Muslims Nations: Defame Islam, Get Sued?
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The Muslim world has created a battle plan to defend its religion from political cartoonists and bigots.
Concerned about what they see as a rise in the defamation of Islam, leaders of the world’s Muslim nations are considering taking legal action against those that slight their religion or its sacred symbols. It was a key issue during a two-day summit that ended Friday in this western Africa capital.
The Muslim leaders are attempting to demand redress from nations like Denmark, which allowed the publication of cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in 2006 and again last month, to the fury of the Muslim world.
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“I don’t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy,” said Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. “There can be no freedom without limits.”
Delegates were given a voluminous report by the OIC that recorded anti-Islamic speech and actions from around the world. The report concludes that Islam is under attack and that a defense must be mounted.
“Muslims are being targeted by a campaign of defamation, denigration, stereotyping, intolerance and discrimination,” charged Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the group.
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Hemayet Uddin, the lead author of the OIC report and head of cultural affairs for the group said legal action is needed because “this Islamophobia that we see in the world has gone far beyond a phobia. It is now at the level of hatred, of xenophobia, and we need to act.”
A new charter drafted by the OIC commits the Muslim body “to protect and defend the true image of Islam” and “to combat the defamation of Islam.”
To protect the faith, Muslim nations have created an “observatory” that meets regularly to monitor Islamophobia. It examines lectures and workshops taking place around the world and prints a monthly record of offensive content.
But some of the summit’s delegates said a legal approach would be over the top.
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While the Muslim world worries about the image of Islam in the West, the U.S. envoy to the OIC attended the summit to try to tackle the thorny question of America’s image among Muslim states.
Sada Cumber calls his campaign the “soft power” of the U.S. — an effort to find common ground with Muslim nations by championing universal values the U.S. holds dear like religious tolerance and freedom of speech.
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(Posted on March 18, 2008)
Comments
Geeeesh I’m Catholic. What religion gets put down more than mine? Next time I hear some one blast us Catholics…or the Pope….I’m gonna sue!!!
Posted by lydia at 7:09 PM on March 18
Sada Cumber calls his campaign the “soft power” of the U.S. — an effort to find common ground with Muslim nations by championing universal values the U.S. holds dear like religious tolerance and freedom of speech.This is a fool’s errand if ever there was one. What this quarrel shows is that different cultures are incompatible and both the people and the cultures should remain separate.
Multiculturalism is such an obvious failure.
Posted by at 7:26 PM on March 18
The best thing is for the Western nations to expell all the Islamics. Islam is the best punishment there is for its practitioners, as Pakistan’s President Musharraf observed:
“The President noted that Muslim world is facing widespread illiteracy, rampant poverty and backwardness and underlined that it “must convert the present descending course into ascending course” of development.
“Referring to the challenges of the new world order he said, the Islamic countries are ill equipped to face these challenges. “We must know this because unless we know these facts we will never correct ourselves.
“He said, despite owning 70 percent of the world’s energy resources and representing one fourth of the world population, the collective GDP of the Muslim countries is insignificant in the global context.
President Musharraf stresses greater national, Muslim unity to face present challenges
Posted by at 9:06 PM on March 18
How can this Sada Cumber possibly hope to find common ground with Muslims on things like religious tolerance and freedom of speech?! That’s like trying to get wool from a donkey.
Posted by Soprano Fan at 9:32 PM on March 18
These Islamic thugs should stay in their own countries and the whites need to start thwarting their movement into their countries or there will be hell to pay.
Posted by Trisket at 11:06 PM on March 18
Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. “There can be no freedom .”
Any questions?
Posted by W.D. at 11:52 PM on March 18
Wade sound like our very own Abe Foxman, and the OIC looks like a baby ADL.
Posted by P Noctura at 12:01 AM on March 19
They sue now. Later they will use what they know best: violence.
Posted by at 7:50 AM on March 19
The solution is a very ancient one. It’s called ‘borders’.
Borders are the limits of influence and mobility. They are meant to keep people separate.
They can do what they want in their homes, but they have no business being in ours. It’s a fool who leaves his gates open to encroachment by neighbors.
Posted by at 11:30 PM on March 19
I suggest that there are two factors to consider.
1. If your religion is insulted as a deliberate act that would be considered insulting to any religion, then it well could be described as blasphemy. This means also that if your religion and the believers in it accept humorous depictions (cartoons?) of, for example, Biblical events as some cartoons do showing Adam and Eve, then for those people and that country, this must apply to all religions as it is an accepted principle in that country and it also shows religious tolerance in that country. And this must apply even if the cartoons etc. are of other religious deities or leaders from another country. Only if the bulk of opinion in the alleged country where the so-called offence has occurred also says that the line has been crossed and this can be covered in the Courts of the countries concerned in a civilised manner.
2. However, as with the current ongoing fuss over cartoons of Mohammed showing him to represent peoples who are openly and admittedly terrorists, even if only a small section of that religion are and especially if that violent section is not rigorously pursued and punished for their crimes against humanity by the followers of the religion concerned, in cases such as these, no blasphemy or crime has been committed.
It cannot stop civil litigation in the country where the perceived “crime” was committed, but that is a freedom of choice for those who feel they have been insulted. But they must accept the Court’s decision if they lose the litigation and not tend to prove that they are as the cartoons depict (in this case) by threatening or actually causing violence like bullying, spoilt brats because they have not got their own way.
Posted by Brian Deller at 8:06 AM on March 20
The notion that anyone could “defame” a self-defaming religion is patently absurd.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 1:45 PM on March 20