UN Anti-Blasphemy Measures Have Sinister Goals, Observers Say
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Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service, November 24, 2008
Islamic countries Monday won United Nations backing for an anti-blasphemy measure Canada and other Western critics say risks being used to limit freedom of speech.
Combating Defamation of Religions passed 85-50 with 42 abstentions in a key UN General Assembly committee, and will enter into the international record after an expected rubber stamp by the plenary later in the year.
But while the draft’s sponsors say it and earlier similar measures are aimed at preventing violence against worshippers regardless of religion, religious tolerance advocates warn the resolutions are being accumulated for a more sinister goal.
“It provides international cover for domestic anti-blasphemy laws, and there are a number of people who are in prison today because they have been accused of committing blasphemy,” said Bennett Graham, international program director with the Becket Fund, a think tank aimed at promoting religious liberty.
“Those arrests are made legitimate by the UN body’s (effective) stamp of approval.”
Passage of the resolution is part of a 10-year action plan the 57-state Organization of Islamic Conference launched in 2005 to ensure “renaissance” of the “Muslim Ummah” or community.
While the current resolution is non-binding, Pakistan’s Ambassador Masood Khan reminded the UN’s Human Rights Council this year that the OIC ultimately seeks a “new instrument or convention” on the issue. Such a measure would impose its terms on signatory states.
“Each time the resolution comes up, we get a measure of where the world is on this issue, and we see that the campaign has been ramped up,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.
While this year’s draft is less Islam-centric that resolutions of earlier years, analysts note it is more emphatic in linking religion defamation and incitement to violence.
That “risks limiting a broad range of peaceful speech and expression,” Neuer argues.
The 2008 draft “underscores the need to combat defamation of religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general, by strategizing and harmonizing actions at the local, national regional and international levels.”
It also laments “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.”
But Western democracies argue that a religion can’t enjoy protection from criticism because that would require a judicial ruling that its teachings are the “truth.”
“Defamation carries a particular legal meaning and application in domestic systems that makes the term wholly unsuitable in the context of religions,” says the U.S. government in a response on the issue to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“A defamatory statement . . . is more than just an offensive one. It is also a statement that is false.”
The paper also points out the legal difficulty of even defining the term “defamation” since “one individual’s sincere belief that his or her creed alone is the truth conflicts with another’s sincerely held view of the truth.”
Yemen, on behalf of OIC, successfully introduced the measure to the UN General Assembly for the first time in 2005 after Pakistan first tabled it 1999 for annual consideration in the Human Rights Commission—the Council’s forerunner.
Canada and other Western countries emphasize the distinction between granting an “idea” rights—and defending the right of people not to be discriminated against.
“Canada rejects the basic premise that religions have rights; human rights belong to human beings,” said Catherine Loubier, spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon.
“The focus (here) should not be on protecting religions, but rather on protecting the rights of the adherents of religions, including of people belonging to religious minorities, or people who may choose to change their religion, or not to practice religion at all.”
Muslim countries say they are only trying to cut down of what they see as extensive bias against Islam in the West. In the lead-up to Monday’s vote, many referred, for example, to the 2005 publication of Danish cartoons that satirized Muhammad, and which touched off riots through the Muslim world.
“Everybody is aware that there is a campaign in certain media to fuel the fire of incitement to hatred and to disfigure certain persons or figures through caricature,” said one Sudanese diplomat.
But supporters of the Western position say the resolution and its predecessors contribute to increasing discrimination based on religion.
“From the human rights side of things, this is the opposite of what is supposed to be happening,” said Becket’s Graham. “Instead of protecting an individual, this resolution protects an idea, and relies on hurt feelings as a source of judgment. It can only lead to a jurisprudence of hurt feelings.”
Canada says governments have abused laws against defamation or contempt of religions to “prosecute and imprison journalists, bloggers, academics students and peaceful political dissidents.”
The Iranian parliament, for example, is currently weighing a draft amendment to its penal code that would impose capital punishment for apostasy.
But in an irony given Canada’s stance, an anti-blasphemy law remains in the Criminal Code. Experts point out it has not been used for a prosecution in more than 70 years.
There’s also consensus among opponents of the UN measure that people most likely to be targeted by anti-blasphemy laws are Muslims in Muslim countries.
“Pakistan has the (toughest) anti-blasphemy laws, and while they are certainly used against lots of minority religions, they are used mainly against Muslims,” said Graham.
“They have been used to intimidate business partners, suppress any reformist ideas, jail people who discuss women’s rights.”
But he also noted that anti-blasphemy themes have been cited in countries that are predominantly non-Muslim.
“There are cases in Russia dealing with people suing TV stations for airing South Park and the Simpsons because they see them as defamatory to Christianity,” he explained.
“A lot of the violence in India dealing with Hindus and Christians is being spurred on by accusations that Hindu gods are being defamed, while there are also cases against artists in India for depicting Hindu gods in modernist way.”
(Posted on November 26, 2008)
Comments
This one should have large swathes of the media, publishing, art world, academia, and the populations of NYC and LA quaking in their boots.
Wait, what am I thinking? I forgot the whole “who, whom?” thing. My mistake.
Posted by Svigor at 7:11 PM on November 26
“Canada says governments have abused laws against defamation or contempt of religions to “prosecute and imprison journalists, bloggers, academics students and peaceful political dissidents.””
There’s more than a hint of hypocrisy in Canada’s position on this issue, given the inquisition-like crusade of its various “human rights” (ha!) commissions against anything that is considered “offensive” against Islam (see the ongoing inquisition about a news piece published by the Canadian weekly, MacLeans, which was critical of the growing influence of fundamentalist Islam in Canada).
Nevertheless, I’m happy to see my home country of Canada finally speaking some sense on the issue of freedom of expression and (genuine) civil liberties.
Posted by Kevin at 7:20 PM on November 26
The U.N. laments: “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated w/humans rights violations and terrorism.”
Yeah, I can’t imagine where this crazy idea that Muslims are involved in terrorism came from…
Posted by Madison Grant at 8:06 PM on November 26
The UN general assembly has always by raving third world dictators and their cronies. They can pass all the resolutions they want but they are not binding on national governments.
Posted by AJ at 8:19 PM on November 26
The United Nations is the most useless organization on the face of the planet. It’s every pronouncement and proclamation is anti-western and anti-white. Why any western nation would want this bloated, self important, mouthpiece for third world propaganda settled in it’s midst is beyond comprehension.
Posted by at 8:45 PM on November 26
“Islamic countries Monday won United Nations backing for an anti-blasphemy measure Canada and other Western critics say risks being used to limit freedom of speech.”
Big surprise here!
The UN is an utterly worthless, Third World instrument of terrorism and anti-Western hatred. It is the greatest folly ever conceived by the West, to be hijacked by nonwhites. Even the collapse of the European empires after World War II, pales in comparison to how we have allowed this joke that we created and continue to finance dictate anything to us.
The only “power” that they have, is that which we allow; without us, they are nothing!
The USA and the entire West need to be done with this rainbow pack of Reds. We need to withdraw from it, cut off all monetary sustenance, and form a Union of Civilization that is dedicated to its total destruction!
Good luck with that, unfortunately!!
As always, God help us all!!!
Posted by John PM at 9:30 PM on November 26
Get the UN out of the US and the US out of the UN.
Posted by Trisket at 10:32 PM on November 26
Canada says governments have abused laws against defamation or contempt of religions to “prosecute and imprison journalists, bloggers, academics students and peaceful political dissidents.”For Canada to have “said” this is hypocrisy that is simply breathtaking. Canada needs to clean up its own act before it issues such complaints.
And as far as the UN goes: get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US.
Posted by at 12:01 AM on November 27
By Crom! The UN can send me to prison for cursing Cuthulu and the old Gods!
Posted by flyingtiger at 12:33 AM on November 27
The United Nations grows ever stronger as an entity. There will be a point at which that entity has gained enough funding, enough military power, and enough sovereignty. At that point, the UN will become like Spain’s ‘Holy Inquisition’, a terrible, unstoppable and, basically, living being. Like a golem. I hope to not be alive when this happens.
Spain and Latin America never really recovered from the five centuries of terror wielded by the inquisition. The institution became more powerful than its creators. A look at Goya’s nightmarish paintings reveals the pervasive horror of that dark period. Goya painted a dusky giant ravaging the land, devouring the population.
But, at least, there were other countries to which the inquisition’s would-be victims could flee. Where will we run when the UN Golem controls the whole world? Informed by a witches’ brew of Ideologies and agendas from Communism, Islam, and multinational corporations, the UN will be as cruel and relentless as the inquisition.
Third-world dictators will use the UN to override national sovereignty and impose their barbaric notions upon the west. Whole classes of people will be slated for destruction because their existence will be inconvenient for the corporations.
Genocide of thriving and productive populations has happened before, and can happen again. Think of the Kulaks of Russia, and virtually the entire cognitive elite of the ancient Middle East. Gone. Murdered. Not just cultures wiped out, but also the genetic potential that resided in those murdered people. When the smart people are gone, civilizations cannot re-emerge.
What would happen to the genome, if the UN had its way with the whole planet? Global Rwanda?
Defining criticism of religion as defamation redefines and (really) eliminates freedom of speech. It establishes precedents for warping logic. Any criticism can suddenly be defined as defamation. Silencing critics is important for a greedy and ruthless entity. Heaven help us indeed, John, if the ‘anti-blasphemy measure’ is the crucial spell needed for the UN Golem to finally rise and destroy us all.
Posted by Chaim at 1:18 AM on November 27
Islam is terrorism. Islam is human rights violators. Islam is a religion of war and horror. I am an American. I owe them nothing and I will say what I damn well please about them, as long as it is true.
Posted by at 7:25 AM on November 27
Don’t talk about Islam. Just treat muslims like criminals since that culture spawned the modern day terrorists that murder innocent civilians so they can have virgins in heaven. Europeans better kick out their muslim illegals otherwise they will be conquered by these people. I would recommend deporting legals too but they won’t have the guts to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know not every muslim is a terrorist criminals but that’s their problem not ours. We don’t have the time or ability to distinguish every innocent muslim from the criminally religously insane so the onus is on them to battle their compadres and don’t expect to come to the US for saving your own skin either. It astounds me that the Iraquis want to come to the US for helping their own country. Why don’t they stay in their country to rebuild it? What’s up with that?
Posted by realist at 7:31 PM on November 27
The U.N. is an organization dedicated to world government of unelected dictators.
Nations, which should be organized around ties of blood, should be free to self-govern. The U.N. has no business making universal “world laws”, including “human rights”.
Posted by at 11:02 PM on November 27
Islam cannot hold up under scrutiny or liberty. It never has and never will, and yet that that explains how Islam has grown and remained powerful for centuries.
If Muslims cannot bully or intimidate others into silence by violence, they must do it through law.
I’m a devout Christian, so please go ahead and criticize Christianity and the Bible, because then I will rejoice in the opportunity to refute your claims, as I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that Christ and his Word—the Holy Bible—are
are true.
I welcome the challenge BECAUSE I am not a coward.
Only those who fear that their false religion and its untruths will be exposed, ever fear criticism of their faith.
It is no wonder that Muslim lands are among the worst places to live on earth.
Posted by Amy at 8:03 AM on November 28
To Chaim, welcome to Amren! It’s always nice to have another Jew see the light and stand up for what is right.
To Amy, you wrote that Muslim lands are among the worst places to live on Earth. I would qualify that if I were you. I’ve visited Brunei (a benevolent, moderate Islamic monarchy) and it seemed like a great place to me. Very little crime, content people and interesting wildlife/nature to boot. Then there’s Dubai, which many Westerners flock to for its unmatched business environment. I’m sure more can be added to this list.
Posted by jewamongyou at 5:33 PM on November 28
Defining criticism of religion as defamation redefines and (really) eliminates freedom of speech. It establishes precedents for warping logic. Any criticism can suddenly be defined as defamation. Silencing critics is important for a greedy and ruthless entity.
Chaim
— — — — — —
Already, Europe - with its “hate speech” laws and prohibitions against questioning the Holocaust - has laid the ground work for this “anti-defamation” legislation. Now that the precedent has been established, it will be easy to expand on it.
Posted by browser at 1:08 AM on November 29
To Amy, you wrote that Muslim lands are among the worst places to live on Earth. I would qualify that if I were you. I’ve visited Brunei (a benevolent, moderate Islamic monarchy) and it seemed like a great place to me. Very little crime, content people and interesting wildlife/nature to boot. Then there’s Dubai, which many Westerners flock to for its unmatched business environment. I’m sure more can be added to this list.
Arab muslim lands are the worst to live in, oppressive, depressing and backward. Notwithstanding the disneyland like operation of places like Dubai and Brunei, they are still muslim countries and in the final analysis, they are controlled by Saudi Arabia (a demonstrated enemy of America)If you think there is little crime in these muslim countries, I suspect you spend to much time in the western leased apartment buildings and western franchised restaurants because I assure you, THERE IS A LOT OF CRIME and a lot of serious human rights abuses. So, also to AMY, you are absolutely correct.
Posted by Skip at 5:07 AM on November 29
First it was THE HOLOCAUST, and they came and took away Ernst Zundel and Germer Rudolf… and we stood silent, now with the precedent established everyone will be protected but us.
Posted by at 12:54 PM on November 29
As another poster stated above, ANY criticism can be interpreted as “defamation.” Thus, all criticicm (or even doubt) can be eliminated under legal penalty.
It would be the antithesis of Free Speech and Free Inquiry, one of the foundation stones upon which this country was built —(and all modern, advanced, Western societies). To enact such legislation would be turning back the calendar more than a thousand years to a more primitive time and place when ignorance, barbarism, and superstition ruled. What sane, modern people would substitute the legal code of a desert tribe for our own?
Posted by ghw at 6:36 PM on November 29
As usual, the UN ignores the flagrant violations of human rights, the genocide, the starvation that goes on in its favored, despotic countries, and takes pot shots at the US Constitution so as to appear that the united nations possesses some sort of relevance.
We need to find out the countries that voted in favor of and abstained in this excrescence of a measure, and if they are foreign aid recipients, that ends.
I’m sick of hearing these third rate countries with a constant stream of immigrants trying to get away into the US, constantly bashing our country.
Posted by Tidy-Whitey at 6:46 PM on December 1
B’nai B’rith International has already gotten hate speech laws passed all across Europe as well as Canada. The next target will be the U.S., and with a Marxist puppet in the White House along with a Democrat controlled House and Senate, we may see such legislation passed within the next four years.
Posted by at 12:16 AM on December 3
Americans have been exposed to global Islamic terrorism for decades and once that first stone is thrown in the pond the ripples will spread out coast-to-coast. The foothold the Muslims are establishing in America will crumble beneath their feet as they are forced to return to their homelands.
Anyone who has ever talked to a Muslim about Islam knows for a fact that the medieval mentality of these people is perpetually frozen in time and they are totally beyond redemption…
Posted by at 8:45 AM on December 3
“Anyone who has ever talked to a Muslim about Islam knows for a fact that the medieval mentality of these people is perpetually frozen in time and they are totally beyond redemption.”
Posted by 8:45 AM
When I was in Tangier, in Morocco, I remember hearing about a Christian missionary couple who had lived there for about 30 years and had NEVER made even ONE convert!
Moslems do not convert. They are not interested. Their minds are sealed shut. And if anybody did convert, he would be killed.
Posted by at 3:05 PM on December 3
“At that point, the UN will become like Spain’s ‘Holy Inquisition’, a terrible, unstoppable and, basically, living being. Like a golem. I hope to not be alive when this happens.
Spain and Latin America never really recovered from the five centuries of terror wielded by the inquisition. The institution became more powerful than its creators.”
Your view of the inquisition comes from the liberal propaganda machine of the liberal marxist anti white anti european universities. Same propaganda machine that advocates the destruction of whites, especially white men. The truth is:
(1) In more than 700 years of existence ( 1100 to 1820) the inquisition operating in EVERY EUROPEAN COUNTRY not just Spain executed only 607 persons accused of heresy. That is about .70 persons executed per year. 607 persons executed in 700 years proves that the inquisition was not the evil white male catholic monster the liberal marxist universities claim it was.
(2) The inquisistion never operated in latin America.
(3) The most famous inquisitor, Cardinal Torquemeda was ethnically Jewish, both his parents were Jewish catholics. One would assume that a Jewish convert would be sympathetic to Jews, but Torquemeda took it upon himself to go after Spanish Jews. It wasn’t ethnic Spanish catholics who did this, but the Jewish convert Torquemeda. Who knows what his motivation was. I discount mental problems or religious fanaticism. I suspect his motivation was extortion.
But even during the early 1500s, when the Spanish inquisistion was most active, I believe only about 30 heretics over 40 years were executed.
Around the same time Torquemeda was operating, that great protestant hero, John Calvin took over the city of Geneva Switzerland. He held a protestant convention attended by clergy from all over Europe. 2 Spanish catholic bishops who were thinking of converting to protestantism attended. Calvin did not like their ideas whatever they were. So he burnt them at the stake.
Virtually everything written about the inquisistion is false. That is because most of the falsehoods were written by fanatic anti catholic 15th through 19th century protestants and athiest masons.
Anti inquisistion history in both England and America is very suspect because of the puritan and protestant fanaticism. Remember, the catholic religion was not legalized in some of the New England states until the 1830’s. When the Arcadians were forced out of Canada in the 1750’s by the British they sailed along the coast of America to Louisanna where they settled.
The Arcadians planned to travel along the coast stopping at major ports to do laundry, bathe, clean out the ships, feed the children and babies up with milk and fresh vegetables and take on water and supplies. They were not allowed to land in Boston Harbor because they were catholics, even though they would have bought a lot of supplies and food.That was how anti catholic boston was. Thomas Jefferson’s main opposistion to the site of the District of Columbia was that it contained Georgetown, a catholic university.
That was the kind of prejudiced protestant and mason fanatics who wrote the false histories of the inquisistion. Their descendants have infested Harvard, Tufts, BU and all the numerous colleges in the Boston area with the puritan fanatic propaganda. Now days it is anti white western civilization propaganda. 100 years ago it was anti catholic protestant propaganda being churned out by these universities.
Nowdays harvard and other universities teaches in their gay rights courses that european catholics burnt several million gays to death every year in medieval and early modern europe.
This is of course untrue. 300 years ago, 200 years ago, 100 years ago the same universities were teaching falsehoods about the inquisistion.
The major result of the inquisistion is our legal system. The system of question and answer. Examining witnesses by asking questions and then cross examening the witness. This method comes directly from the inquisistion. Also the scientific method comes from the inquisistion. Start small with long lists of questions. Make no assumptions until you have answered all the questions. Prove every answer. Having answered all the questions and proven the answers make your conclusions.
It is not so much what happened that survives. It is who writes the history. And the history of the inquisistion was largely written by fanatic English and American protestant, puritans and masons.
The catholic religion by the way, was illegal in England from 1533 to 1832. It was death penalty offense to be a catholic priest in England from 1560 to about 1750, although they stopped executing catholic priests simply for being in England around 1700.
The English hypocrites yipped and yapped about the evil catholic countries and the inquisistion as they were the most religiously intolerant country in europe. While they executed every catholic priest they found in England, the Pope allowed English protestant clergy to operate freely in Italy to serve the very large expat and tourist English protestant community.
Don’t believe all you read. Remember who writes history.
Posted by at 11:19 PM on December 4
Following my shock at reading the ‘ll:19/Dec.4’ response to Chaim’s comparison of the UN to the Inquisition, I had a revelation.
I’ve seen virulent reactions like this one, in response to virtually anything that could be construed as even vaguely anti-Catholic. WOULDN’T IT BE WONDERFUL IF WHITES RESPONDED IN THAT MANNER TO ANYTHING EVEN VAGUELY ANTI-WHITE?
The Dec. 4 response seems almost scripted, as if the writer had been hearing well-crafted words on the subject all his life. We need words so well-considered in defense of Western (white) Civilization. And we need to expose our children to those arguments as soon as they become verbal. If only the Jesuit think-tank could focus, for a while, on saving the Western world, rather than on gaining ascendancy over the Protestant World (which they’ve pretty much succeeded at, anyway)…
Posted by at 2:43 PM on December 10