The United Nations, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that a person’s religion is so important that they are willing to limit another’s freedom of speech to protect it from blasphemy.
Combating Defamation of Religions “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.”
The bill passed with 42 nations abstaining. The bill not only limits speech, but lends support to countries that jail people for speaking in a way the government disagrees with:
“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.”
Here is the most troubling part of this whole thing:
Passage of the resolution is part of a ten-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.
The Canadians make a great point when they say that religions don’t have rights, people have rights. The goal should be to protect the rights of people to practice their religion, not to protect the religion from defamation.
And isn’t it rather impossible to prosecute this? For example, if I say that Jesus is the son of God and that Mohammad is a pedophile fraud, how do you prove that what I said is false? You would have to prove that Jesus wasn’t the son of God and that Mohammad was, in fact, a messeger of Allah.
This seems to me to be more of a way of intimidating people into silence and legitimizing oppression.
Photo by gawd.
