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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U.N. rights forum proclaims equal gay rights, Muslims states object
The top U.N. human rights body declared Friday there should be no discrimination or violence against people based on their sexual orientation, a vote Western countries called historic but Islamic states firmly rejected. The controversial resolution marked the first time that the Human Rights Council recognized the equal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, diplomats said.
The text, presented by South Africa, was adopted by 23 countries in favour, 19 against with 3 abstentions and one delegation absent during voting. Libya’s membership in the 47-member Geneva forum was suspended in March.
“All over the world, people face human rights abuses and violations because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, including torture, rape, criminal sanctions, and killing,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement issued in Washington. “Today’s landmark resolution affirms that human rights are universal,” she said, calling it a “historic moment.”
Britain, France joined the United States in voting in favour, while Russia voted against and China abstained, results showed. Delegations from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Bangladesh took the floor to reject the text in a heated debate held on the last day of the council’s three-week session.
Mauritania’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Cheikh Ahmed Ould Zahaf, said that the issue did not fall within the scope of any international human rights treaty. “This issue has nothing to do with human rights,” he said, speaking before the vote. “What we find here is an attempt to change the natural right of a human being with an unnatural right. That is why calls on all members to vote against it.”
Backwards nations that sill have a big problem with granting women equal rights strongly oppose gay rights, nothing news worthy here. Those nations have a long way to go, and their greedy feel they can lie and rape their population at will finically, and many times sexually. This does show most people on earth do feel human rights need to be respected. Thanks UN for helping more humans come out of the darkness of oppression. S.A. Proved it’s leadership in Human rights once again. It is sad that nation is poor. S.A. Should be proud of herself!
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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Vatican tells U.N. that critics of gays under attack
People who criticise gay sexual relations for religious or moral reasons are increasingly being attacked and vilified for their views, a Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the Roman Catholic Church deeply believed that human sexuality was a gift reserved for married heterosexual couples. But those who express these views are faced with “a disturbing trend,” he said.
“People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behaviour between people of the same sex,” he told the current session of the Human Rights Council.
“When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature … they are stigmatised, and worse — they are vilified, and prosecuted.
“These attacks are violations of fundamental human rights and cannot be justified under any circumstances,” Tomasi said.
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It appears to me that the Vatican has put itself in a difficult positoon. If it insists that pedophiles are gay, and continues to discover pedophiles in the priesthood – qite a few of them, then it must be hiring gay priests. Maybe there is a test for gayness they can administer. However since there is no evidence whatsoever that pedophiles are gay, they might do better to take a look at their own organisation before blaming homosexuals who are no different in their range of behaviours than any other group – and the vatican ought to know that pedophilia is more about power and inability to relate to one’s peers sexually than it is about homo- or heterosexuality. As to abusive behaviour – well who better to recognise that than the vatican?
U.N. restores gay reference to violence measure
The United States has succeeded in getting the United Nations to restore a reference to killings due to sexual orientation that had been deleted from a resolution condemning unjustified executions.
Western delegations were disappointed last month when the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee approved an Arab and African proposal to cut the reference to slayings due to sexual orientation from a resolution on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions.
The 192-nation General Assembly approved on Tuesday a U.S. amendment to the resolution that restored the reference to sexual orientation with 93 votes in favor, 55 against and 27 abstentions. The amended resolution was then adopted with 122 yes votes, one against and 62 abstentions.
After ensuring that violence against gays would be back in the resolution by voting in favor its own amendment, Washington sent an ambiguous signal about its support for the overall declaration by joining 61 other nations in abstaining. It was not immediately clear why Washington withheld its support. The only country that voted against the resolution was Saudi Arabia.
The main opposition to the U.S. amendment came from Muslim and African nations, which had led the push to delete the reference to sexual preference from the resolution last month.
The General Assembly passes resolutions condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings every two years. The 2008 declaration had included an explicit reference to killings committed because of the victims’ sexual preferences.
Support for UN vote against defaming religion wanes
A U.N. General Assembly committee has once again voted to condemn the “vilification of religion” but support narrowed for a measure that Western powers say is a threat to freedom of expression. The non-binding resolution, championed by Islamic states and opposed by Western countries, passed by only 12 votes on Tuesday in the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which focuses on human rights, 76-64 with 42 abstentions.
Opponents noted that support had fallen and opposition increased since last year, when the Third Committee vote was 81-55 with 43 abstentions. The 192-nation General Assembly is expected to formally adopt the measure next month.
The resolution was amended from versions passed in previous years in an attempt to secure support from Western nations. Instead of defamation of religion, it speaks of “vilification.” It also condemned acts of violence and intimidation due to “Islamophobia, Judeophobia and Christianophobia.” Last year’s resolution, as in previous years, focused on Islam and did not mention Judaism and Christianity.
Despite the changes, however, the United States, European Union and their allies rejected the resolution’s calls for legislation banning the defamation of religion.
The text, submitted by Morocco on behalf of Muslim states, said the assembly “urges all States to provide … adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from vilification of religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general.”
from Afghan Journal:
Saudi Arabia spot on UN women agency triggers outcry
The United Nations has set up a new super agency to better fight for the rights of women around the world including Afghanistan. This week UN Women, as the new body is called, held elections to choose countries to sit on the board and the results have triggered a storm of criticism even before the new agency formally comes into being next January. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia were in the running for a seat, and while Iran got displaced at the last minute in the vote, the Saudis are through.
And that has provoked the wrath of rights activists and commentators. The idea of the conservative desert kingdom, where women cannot drive or take significant decisions without the permission of a male relative or work as supermarket cashiers, leading a global fight for the promotion of women's rights is hard to accept, they say. How can you take the UN seriously, asks Greg Scoblete in a short piece on Real Clear World's Compass blog headlined : Saudi Arabia bastion for women's rights.
When the results of the vote were announced, the United States warmly welcomed the defeat of Iran, saying it would have been an inauspicious start to the board, had they won. But what about the Saudis, asks Ami Horowitz, a documentary film-maker, in an article in The Huffington Post. How can Washington or the UN justify their leadership of a high-powered body set up to promote gender equality and empower women.
Horowitz proceeds to list cases reflecting the plight of women in Saudi Arabia including the most famous case of "The Girl of Qatif.". This refers to a 2007 verdict in which a 19-year-old woman from the town of Qatif was sentenced to 200 lashes of the whip after she was gang-raped by seven men. The court blamed her for being alone with an unrelated man. The rapists were handed sentences ranging from two years to nine years in jail. The woman was later pardoned which commentators said at the time was the result of an international outcry over the judgement.
Indeed in a rather ironic twist, the Saudi team showed up at the Asian Games in China just days after winning that seat, without a single woman in their 180-strong squad. Iran actually comes off far better in this respect ; its 395-strong squad at the Games consists of 92 female athletes. Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian-born columnist and public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues, said that while the United States, the European Union, Australian and Canadian diplomats went on an overdrive to ensure Iran wasn't on the board, they didn't seem to resist as strongly the Saudi seat on the high table. Is it because the Saudis are big donors ? Eltahawy writes:
Once again, women are the cheapest bargaining chips, thrown on the table to silence and appease allies and “major donors.
Why did the U.N. proclaim World Interfaith Harmony Week?
The United Nations General Assembly passes a stack of resolutions every year and many of them go all but unnoticed. One such document just approved in New York established a new World Interfaith Harmony Week. High-minded resolutions put most news junkies to sleep, so it’s probably no surprise this one got such scant media coverage (see here and here). But there’s more to this one than meets the glazed-over eye.
The resolution, accepted by consensus on Wednesday, urged all member states to designate the first week of February every year as the World Interfaith Harmony Week. It asked them to “support, on a voluntary basis, the spread of the message of interfaith harmony and goodwill in the world’s churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and other places of worship during that week based on Love of God and Love of the Neighbour, or based on Love of the Good and Love of the Neighbour, each according to their own religious traditions or convictions.”
Amid the standard legal wording of U.N. resolutions, that phrase “Love of God and Love of the Neighbour” stands out both as a rare example of religious belief in an official document like this and an unmistakable hint at the authorship of this text. Readers of this blog will recognise it as a trademark phrase of the Common Word group, the Muslim scholars who have been pursuing better interfaith understanding through dialogue with Christian churches. They’ve held a number of conferences with different churches and two of the manifesto’s signatories last week became the first Muslims to address a Vatican synod of bishops. Now the group is pursuing its mission on the diplomatic stage with an appeal to governments to help foster interfaith contacts.
Jordan’s King Abdullah proposed the idea to the General Assembly on Sept. 23: “It is … essential to resist forces of division that spread misunderstanding and mistrust, especially among peoples of different religions. The fact is, humanity everywhere is bound together, not only by mutual interests, but by shared commandments to love God and neighbour, to love the good and neighbour … What we are proposing is a special week during which the world’s people, in their own places of worship, could express the teachings of their own faith about tolerance, respect for the other and peace.”
Before the vote on Wednesday, Jordan’s Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal presented the resolution to the General Assembly. In his speech (full text here), Ghazi, who is coordinator of the Common Word group, provided details on the thinking behind this initiative. “Our world is rife with religious tension and, sadly, mistrust, dislike and hatred,” he said. “The misuse or abuse of religions can thus be a cause of world strife, whereas religions should be a great foundation for facilitating world peace.”
World Interfaith Harmony Week is being observed throughout the world in places of worship and with actions among people of faith. As President of the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations, I wanted you to know that in 2011 we hosted a World Interfaith Harmony Week breakfast for about 150 people.
This year, The Office of the President of the General Assembly is working with the Committee of Religious NGOs and other NGOs at the United Nations to present World Interfaith Harmony Week 2012, Common Ground for the Common Good. The February 7 program, in the spirit of UN Resolution A/65/5, will be held in the United Nations General Assembly Hall. Over 1000 people have registered. This event is designed to share some of the ongoing, positive impact of our work around the world in building a culture of peace.
from The Great Debate UK:
Britain counts cost of Benedict’s visit
- Terry Sanderson is President of the National Secular Society. The opinions expressed are his own.-
When the Government is about to announce a 25 percent cut in public spending, the tens of millions of pounds showered on Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain seem like real papal indulgence.
The government contribution to this religious jamboree is currently £12 million (up from £8 million), but what we haven’t been told is how much the over-the-top security operation wil cost.
We have tried through Freedom of Information requests to get some idea, but so far we’ve been stonewalled.
Now the chief constable of South Yorkshire, who is co-ordinating the four police forces who are looking after the visit, says his best guess is around £1.5 million.
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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.