The UN’s human-rights body approved a proposal by Muslims nations Thursday urging passage of laws around the world to protect religion from criticism.
The proposal put forward by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic countries – with the backing of Belarus and Venezuela – had drawn strong criticism from free-speech campaigners and liberal democracies.
A simple majority of 23 members of the 47-nation Human Rights Council voted in favor of the resolution. Eleven nations, mostly Western, opposed the resolution, and 13 countries abstained.
The resolution urges states to provide “protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general.”
“Defamation of religions is the cause that leads to incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence toward their followers,” Pakistan’s ambassador Zamir Akram said. (Heyyy, Zamir, so what about discrimination against non-Muslims in Islamic countries? Are they going to be protected against discrimination? No, right?)
“It is important to deal with the cause, rather than with the effects alone,” he said.
I had written before about this really worrying (at least for me) subject. It’s curious though: there are NO Spanish MSM which have published something about this, that I know of.
But you know what’s curious too? That the Organization for the Security and the Cooperation in Europe has alerted of the discrimination that Christians are suffering in Europe:
Last March 4th, for the 1st time in its history, the office of the Organization for the Security and the Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), for the Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), organised a debate in Vienna specially focused in the risks the right to religious liberty regarding Christians, experiment in Europe.
The intervention of Mario Mauro, VicePresident of the European Parliament, was the most interesting of all. He is also the personal representative of the OSCE Presidency against racism, xenophobia and discrimination. the MEP explained that the “examples show that that discriminations against Christians do not only exist in the countries where the Christians are a minority but also in those in which they are a majority of the population, not considering the persecutions that strike these communities outside the OSCE’s area”.
(…) But, why does the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) worry now about the abused rights of Christians? The answer was pointed out in the same debate, remembering that hate and intolerance do not only affect the people’s security but also to country’s stability. That’s why the Organization has decided lately to intensify the efforts to counter these discriminative cases more efficiently in the future.
It seems that Christians are mainly discriminated even in Christian countries. Something which is really worrying…
NOTE that they are NOT worried about the discrimination considerated as an unlawful and unethical fact, but because it can affect country’s stability. Specially in this economic crisis…
Anyway where are the riots? Where the enraged statements made by Governments about Christian persecution? Where the Pope’s statements calling for the murder of those insulting Catholicism/Orthodox/etc.? Where the cartoonists are obliged to live in hiding because they draw a cartoon mocking Jesus Christ or the Church (whatever Church it is)? So, now tell me who did all these things and what religion the belong to now, in this very same moment. Just in case someone begins speaking about “Christian extremism” or something like that…
An international tribunal set up to put on trial the suspected killers of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri is to hold its first session this Sunday in The Hague. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is opening its doors four years after al-Hariri and 22 others were killed in a suicide truck bombing in Beirut. It’s still not clear who will be indicted in connection with the assassination, but four pro-Syria generals are being held in custody in Lebanon. Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare will have 60 days from the opening of the tribunal to request the transfer of suspects and evidence from Lebanon. Syria has denied accusations that it might have been behind the murder.
It is curious they don’t mention at all Hizbullah’s being a part of Lebanese Government, something which is surely as bad for Lebanon as being under Syrian tutelage.
Blacksmith of Lebanon has the photo of the four generals arrested in connection with Hariri’s murder and also this article about the terrorist attack:
Assad never believed there would be a UN inquiry into Hariri’s murder and it was only after I revealed in the Independent that there would be, that an astonished President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt rushed to his presidential jet and flew to Syria to warn Assad that he might be in very hot water indeed. The first UN team was led by Irish Deputy Garda Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald, who discovered that the wreckage of Hariri’s six-car motorcade had ? incredibly ? been moved from the crime scene at midnight on the day of the killings and other materials not associated with the bomb placed in the massive crater. The man responsible for doing so was General Ali al-Hajj, director general of the (then Syrian-dominated) Lebanese Internal Security Forces and one of the four men now locked up in Roumieh awaiting his day in court. If there is a court.
Al-Hajj used to work for Hariri, as his bodyguard, but was removed from his personal retinue when Hariri discovered he was also working for Syrian intelligence. He actually ‘ had the nerve to turn up at the Hariri family palace in Beirut’s Koreitem district to offer his condolences on the day of the murder.
You also can read this post about the International Tribunal in charge of the process:
“Funding is important, but international support for the Special Tribunal is also important,” he said. “There will be additional needs in coming years. The UN Secretary General is attempting to secure support from other countries, and we secured a majority of the funds necessary for the first year. I received a warm welcome and aid from many member states of the UN.”
I hope they are not blackmailed with the budget. Or forbidden to say who killed Hariri to maintain “regional stability”, stability that doesn’t exist really in the area. And the lack of condemnation of the people who ordered the killing will only make them stronger:
Eight months later, a report to the UN about Hariri’s assassination outlined a conspiracy of remarkable breadth and complexity. It revealed that three months before Hariri’s death, his security detail had been mysteriously reduced from 40 to eight; that six anonymously purchased mobile phones were used on the day of the attack to keep the bomber informed of Hariri’s movements and to provide intelligence on the three possible routes that Hariri could take from the parliament building to his home; that the suicide truck moved into position one minute and 49 seconds before Hariri’s convoy passed by; and that the truck itself had been stolen on October 12, 2004, in Sagamihara City, Japan. The killers appeared to be sophisticated, politically connected, and well-funded: clearly this was not the work of a lone extremist or a fringe group. It bore the hallmarks of a government-sponsored assassination.
(…) The ramifications of the Hariri case will extend well beyond justice and jail sentences. Many observers believe that the commission has been building a case against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and his inner circle. Depending on how high up the charges go, the tribunal could have a major impact on the geostrategic map of the Middle East. An indictment of members of the Assad family and their closest allies, all members of Syria’s minority Alawite sect, could scuttle negotiations for a comprehensive peace deal between Syria and Israel. It could drive Assad further into the arms of Iran. It could even lead to a palace coup, or stir the country’s disenfranchised Sunni majority to revolt. “Imagine if the Syrian regime is proved to have planned and executed this assassination,” one Western diplomat with long experience in the region told me. “What will the Sunni majority in Syria think about a leadership that took out one of the major Sunni leaders of the Middle East?”
(…) Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, a Beirut-based think tank, went further: “Israel and the United States are not eager to see this regime collapse,” he told me from Qatar in mid-September. “They are afraid of the consequences.”
(…) As tensions between Syria and the U.S. increased, Hariri—along with Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze chieftain and one of Lebanon’s most powerful figures—allied himself with France and the United States, gambling successfully that the West would turn sharply against the Syrian regime and enable Lebanon to make a break. The Security Council resolution demanding Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon was an enormous blow to Assad. In Damascus, members of Assad’s inner circle began to worry not only about Hariri’s new course for Lebanon but about his reach inside Syria itself. “These guys saw Hariri as an immensely rich and powerful Sunni, and it exacerbated the paranoia of the minority regime,” says Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based British journalist and the author of Killing Mr. Lebanon, a book about Hariri’s murder.
Even if I don’t like the basis of Hitchens’ work, I must say I agree with him in this. Making free countries pass binding resolutions to condemn criticism of religion as if it were “blasphemy” (and even if it were) is just absolutely ridiculous and totally shameful. There is already a non-binding resolution that it already “urges” countries to pass this kind of legislation.
About UN: when are they going to end it? Will we need to wait till the Final Judgement?
The Female Artists’ Platform against the Gender’s Violence has reclaimed the consideration of Hamas as a “valid speaker” in the “fundamental” dialogue to get Middle East’s peace process back to order and remembered that the political party was elected by the Palestinian people “in a democratic way” in an “clear and transparent” elections, so they asked Spanish society to unite themselves to denounced the “genocide” that’s happened in the Gaza Strip.
The Platform’s President, singer Cristina del Valle, underlined the “importance” of the recent meeting thata Spanish represantative’s committee held with some exiled members of the Palestinian “resistence”. “We were the only country’s delegation which was there in those difficult moments”.
She also explained that a group of experts, artists, politicians and NGO’s representatives, among others, met last December with members of Al-Fatah, of the Islamic Jihad and of Hamas, who “treated them as friends”. “We held also for the first time contacts with women from the Jihad to transmit them the fight for their empowerment” because they are the “real rebuilders of life”.
“We also received a phone call from Moratinos stating his interest in the well-being of the delegation and in the rebuilding of the area”.
They have also stolen aid trucks for Gaza strip and weapons h/t DE:
Hamas has appropriated seven tons of weaponry and ammunition stored in UN warehouses in Gaza and intended to be destroyed by sappers, Israeli officials said Tuesday. Senior UN officials demanded the ordnance stockpile be returned immediately.
With the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead, Hamas and UN personnel amassed weapons and explosives – mainly unexploded tank shells – and moved them to a special warehouse guarded by Hamas security troops.
So, would you really consider this people as “valid speakers”, even if they had won an election?
The editor and publisher of an Indian newspaper have been arrested in Calcutta for “hurting the religious feelings” of Muslims.
Ravidra Kumar, editor of The Statesman, and the paper’s publisher, Anand Sinha, were both arrested after police received complaints that the top English-language Indian daily reprinted an article from the February 5th edition of The British Independent.
The article, entitled “Why should I respect these oppressive religions?” discussed the diminishing of the right to criticize religion.
Journalist Johann Hari, noted for his secularist views, writes that “a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia… issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within ‘the limits set by the Shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community.’”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that “a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people”. It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it “Western”, Robert Mugabe calls it “colonialist”, and Dick Cheney calls it “outdated”. The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now.
Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to “respect” the “unique sensitivities” of the religious, they decided – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within “the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community”.
In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists (who are of course, putting on suicide vests or beheading those who do not want to convert… ).
If, after all the discussion and all the facts about how contradictory and periodically vile their ‘holy’ texts are, religious people still choose fanatical faith, I passionately defend their right to articulate it. Free speech is for the stupid and the wicked and the wrong — whether it is fanatics or the racist Geert Wilders — just as much as for the rational and the right. All I say is that they do not have the right to force it on other people or silence the other side. In this respect, Wilders resembles the Islamists he professes to despise: he wants to ban the Koran. Fine. Let him make his argument. He discredits himself by speaking such ugly nonsense.
Wilders wants to ban the Koram because in the Netherlands ALL books which support hate are banished (remember Mein Kampf? It is banned in the Netherlands). So why some are and the Koram (which calls for the unbelievers killing and it’s trully judeophobe) isn’t? But hey, it’s much better to judge before one has read about the guy, isn’t it?
With such defenders of free speech, we are going down the drain…
Sudan has expelled a foreign journalist for reporting about the Darfur’s crisis and the weapons’ industry in the country, according to US diplomats, who added that the journalists, Heba Aly, has both Canadian and Egyptian citizenship.
Aly, who wrote for the US news agency Bloomberg, the on-line diary Christian Science Monitor and the US humanitarian news agency, IRIN, left the country last week. Ali told his colleagues that the people responsible of the Sudanese security service had contacted her and ordered her to abandon the country some days after she asked some questions about a weapons’ factory based in Khartoum.
Oh, but don’t worry… Sudanese Government is a truly good and humanitarian Government and specially its President, Al-Bashir . Even UN tried to back down their report about the crimes perpetrated by Sudanese Government in Darfur (ans specially his President, who was charged with genocide last summer by La Hague’s General Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo) for more than a decade, firstly against Black Christians and Animists and afterwards against Black Muslims in the area. Of course, if you consider the saying “Tell me who you are with and I will tell you who you are”, we can guess who Al-Bashir is considering that China supported him and “voiced concern about this accusations” (considering they could also be accused… ). And Al-Bashir has supported Hamas some days ago in Qatar’s meeting of Arab Heads of State, as we can see in this photo:
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, cente, attends the emergency Arab leaders summit on Gaza in Doha, Qatar, Friday, Jan. 16, 2009. Pro-U.S. Arab countries boycotted the gathering, fearing it will boost the Palestinian militant group. The Qatar summit underlined the deep divisions in the Middle East over the Gaza violence. Egypt and Saudi Arabia reportedly sought to dissuade other Arab countries from joining the gathering, raising accusations that they were trying to thwart a united Arab stance on Gaza. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Christian Science Monitor has written on the subject…
While she admits that she worked for her final month, January, without accreditation, she says it was only after she started pursuing a story about Sudan’s arms-manufacturing industry that she received a call from National Security agents requesting a meeting. At the meeting, the agents told her that she must leave Sudan by Monday.
“I was never given any written expulsion order, despite my repeated requests,” says Aly, who had been detained twice before during her year in Sudan. “I was simply harassed, and was counselled by someone in government that if I did not leave I would be arrested. I was followed, intimidated into leaving the country, and escorted by national security all the way onto the tarmac to board the airplane. The reason they gave me was that I was asking about arms. But they told me the line they would use publicly was that I didn’t have my work papers.”
The government of Sudan continues to insist that Aly’s expulsion is merely an immigration matter.
Hmm, and the CSM says Sudan has much more press freedom than other countries of the area. Imagine how are the rest…
Lies, lies and more lies… How considerate these fellows from National Security are, aren’t they?
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). And Al-Bashir has 
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