Fetching updates...Islamic countries pushing blasphemy ban through United Nations
November 24, 2009
The 56-member Organization of the Islamic Council continues its push for a United Nations resolution banning religious criticism. Moving on from its manipulation of the Human Rights Council, these Islamic countries are now trying to get a resolution before the UN General Assembly.
Western nations are pushing back. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has released a policy paper defends international protections for individual freedom of thought and expression. Here is an excerpt from the executive summary to this paper:
Over the past decade, countries from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have been working through the United Nations system to advance the problematic idea that there should be laws against the so-called “defamation of religions.” Although touted as a solution to the very real problems of religious persecution and discrimination, the OIC-sponsored UN resolutions on this issue instead provide justification for governments to restrict religious freedom and free expression. They also provide international legitimacy for existing national laws that punish blasphemy or otherwise ban criticism of a religion, which often have resulted in gross human rights violations. These resolutions deviate sharply from universal human rights standards by seeking to protect religious institutions and interpretations, rather than individuals, and could help create a new international anti-blasphemy norm.
Read the Commission’s paper here: The Dangerous Idea of Protecting Religions from “Defamation”: A Threat to Universal Human Rights Standards.