NUTS! UN'S DEATH KNELL FOR FREE SPEECH

You have to ask yourself, what does the West stand for? What does the US stand for? If not free speech, than we are finished. We stand for nothing. "Defamation" or "insulting" a cult, a dogma whatever is entirely subjective and dangerous.

UN anti-blasphemy measures have sinister goals, observers say
Steven Edwards ,  Canwest News Service

UNITED NATIONS - Islamic countries Monday won United Nations backing for an anti-blasphemy measure Canada and other Western critics say risks being used to limit freedom of speech.

Combating Defamation of Religions passed 85-50 with 42 abstentions in a key UN General Assembly committee, and will enter into the international record after an expected rubber stamp by the plenary later in the year.

But while the draft's sponsors say it and earlier similar measures are aimed at preventing violence against worshippers regardless of religion, religious tolerance advocates warn the resolutions are being accumulated for a more sinister goal.

 

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."

Passage of the resolution is part of a 10-year action plan the 57-state Organization of Islamic Conference launched in 2005 to ensure "renaissance" of the "Muslim Ummah" or community.

"Renaissance"

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.

"Each time the resolution comes up, we get a measure of where the world is on this issue, and we see that the campaign has been ramped up," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.

While this year's draft is less Islam-centric that resolutions of earlier years, analysts note it is more emphatic in linking religion defamation and incitement to violence.

That "risks limiting a broad range of peaceful speech and expression," Neuer argues.

The 2008 draft "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."

It also laments "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

But Western democracies argue that a religion can't enjoy protection from criticism because that would require a judicial ruling that its teachings are the "truth."

"Defamation carries a particular legal meaning and application in domestic systems that makes the term wholly unsuitable in the context of religions," says the U.S. government in a response on the issue to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"A defamatory statement . . . is more than just an offensive one. It is also a statement that is false."

Comments

[miira]

The UN just provided the USA with the necessary impetus/incompatibility factor necessary to withdraw membership.

[TINBH]

This means synagogues, temples, cathedrals, etc. in Mekkka - right?

[Anonymous Infidel]

Miira:

I've long said that the UN is illegitimate.
This only confirms it more.

[seymoregray]

Is this where Obama got the "57 states" comment during his campaign?

Passage of the resolution is part of a 10-year action plan the 57-state Organization of Islamic Conference launched in 2005 to ensure "renaissance" of the "Muslim Ummah" or community.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws

Any comments?

[jj]

pamela:

the very obvious import of these united nations actions sponsored by islamic countries and member states, is that blog's like this, and people like you, and the other commenters at this post, and me, ... , will not be able to point out that while islamic mobs attack and destroy coptic christian churches in egypt, attack police in france and shoot at them, and beat up jews in france and belgium and the netherlands, ... , they also advance the goals of islam in the united states and elsewhere in the west under the guise of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, securing this concession and that right, bit by insidious bit.

see robert spencer's book, the stealth jihad.

to do so, of course, ... , to say anything negative of islam, or to reveal its political agenda of conquest of the west, ... , would be blasphemous.

when you couple this with the left's absolute determination to silence the conservative view, by crippling its spokesmen/&/women, ... , it is a most disturbing prospect that the leftist and the united nations working in league will completely destroy our voice, and will eliminate free speech as any kind of viable intellectual doctrine.

friends, may i remind you how the great rights of the great charter, the magna carta, were won? well, if you don't know, i will tell you.

by force of arms.

that is how. the barons and others of england forced the king to yield to these right at sword point.

by war, put plainly.

it is time that we consider this alternative, civil insurrection and violence, if necessary to protect our rights. this is how they were won. they will be lost by "peace and negotiation," unless we are jealous enough of our liberties to fight those who would take them.

simply put.

john jay
milton freewater, oregon usa