Hillary Clinton seeks to smooth Islamic defamation row with OIC
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed with a major global Islamic organization on Friday to pursue new ways of resolving debates over religion without resorting to legal steps against defamation. Clinton met Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the head of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), in Istanbul to help set up new international mechanisms both protect free speech and combat religious discrimination around the world.
“Together we have begun to overcome the false divide that pits religious sensitivities against freedom of religion. We are pursuing a new approach based on concrete steps to fight intolerance wherever it occurs,” Clinton said.
Under heavy U.S. pressure, the OIC agreed in March to set aside its 12-year campaign to have religions protected from defamation, a step which allowed the U.N. Human Rights Council to approve a broader plan on religious tolerance. Western countries and their Latin American allies, strong opponents of the defamation concept, joined Muslim and African states in backing without vote the new approach that switches focus from protecting beliefs to protecting believers.
Ihsanoglu underscored that the OIC’s aim was not to limit free expression, but to combat religious intolerance which he said was spreading dangerously around the world. “Our cause, which stems from our general concern, should not be interpreted as calls for restriction of freedom,” he said. “We believe that mutual understanding, tolerance, respect and empathy should also be accompanying components when we advocate supremacy of freedom of expression.”
Both Ihsanoglu and Clinton outlined steps they would take to cultivate religious and cultural diversity along guidelines set by the U.N. Human Rights Commission, part of a process that will be overseen by the United Nations. “These are fundamental freedoms that belong to all people in all places and they are certainly essential to democracy,” Clinton said. “We now need to move to implementation.”
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Islamic bloc drops 12-year U.N. drive to ban defamation of religion
Islamic countries set aside their 12-year campaign to have religions protected from “defamation”, allowing the U.N. Human Rights Council in Genea to approve a plan to promote religious tolerance on Thursday. Western countries and their Latin American allies, strong opponents of the defamation concept, joined Muslim and African states in backing without vote the new approach that switches focus from protecting beliefs to protecting believers.
Since 1998, the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) had won majority approval in the council and at the United Nations General Assembly for a series of resolutions on “combating defamation of religion”. Critics said the concept ran against international law and free speech, and left the way open for tough “blasphemy” laws like those in Pakistan which have been invoked this year by the killers of two moderate politicians in Pakistan. They argued that it also allowed states where one religion predominates to keep religious minorities under tight control or even leave them open to forced conversion or oppression.
But Pakistan, which speaks for the OIC in the rights council, had argued that such protection against defamation was essential to defend Islam, and other religions, against criticism that caused offence to ordinary believers. Islamic countries pointed to the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in Denmark in 2005, which sparked anti-Western violence in the Middle East and Asia, as examples of defamatory treatment of their faith that they wanted stopped. However, support for the fiercely-contested resolutions — which the OIC had been seeking to have transformed into official U.N. human rights standards — has declined in recent years.
The new three-page resolution, which emerged after discussions between U.S. and Pakistani diplomats in recent weeks, recognises that there is “intolerance, discrimination and violence” aimed at believers in all regions of the world. Omitting any reference to “defamation”, it condemns any advocacy of religious hatred that amounts to incitement to hostility or violence against believers and calls on governments to act to prevent it.
The U.S.-based Human Rights First campaign group said the new resolution was “a huge achievement because…it focuses on the protection of individuals rather than religions” and put the divisive debates on defamation behind. However, diplomats from Islamic countries have warned the council that they could return to campaigning for an international law against religious defamation if Western countries are not seen as acting to protect believers.
For more on Pakistan’s blasphemy law, see:
@Ganesh
“I’m talking about the fact that Middle Eastern countries would be nowhere without their oil wealth”
Yes I got your point and that’s why I stated in my previous comment that Race to green energy is on.
“I can’t comment on the conspiracy theory that the West is waging these wars in the Middle East because of oil”
Do you think there could be some reason other than oil?? Saudi protests are suppressed with US blessings and Libya protests are encouraged by same US. How do you think this puzzle can be solved.
Frictions seen easing in troubled U.N. human rights body
The United States and NGO campaign groups say diplomatic shifts on highly-charged issues like religion and Iran in the long-polarised U.N. Human Rights Council could turn it into a more effective body.
U.S. ambassador Eileen Donahoe said emerging accords on tackling religious hatred, Iran’s rights record and unusual cooperation across mutually suspicious regional blocs on Libya could mark a turning point for the forum.
“While the council remains an imperfect body, we have seen distinct progress in terms of its ability to respond to happenings in the world with respect to human rights in real time,” the U.S. ambassador to the council told reporters on Wednesday. “There is more shared common ground here than people realise.”
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to promote universal human rights used terms like “seismic shift” and “groundbreaking” to describe an apparent softening in demands from the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic States (OIC) that religions be protected internationally from “defamation.”
NGOs had previously welcomed the council’s surprising consensus decision last month to expel Libya — whose rights record most members had praised effusively only three months earlier — for killing anti-government protesters.
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A new blasphemy law … in Ireland?
When we hear about blasphemy these days, we usually think cases brought in Muslim countries or efforts by Muslim states to have defamation of religion banned in resolutions at international meetings such as the recent “Durban II” session in Geneva. The issue, which sparked violent protests in the Muslim world in 2006 after a Danish newspaper printed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, has been presented as a kind of cultural dividing line between “the West” and “the Muslim world.” It’s not that simple…
Just look at what’s happened in Ireland this week. The government proposed a new law against “blasphemous libel,” provoking criticism that the move would be old-fashioned at best and an outrageous curtailment of free speech at worst. Were the traditionally Catholic Irish taking a page from the diplomatic strategy of Muslim countries? Were the bishops trying to flex their dwindling muscles? The Irish Times story reporting the plan gave no motive for it but wrote: “At the moment there is no crime of blasphemy on the statute books, though it is prohibited by the Constitution.”
Not surprisingly, Roy Brown, chief representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in Geneva, reacted by saying it was “totally mind-boggling that a European government should even consider such a dangerous idea given that EU countries — now supported by the United States — have for years been fighting tooth and nail at the United Nations in Geneva and New York against almost identical proposals from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to get a global ban on ‘defamation of religion’.”
But there was more to the story. As Justice Minister Dermot Ahern wrote in an Irish Times article today, there is an existing piece of legislation dating back to 1961 that calls for punishments up to seven years imprisonment. Ireland’s constitution requires some form of punishment of blasphemy and the new law would decrease the penalty involved to a fine of up to 100,000 euros. Abolishing the crime of blasphemy altogether would require a constitutional amendment and a referendum, which Ahern says would be too costly and distracting for a country busy fixing Europe’s worst public finances.
Under Ahern’s proposals, blasphemous material would only be prosecutable if it is “grossly abusive or insulting in matters held sacred by a religion,” causes actual outrage among adherents of that religion and there is intent to cause outrage. “Such intent was not previously required;” he noted in his article.
The Irish Examiner is having none of what it calls this fatherly “trust me” attitude from the justice minister. It noted that Ireland voted with all other EU countries against a resolution on “combating defamation of religion” at the UN last December. Explaining that vote, Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.”
I realize i’m a bit late reading this but this blasphemy law is becoming fact in ireland in the near future. there is an outcry over it at the moment here. i hesitate to say a ‘huge outcry’ becuse despite the changes in this this country in the last twenty years there is still a lot of supprort for the chuch here. despite that there will be protests, marches and mass attempts at blasphemous publications. the problem is the law states that it must offend a large percentage of a religious group. to do this the blasphemous statement must be published somewhere public. ournewspapers probably won’t do this as they are usually cared of public opinion. so hopefully we can do something so public that the church will see it and respond. I believe (and sincerely hope) that once this happens the debate will become so large that it can not be ignored by the EU, who will hopefully see it as a breach of our human rights. then again the pro choice lobby tried that and nothing has come of it yet. thousands of irish girls and women have to travel to britain to abort pregnancies. So all i can say is screw our proven corrupt government and bring on the protests.if nothing else they’ll be a bit of craic.
Can the United States fix Durban II?
The United States has decided to participate in planning meetings for the United Nations Conference on Racism in April in order to influence its final declaration. The conference, a follow-up to the 2001 meeting in South Africa that the U.S. and Israel walked out on because the draft declaration called Israel racist (that language was later dropped). Israel and Canada have already announced they would boycott “Durban II,” as the conference is being called, and the Bush administration was opposed to the conference. But the Obama administration has decided to wade into the debate in the hopes of getting a better result.
Apart from the expected criticism of Israel, this conference in Geneva is also due to be a showplace for a drive by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to have the U.N. condemn defamation of religion. The U.N. General Assembly voted for just such a condemnation last December, for the fourth year running. While the non-binding resolution urged member states to provide “adaquate protection against acts of hatred, discrumination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general,” the only religion it mentioned by name was Islam. Western countries opposed that resolution as contrary to the basic rights of free expression and opinion.
In statements in December, the freedom of expression rapporteurs of the United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) have called on the United Nations not to issue any such resolution.
President Barack Obama wants to reach out to Muslims and foster better relations between Washington and the Muslim world. Should he show this by softening the U.S. stand on defamation of religions?
UPDATE: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that “the U.S. State Department set off alarm bells Sunday in the Jewish community by announcing that it would be taking part in consultations this week ahead of the conference” and the administration held a conference call with Jewish leaders to discuss the issue. Read the full story here.
My question is, why are they only focusing on Islam? Why not Christianity too? This seems to be always the case and I am tired of hearing, how Islamics are always being discriminated against. Anytime you talk bad about Islam, they riot and protest. Christians are persecuted all the time and that is never mentioned in the media. I believe, that the government is going to sell us down the river and this will only be the beginning of the “Racisim” card being played.
Rights experts attack Islam defamation drive at UN
The debate over possible United Nations resolutions condemning defamation of religions is heating up as Islamic countries campaign to have an upcoming U.N. document on racism include such a call.
The document, a follow-up to the final declaration of the 2001 Durban conference on racism, is due out in April. The freedom of expression rapporteurs of the United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) have called on the United Nations not to issue any such resolution.
As Reuters correspondent Robert Evans wrote in his news story from Geneva on Wednesday:
“The concept of ‘defamation of religions’ does not accord with international standards regarding defamation, which refer to the protection of reputation of individuals,” they said.
“Religions, like all beliefs, cannot be said to have a reputation of their own,” they added. Limits on freedom of expression should only be used to bar advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred amounting to inciting violence.
Countries which had such limits to protect religion, they said, had often used them “to prevent legitimate criticism of powerful religious leaders and to suppress the views of religious minorities, dissenting believers and non-believers.”
Here are an OSCE press release and the full text of the statement by the four experts.
Islam as a religionis facing terrific challenges these days. It very difficult to be a Muslim in present world.
I do agree fundamentalist and so called Jehadis whose mis interpretation of Islam and Quran have done bad to world.
I must say here that i doo see lots of experts speaking of Quran preaching terrorism.
These experts blow Quran out of context, In Quran every thing said has a relation with the time and conditions of Prophet Mohhamad.
Quran does say that we need to fight against the forces but not always their have to be conditions and stuations for declaring a jehad.
If their is a verse in Quran saying about Jehad, these Terrorism experts need to understand the context of that verse.
Quran does preach Peace(‘Allahu ma sabreen’ (God is with patient people)), These experts never emphasise on such verses.
Like the Jehadis and Fundamentalist these Terror Experts need to read the Quran in right context. just picking up a verse and trying to get meaning out of is wrong,
By doing so you are conveying wrong message to people and are equally culprit like Jehadis and Fundamentalists.
My request all is if they try to intrepret Quran, Please read the whole Scenario(‘Sura’) and then try to find meaning not just reading individual verses(‘aayat’),
And also read Tafseer(Discription and meaning) of Quran.
Dont please blame Quran or Islam or terrorism.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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Any “religion” that hands its apostates a death sentence, such as Islam does, is no religion at all.
It is a vile, fascistic, intolerant system of repression and abuse that yokes its followers like oxen to its bilge-filled bullock cart.