddhist follow the rules of a country, and where is the limit when Buddhists have to protest or to disobey? Which rights for a Buddhist should be observed by all countries?
I am asking for rights that are needed to grant religious liberty in particular to Buddhists, maybe signed as the absolute minimum (limit when Buddhists have to protest or to disobey) and fair treatment (rights for a Buddhist should be observed by all countries).
As in Yeshe Tenley's answer, the first thing that comes to mind for lay Buddhist are the 5 precepts. Perhaps no country would have a problem allowing this. Except that the first precept may conflict with military conscription (and historically some countries or rulers had a problem with that), so some Buddhist might want to be exempt from military conscription. Many countries don't have military conscription any more, and of those which do or did, some countries allow that exemption, not for Buddhists in particular but for &quot;conscientious objectors&quot; and &quot;pacifists&quot; in general.
Buddhist monastics usually need to be supported by lay society, for example via alms rounds. Again a country sometimes has a problem with that -- disapprove of people begging and being untaxable. And again it's tolerated by liberal western democracies, not only for Buddhists but for other religions too -- for example there's provision in the tax laws for people who have made &quot;a vow of perpetual poverty&quot;.
There might be problems if a country has blasphemy laws. Buddhist doctrine might not be considered orthodox according to Islam, and vice versa. So far as I know, Islamic &quot;blasphemy&quot; laws (where these exist), apply more strictly to Muslims than to non-Muslims (e.g. the Dhimmi) -- similarly &quot;apostacy&quot;. As well as blasphemy, fundamentalists may also take exception to the iconography of other religions (leading to the destruction of the Bamiyan statues, for example). Alternatively many countries guarantee &quot;freedom of religion&quot; as a right, allowing people to choose any religion or none.
Some totalitarian governments have a problem with alternative social or political structures. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think I read for example that Christianity is allowed in China, but only of a form that's permitted by the government or Communist Party -- and not for example Roman Catholicism, to avoid a church that's headed by the Pope in Rome (and may be opposed to local authorities) -- perhaps you see that also, in their treatment of Buddhists and Muslims.
Civil wars and so on also happen because it isn't only religion but ethnicity and so on -- and nationalism. Sometimes it's what I think of as an over-reaction or a wrong reaction, for example:

A (social, religious, ethnic) minority is persecuted or just disadvantaged
There's some incidents of violence (motivated by poverty, revenge, terrorism), by some members of the minority
The reaction is, &quot;[all] the members of minority is violent, therefore we must remove them from the country&quot;

The members of the majority religion might find articles of doctrine which justify that &quot;defence of the faith&quot;. It seems to me that's a bit extremist though, and that different religions co-exist peacefully in secular democracies.