More Muslim Threats to Freedom of Speech
This is a story that's been rumbling on in the background since, and perhaps even before, the publication of the Danish Cartoons. It seems that some Muslims, like Qatar’s UN ambassador mentioned here, will not rest until the entire world accepts that people who 'blaspheme' against Ismam should be prosecuted - even in non-Muslim countries! From the UAE-based The National Qatar’s UN ambassador urges prosecution for blasphemy James Reinl, United Nations Correspondent Last Updated: October 29. 2008 10:32PM UAE / October 29. 2008 6:32PM GMT NEW YORK // A Gulf diplomat has urged foreign governments to prosecute individuals who make offensive and defamatory statements against Islam and other faiths during a heated debate at United Nations headquarters. Speaking on behalf of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Nasser Abdulaziz al Nisr, Qatar’s ambassador to the United Nations, told delegates at a recent meeting that “freedom of expression” should not permit the abuse of religions. The GCC speech marked the la-*test*-('") episode in a fractious debate that was raging even before Sept 2005, when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed. Speaking in New York, Mr Nisr described blasphemy as unacceptable, while western governments allege leaders from the Islamic world are trying to stifle basic freedoms and infringe the rights of non-Muslims. “Our countries categorically reject all forms of incitement, discrimination, hostility, violence, attempts to justify the distortion of religions and hostility-based incitement of religions in the name of freedom of expression,” Mr Nisr said this week. “The responsibility rests, therefore, with the governments to address such conduct by legal and executive possible means, including amending legislation that allows such practices in the name of freedom of expression and opinion.” Mr Nisr was speaking in advance of a vote in the UN General Assembly’s committee on human rights on a draft resolution intended to “combat defamation of religions”. The draft resolution is supported by the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference and has passed every year since 2005. Although not binding in international law, the resolution sets a global moral standard. The most recent version of the resolution, which passed in December, emphasises that the freedom of expression “carries with it special duties and responsibilities” and may be “subject to limitations as are provided for by law”. The cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten and their republication by a string of western newspapers provoked riots in parts of the Islamic world, boycotts on Danish goods and demands for prosecution of those responsible. Denmark’s justice ministry this week rejected the third bid by seven Muslim lobby groups to take the newspaper to the Supreme Court for publishing the cartoons. Other cited examples of defamation of religion have included Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 address at the University of Regensburg and Salman Rushdie’s controversial 1988 novel The Satanic Verses. A coalition of countries that advocate free speech, including the United States, is trying to thwart the OIC resolution this year by persuading more moderate Muslim nations to vote against it. In publishing its annual report on global religious freedom last month, the US state department criticised the Muslim bloc for using the United Nations to “export” anti-blasphemy laws found in some of its member countries to the international level. Supporters of the “defamation of religions” concept, introduced initially in 1999 as the more narrow “defamation of Islam”, said its aim is to protect against the denigration of any and all faiths. But its critics, including the Bush administration and religious rights organisations, charge that it provides a cover for states that wish to quash religious freedom or criminalise religious defamation. In a series of meetings in New York, US delegates advocated “that government should not prohibit or punish speech, even offensive or hateful speech, because of an underlying confidence that, in a free society, such hateful ideas will fail because of their own intrinsic lack of merit”, UN documents say. US diplomats argue that human rights law is designed to protect individuals rather than religions, beliefs or ideologies. They also argue that anti-religious statements should not be termed “defamatory” because – although possibly offensive – they “cannot be verified as either true or false”. jreinl@thenational.ae

“Our countries categorically reject all forms of incitement, discrimination, hostility, violence, attempts to justify the distortion of religions and hostility-based incitement of religions in the name of freedom of expression,” Mr Nisr said this week. “The responsibility rests, therefore, with the governments to address such conduct by legal and executive possible means, including amending legislation that allows such practices in the name of freedom of expression and opinion.” Mr Nisr was speaking in advance of a vote in the UN General Assembly’s committee on human rights on a draft resolution intended to “combat defamation of religions”. The draft resolution is supported by the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference and has passed every year since 2005. Although not binding in international law, the resolution sets a global moral standard. That would include calling Jews pigs, dogs, scum etc then would it? Hmm, thought not. Along with blowing up other infidels all around the world. Fucking hypocrites!

Tin pot pissy-arsed little place. Was quite involved there on a big project for the then ruler back in 1997-8. (Edit: Wishful thinking! Should have been 1977-78!) Much later on of course they then discovered vast natural gas fields So now the tinpot rulers feel their oats. That's one of the troubles with the UN: skads of tiny crappy little unimportant states shooting their mouths off. Waste of time.

The UN is the world's HRC and that just makes it a global interference force. Jumped up tosspots indeed.

Has the UN Ambassador for Qatar read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, which incidentally, the UN is supposed to be upholding? I think he will find that Article 19 says: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinion without interference." Resign from the UN then, Qatar.

But that has been revised by the Islamic Conference to specifically deny anyone to hold a derogatory opinion about Islam and it's murdering paedophile who is held so dear... he was the most perfect human being ever to have walked on the planet! Consequently, none of us are allowed an opinion or to voice anything that might upset the murdering retarded bastards. So that's alright then.

Yes, the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights 1990/1. It managed to contradict just about everything in the original article, and also stated that one must "uphold justice in accordance with the Sharia". Will the UN care to comment on this? Don't hold your breath, you might turn blue!

This is the core problem with UN. Tinpot members states are allowed to shoot their mouths off, when it suits them, but are never taken to account! According to the tenets and precepts of UN charter, probably 90% of lesser states are in breach of its terms and diktats. Total waste of time now: and all of its subsidiary bodies. The illegal invasion of Iraq showed this. Trouble is like the World Bank and the IMF, since the UN and all associated organs were originally sponsored (read controlled) and funded by the USA, they have controlled and directed them ever since. Needs nuking!

More here along the same lines from FOX News This is a huge and growing problem for the West. No one has the guts to point out the Saudis immense hypocrisy!!! :evil: Critics Say U.N. 'Culture of Peace' Meeting Hides Culture of Oppression Thursday, November 06, 2008 Jennifer Lawinski Critics are blasting the United Nations for hosting a meeting to talk about religious and cultural tolerance sponsored by Saudi Arabia, a country in which the U.S. government has said religious freedom is non-existent. Following up on an interfaith meeting they held in Madrid in July, the Saudis asked the United Nations to hold a meeting on the "Culture of Peace," but some think it’s a move to lend support to the defamation of religions resolution that the world body will vote on this fall. The U.N. General Assembly will host the Culture of Peace meeting initiated by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in New York on Nov. 12-13. The White House announced on Wednesday that President Bush will attend the meeting on Nov. 13, and will also meet with King Abdullah while in New York. "The President appreciates King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia's initiative in calling for this dialogue and remains committed to fostering interfaith harmony among all religions, both at home and abroad," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement. Israeli President Shimon Peres will also attend the conference. Peres supports a Saudi-sponsored plan to make peace between Israel and the Arab world, but it is unclear if the two nations will discuss the plan while in New York, the Associated Press reported. Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, Kuwait, the Philippines and Finland have also agreed to attend. The Assembly President, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a Catholic priest, invited all member nations and observers, including the Vatican, to attend the meeting which it called a "useful prepatory step" towards an interfaith and intercultural meeting it will hold in 2010. Enrique Yeves, Spokesman of the Presient of the General Assembly Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann said that the meeting will focus on more than religious dialogue — the topic of the Madrid meeting — and also touch on cultural issues. "This is not a meeting on religious dialogue only it is about dialogue among cultures," Yeves said. "I don’t' know who has called it interfaith because its official name is Culture for Peace. For some reason most people, especially in the media, believe that it is only on religious dilalogue but it is further than that." Critics say that Saudi Arabia's track record on religious tolerance and human rights shows that its dialogue initiative is just talk. The State Department has considered it a "country of particular concern" since 2004, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom considers religious freedom to be non-existent in the Arab kingdom. "We'd like to see a conference like this take place inside Saudi Arabia and the fact that it isn't speaks volumes. That's true of the Madrid conference and true of the one at the U.N.," said commission chairwoman Felice Gaer. The practice of religions other than Islam, and Wahhabi Islam in particular, in Saudi Arabia is forbidden, so religious leaders of other faiths could not go to Saudi Arabia, she said. There are between two and three million non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Gaer said, and most are expatriate workers from foreign countries who "have to sign labor contracts requiring them essentially to waive their human rights to freedom of religion and to submit themselves to rather abusive treatment." Churches are also forbidden in the country. Saudi Arabia ranks second on the Open Doors 2008 World Watch List of countries that persecute Christians and the State Department has classified it a "country of particular concern" when it comes to violating the right to religious freedom. "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is, by our estimates, one of the worst places on the earth for religious tolerance. There is none. There is no religious liberty in Saudi Arabia at all," said Carl Moeller, president and CEO, Open Doors USA is a Christian ministry dedicated to supporting persecuted Christians around the world. His organization has worked with many Christians who have faced persecution in Saudi Arabia, and he's not convinced Saudi Arabia is sincere in its desire to have open religious discussions. "This is a very, very bad place and it's hard to believe than their king, the head of this government, would be calling for some religious tolerance conference," Moeller said. "It may be a public relations coupe, but I don't know that there will be much change on the ground for Christians in Saudi Arabia." Commission chairwoman Gaer thinks it's more than a public relations move for the Saudi government, it’s a cooperative effort between Muslim nations to reinforce the defamation of religion resolution they're sponsoring before the General Assembly this fall. The resolution, introduced by Pakistan to the U.N. Human Rights Council in 1999 has been taken up by the General Assembly and passed every year since 2005. The non-binding Resolution 62/145 adopted in 2007, says it “notes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of 11 September 2001.” It “stresses the need to effectively combat defamation of all religions and incitement to religious hatred, against Islam and Muslims in particular.” Gaer said the Saudi-sponsored inter-faith meeting in Madrid, like the U.N. resolution, was part of an attempt to legitimize sharia law by making attendees sign a declaration that said the participants would encourage "respecting heavenly religions, preserving their high status, condemning any insult to their symbols." "This was a Madrid declaration calling for or affirming the idea of the global blasphemy law in slightly moderated language," she said. "This would give them the freedom to declare anything from cartoons to incitement to a whole range of things to be defamation." Twenty-two members of the Council of the League of Arab States adopted the declaration and asked the U.N. and UNESCO to do so as well. The defamation of religions resolution has been criticized for acting as a shield for countries that persecute any insult to Islam and intimidate Western nations that may attempt to criticize them. "The problem is that this particular conference will legitimize the Saudis as somehow the leaders when they are the promoters of a particularly intolerant form of their own religions practice," Gaer said. "It will promote this idea of defamation which puts severe restrictions on freedom of expression and turns the whole concept of human rights on its head."

2008 World Watch List 1. North Korea 2. Saudi Arabia 3. Iran 4. Maldives 5. Bhutan 6. Yemen 7. Afghanistan 8. Laos 9. Uzbekistan 10. China I was surprised to see the Maldives on the Watch List. I did know it was a muslim 'country' as a friend had just returned from one of the island resorts.

In fact, considering that weddings are advertised in the Maldives resorts that does seem a bit bizarre, so I would like to know the criteria on which this list is based... or can I be bothered? If one of the criteria is "Can I set up a church in your country for the purpose of converting your people to my religion without state or religious interference?" then I would suggest that they stop proselytising and get a bloody life!