Islamic Nations Seek Legally Binding Way to Counter Criticism of Islam

Thankfully non-Muslims of the world are slowly waking up to the threat that Islam brings to freedom loving nations. While most of the readers of this site are obviously happy with this, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is not. They are now pushing forward in attempt to try and make it against international law to criticize Islam. As they know that if we cannot name our enemy, we cannot defeat it. In the past the OIC was able to get the United Nations to ban all criticism of Islam in regards to human rights. Will they be able to pull this off? With the UN involved, this is very possible.

Hat tip to The Religion of Peace.

Islamic Nations Seek Legally Binding Way to Counter Religious ‘Defamation’
Monday, November 16, 2009
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor

(CNSNews.com) – As support wanes for its campaign to secure controversial but non-binding “defamation of religion” resolutions at the United Nations, the Islamic bloc is pushing ahead with an alternative route – one that would carry the weight of international law.

The OIC is now attempting to have a key U.N. panel amend an existing international treaty to encompass supposedly religiously defamatory speech.

Unlike the resolutions, changing the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) to cover religion would be legally enforceable.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has for the past decade overseen the passage of non-binding resolutions at the U.N. General Assembly and human rights bodies.

Last week, the most recent effort passed in the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with social, cultural, and humanitarian issues. It will go before the full General Assembly for a vote next month, but the committee vote indicates a continuing, measurable decline in support.

Eighty-one countries voted for the resolution, 55 opposed it and 43 abstained. The result showed less support for and more opposition against the resolution than for those introduced by the OIC over the last three years. (see graph)

As in past years, most support came from the 57-member OIC (although two members, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon, abstained) plus non-Muslim allies in the developing world, led by China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela.

Comparisons of voting records from 2006 to date reveal a continuing erosion of support in Latin America. Chile, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay all voted against the OIC-led resolution this year, having abstained in 2008. Elsewhere, Lesotho and Sri Lanka were among those who moved from supporting the resolution in 2008, to abstaining this year.

The OIC argues that religion needs to be protected from “defamation” – acts such as the publication of newspaper cartoons satirizing Mohammed, or the suggestion that the Koran promotes violence against non-Muslims.

Although its resolutions purport to cover all religions, Islam is the only one cited by name. The text passed by the Third Committee voices concern that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.”

The OIC campaign has been confronted by freedom of expression advocates who say the bloc is trying to shield Islam, its teachings, practices, institutions and leaders, from legitimate criticism or scrutiny.

Critics say defamation prohibitions should cover individuals, not religions. They charge that resolution proponents are trying to introduce in Western societies similar restrictions to those enforced in some Islamic countries, where converts from Islam or those with dissident views risk trial for apostasy or blasphemy.

‘Binding normative standards’

Unlike the nonbinding U.N. resolutions, the OIC’s alternative strategy proposes to develop “new binding normative standards relating to religious ideas, objects and positions,” including “legal prohibition of publication of materials that negatively stereotypes, insults or uses of offensive language on matters regarded by followers of any religion or belief as sacred.”

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Iran and Turkey Foster Relations at Islam Summit

While non-Muslims are arguing amongst ourselves over if there really is an Islamic threat, Iran with their hard line cabinet, and the anti-Israel Turkish government, are joining hands in unity. Hopefully we will figure this all out before it is too late.

Iran and Turkey foster relations at Islam summit

Iran and Turkey are expected to take their improving relations a step further at an international Islamic summit in Istanbul starting today. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was warmly welcomed by his Turkish counterpart Abdulah Gul.

Turkey has recently defended Iran over its nuclear programme, which the West fears Tehran is using to develop atomic weapons. Ankara’s apparent efforts to strengthen links with Iran have alarmed the US and the EU, which Turkey wants to join.

And Brussels had been equally troubled by a decision to invite Sudan’s president to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference meeting.

The EU had urged the Turkish government to withdraw the invitation to war crimes suspect Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

But the Sudanese leader has pulled out of his own accord. Bashir is wanted over alleged war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region.

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Clinton Takes a Stand Against Islamic Censorhip

Hillary Clinton has actually done the right thing and is taking a stand against the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), and the United Nations which in the past had banned any criticism of Islam in regards to human rights. Miracles do happen!

Clinton Denounces Proposed 'Defamation of Religions' Policies
By Michelle A. Vu|Christian Post Reporter

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced strong opposition Monday to proposed U.N. resolutions on “defamation of religions,” saying that such policies would restrict free speech.

“The United States will always seek to counter negative stereotypes of individuals based on their religion and will stand against discrimination and persecution,” Clinton stated. “But an individual’s ability to practice his or her religion has no bearing on others’ freedom of speech.”

The protection of speech about religion and religious discourse is important in a world with many different faith beliefs, asserted the high-ranking U.S. diplomat.

Earlier this year, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted an anti-defamation draft resolution that human rights groups warn would protect a religion rather than adherents of religions.

Leonard A. Leo, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, last week testified to Members of Congress that the only religion and religious adherents that are specifically mentioned in the “defamation” resolutions – this year’s and past years – are Islam and Muslims.

“Aside from Islam, the resolutions do not specify which religions are deserving of protection, or explain how or by whom this would be determined,” Leo stated.

Several prominent groups working with persecuted Christians have also spoken out against the resolutions, which are sponsored annually by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, because they say the policies would be manipulated to further harass Christians and other religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries.

“Many Christians living in these countries [that make up the Organization of Islamic Conference] are already severely impacted by restrictive laws – especially those living under strict Shariah law,” said Open Doors USA President/CEO Carl Moeller. “From the right to worship freely to the ability to share the Gospel, the Defamation of Religions Resolution threatens to justify local laws that already marginalize Christians."

Since 1999, the Organization of the Islamic Conference has annually sponsored a "defamation of religions" resolution in the U.N. Human Rights Council, and, since 2005, in the General Assembly.

The resolution adopted this past March by the U.N. Human Rights Council is currently non-binding, but OIC has publicly stated that its goal is for the U.N. to adopt a binding international covenant against the “defamation of religions.” Next month, a similar resolution will be considered for adoption by the General Assembly.

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King of Jordan & Obama try to con Israel

The King of Jordan and his Islamic appeasing buddy President Obama have concocted a plan to get Israel to give up a lot of land. In return the King has stated "We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms". Right King, the bullying Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is all of a sudden going to love Israel and forget that Islam calls for Muslims to kill Jews to reach judgement day. This whole thing is almost comical.

Jordan's king says U.S. pushing new plan for Mideast

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States is promoting a peace plan for the Middle East involving a "57-state solution" in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel, Monday's Times of London quoted Jordan's King Abdullah as saying.

"We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms," the king said. "The future is not the Jordan River or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize.

But he warned: "If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months."

The newspaper said the king had hatched the plan with President Barack Obama in Washington in April. Details are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month, including Obama's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington next week.

"What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese," said the king.

While Palestinians seek a state in their long-running conflict with Israel, Syria wants the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in a 1967 war. Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah fought a war in 2006.

"I think we're going to have to do a lot of shuttle diplomacy, get people to a table in the next couple of months to get a solution," Abdullah said.

ARAB INCENTIVES

The Times said that, after Obama's meeting with Netanyahu in Washington on May 18, the peace initiative could form the centerpiece of his major address to the Muslim world in Egypt on June 4.

"The critical juncture will be what comes out of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting," Abdullah said.

"If there is procrastination by Israel on the two-state solution or there is no clear American vision for how this is going to play out in 2009, then all the tremendous credibility that Obama has worldwide and in this region will evaporate overnight if nothing comes out in May."

The Times said that, as incentives to Israel to freeze the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Arab states may offer to let the Israeli airline El Al fly through Arab air space and grant visas for Israelis.

A White House spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the report.

The Obama administration backs the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of the solution to the Middle East conflict. Netanyahu has yet to endorse the idea.

Netanyahu has been vague in public about the scope of any future peace talks. His main right-wing and ultra-Orthodox coalition partners oppose negotiations on the so-called core issues -- the borders of a Palestinian state as well as the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party criticized then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to restart talks on core issues at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007.

The talks bogged down last year and broke off after Israel went to war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in late December.

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Islamic Bloc to Set Up its Own Human Rights Body

The powerful Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) which in the past had bullied the UN into banning all criticism of Islam in regards to human rights and is also attempting to get a UN resolution to ban the publication of blasphemous caricatures of Mohammad, is now planning to set up their own worldwide Islamic "human rights commission". What is allowed under Sharia law often contradicts Western human rights and make no mistake about it, this is a push to try and slowly implement Sharia law into the West. Please keep in mind that President Obama has invited the chief of the OIC to the White House.

Islamic Bloc Wants to Set Up its Own Human Rights Body
Monday, April 13, 2009
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor

(CNSNews.com) – A bloc of the world’s Islamic states, which has been accused of undermining human rights at the United Nations, is planning to establish its own “independent human rights commission.”

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the 57-nation bloc of Muslim nations at the U.N., held a conference Sunday at its headquarters in Saudi Arabia to discuss the plan.

OIC Secretary-General Eklemeddin Ihsanoglu in a speech stressed that “human rights and man’s dignity are an integral part of Islam and core components of Islamic culture and heritage,” according to an OIC statement.

International interest in the issue of human rights had grown exponentially over the past two decades, said Ihsanoglu, a Turkish academic. The complexity of the issue called for the need to refine the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights, he added, “in keeping with the current global human rights discourse.”

The 1990 declaration controversially states that all human rights and freedoms must be subject to Islamic law (shari’a), although senior Islamic leaders have over the years disputed the assertion that the Islamic document contradicts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The OIC statement did not elaborate on how the bloc envisaged that the Cairo Declaration would be “refined.”

Among the OIC’s more active members are countries where shari’a is imposed to varying degrees. Critics say the tenets of Islamic law often result in discriminatory treatment of women, religious minorities, and converts from Islam to other faiths.

Arguing that Islam and Muslims are increasingly under attack, the OIC has over the past decade sponsored a string of controversial “defamation of religion” resolutions at the U.N. General Assembly and at the world body’s human rights agencies, the Commission on Human Rights and its successor Human Rights Council.

Opponents of the campaign say it amounts to an attempt to place Islam and some of the more controversial practices associated with it above criticism – to protect a religion, rather than its adherents, from “defamation.”

In his speech, Ihsanoglu said establishing an OIC human rights commission would pave the way for intellectual and political reform in OIC member states.

He said it would contribute to promoting “tolerance and fundamental freedoms, good governance, the rule of law, accountability, openness, dialogue with other religions and civilizations, the rejection of extremism and fanaticism, and the strengthening of the sense of pride in the Islamic identity.”

Only 14 of the OIC’s 57 members qualify as “electoral democracies,” according to criteria applied by Freedom House. None are Arab states.

And of the 57, only six – Benin, Guyana, Indonesia, Mali, Senegal and Suriname – are deemed “free” according to Freedom House assessment. The democracy watchdog scores all nations annually for political rights and civil liberties, classifying them as either “free,” “partly free” or “not free.”

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