An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference) to combat “Islamophobia” may soon result in the delegitimization of freedom of expression as a human right.
The administration is taking the lead in an international effort to “implement” a U.N. resolution against religious “stereotyping,” specifically as applied to Islam. To be sure, it argues that the effort should not result in free-speech curbs. However, its partners in the collaboration, the 56 member states of the OIC, have no such qualms. Many of them police private speech through Islamic blasphemy laws and the OIC has long worked to see such codes applied universally. Under Muslim pressure, Western Europe now has laws against religious hate speech that serve as proxies for Islamic blasphemy codes.
Advertisement
Last March, U.S. diplomats maneuvered the adoption of Resolution 16/18 within the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC). Non-binding, this resolution, inter alia, expresses concern about religious “stereotyping” and “negative profiling” but does not limit free speech. It was intended to — and did — replace the OIC’s decidedly dangerous resolution against “defamation of religions,” which protected religious institutions instead of individual freedoms.
But thanks to a puzzling U.S. diplomatic initiative that was unveiled in July, Resolution 16/18 is poised to become a springboard for a greatly reinvigorated international effort to criminalize speech against Islam, the very thing it was designed to quash.
Citing a need to “move to implementation” of Resolution 16/18, the Obama administration has inexplicably decided to launch a major international effort against Islamophobia in partnership with the Saudi-based OIC. This is being voluntarily assumed at American expense, outside the U.N. framework, and is not required by the resolution itself.
On July 15, a few days after the Norway massacre, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton co-chaired an OIC session in Istanbul on religious intolerance. It was there that she announced the initiative, inviting the OIC member-states’ foreign ministers and representatives to the inaugural meeting of the effort that the U.S. government would host this fall in Washington. She envisions it as the first in a series of meetings to decide how best to implement Resolution 16/18.
In making the announcement, Clinton was firm in asserting that the U.S. does not want to see speech restrictions: “The resolution calls upon states to ‘counter offensive expression through education, interfaith dialogue, and public debate . . . but not to criminalize speech unless there is an incitement to imminent violence.’” (This is the First Amendment standard set forth in the 1969 Supreme Court case of Brandenburg v. Ohio.)
With the United States providing this new world stage for presenting grievances of “Islamophobia” against the West, the OIC rallied around the initiative as the propaganda windfall that it is. It promptly reasserted its demands for global blasphemy laws, once again sounding the call of its failed U.N. campaign for international laws against the so-called defamation of Islam. It has made plain its aim to use the upcoming conference to further pressure Western governments to regulate speech on behalf of Islam.
A travesty. It is direct violation of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the one article that this benighted institution had my support.
Apparently, the key is to make intolerance a religion and wage war against other religions and "non-religions" alike while claiming intolerance of your religion. Also, under no circumstance is it permissible for a President of the United States to specifically identify a single religion, say Catholicism or Baptist or Hinduism, and pledge his office to fight on its behalf.
I suppose it's expecting too much for this proposed action or resulting set of actions to result in the UN protecting Israel and condemning those that attack it? (Satircally rhetorical question, I assure you.)
"Ihsanoglu took a similar tack, writing that “the Islamic faith is based on tolerance and acceptance of other religions."
Ihasanoglu calculates that enough of us are ignorant enough that this howler of a line will work. What's scary is that he may calculate correctly.
He knows many Westerners are bigots who disdain and despise anyone who admits to knowing that Islam is hostile to non-Muslims. He knows how to stroke and stoke the sense of moral superiority they get out of being among those who consider themselves too enlightened to entertain the possibility that such a thing could be true.
Wow! Now tolerance is murderous bigotry and murderous bigotry is tolerance according to the U.N. and our own government. Should we change the Title of Orwell's "1984" to "2011"?
"OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was enthusiastic. He expressed concern that “anti-Islam and anti-Muslim attitudes and activities, known as Islamophobia, are increasingly finding place in the agenda of ultra-right wing political parties and civil societies in the West in their anti-immigrant and anti-multiculturalism policies,” and that “their views are being promoted under the banner of freedom of expression.”"
This would be laughable if the multi-culti left in the West didn't agree with this garbage. How are the majority Muslim states out there doing on tolerance and fair treatment of non-Muslims?
Of course the irony of this so-called "christian" president is his love of negative stereotyping of the very faith he (manifestly falsely) claims to hold, proving his gross hypocrisy as just another evil lying, muslim who re for satan who mounts and penetrates him daily. If God doesn't save us from this onslaught won't it be wild to see Hillary and Pelosi in burqas? One would hope such a thing would wake them up, but they're clearly too far gone for that.
Pelosi in a burqa would be a good start. I would like to see all unattractive liberal women in burqas. The rare attractive one can stay in normal clothes, but just not talk.
I wipe the beard of this UN Resolution on the sole of my shoe!
What drivel but it should be expected from this administration since Obama has stated that he "loved hearing the call to prayer" when he was a boy in Indonesia.
Why does the left insist on protecting Secularism and Islam, but refuses to defend (and even attacks) Christianity and Judaism?
Why can't the left comprehend that the Islamists' stated aim is to destroy the very secularism which it seeks to impose on the rest of us?
In plain language: the first heads on the Islamists' chopping block will be those of the useful idiots on the left! It's suicidal. The left's defense of a religious culture which hates them, at the expense of a religious culture which has tolerated and even allowed them to flourish, causes me to wonder about their collective intelligence. We know they lack wisdom and an understanding of human nature, but apparently they are lacking in gray matter, as well.
Secularism and Islam have a shared goal, the elimination of Christianity. This is why the Left sides with Islamists. They will worry about being wiped out later, after Christianity is gone, or so they figure.
Get involved with like-minds, and get involved in holding your local/state officals accountable. Let them hear some reason (vs. nonsense) and let them also know that YOU'RE watching them (from now on)! That will make a big difference and stop this garbage destroying our country!
So the religion that is tolerant and accepting of other religions has no problem killing christians or killing muslims that convert to other religions. And we are to pretend its not so and will be crimilized if we speak the truth about this. And our tax dollar supports this fantasy. La la la la
Are any of the Republican candidates going to have the guts to make an issue of this against Obama? Now is the time, before it is too late.
For Obama and the rest of his administration, we need a new descriptive term "Islamophilism"
Many of the Republicans have been compromised by the stealth jihadists' foreign money, especially in VA; don't count on them until house has been thoroughly vetted and cleaned. Better to rely on your fellow patriot citizens!
I've got an idea. What if we adopt this resolution against "Islamic hate speech" in return for the Muslim world, primarily the jihadists, adopting a resolution against killing and terrorizing non-Muslims? That would be a fair deal. Better yet, why don't we just disband the U.N. What a bunch of clowns.
