Ad Hoc Committee Leaves Work Unfinished

UN Watch published, in their blog, links to two apparently recent proposals for the protocol to be added to ICERD by the Ad Hoc Cmte. for the Elaboration of Complementary Standards. [The pdf files contained scanned images, not text, so OCR was required. The format will not be an exact match and there may be errors I failed to spot. ] [Emphasis added.]

Provisions of these proposals are in dispute. It appears that the committee has been bogged down in procedural matters & disputes so that our freedom of expression may be safe for a few months at least, until their next session.

Proposals by Pakistan on behalf of OIC

1. State Parties States shall prohibit any propaganda, practice, or organisation aimed at justifying or encouraging any form of racial, ethnic, national and religious hatred or discrimination targeting people of particular groups, such as religious groups, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless individuals, migrants and migrant workers, communities based on descent, such as people of African descent, indigenous people, minorities and people under foreign occupation.

2. State Parties shall immediately undertake to adopt positive measures designed to eliminate all incitement to racial, ethnic, national and religious hatred or discrimination in and, to this end, shall commit themselves, inter alia:

1. to declare an offence punishable by law all dissemination of ideas aimed at racial, ethnic, national and religious discrimination or hatred, as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any particular group of persons;
2. to declare illegal and prohibit organizations, and also organized and all other propaganda activities, which encourage and incite racial hatred or discrimination, and shall declare participation in such organizations or activities as an offence punishable by law;
3. not to permit national or local public authorities incite racial, ethnic, national and religious hatred or discriininationg,
4. not to permit political parties incite racial, ethnic, national and religious hatred or discrimination. .
5. to strengthen their legislations or adopt necessary legal provisions to prohibit and suppress racist and xenophobic platforms and to discourage the integration of political parties who promote such platforms in govermnent alliances in order to legitimising the implementation of these platforms.

3. States Parties shall, in accordance with the human rights standards, declare illegal and to prohibit all organizations based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote national, racial and religious hatred and discrimination in any form.

4. States Parties shall promulgate, where they do not exist, a specific legislation prohibiting any propaganda for war and any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.

To decode the substance of the highlighted expressions, we must keep one linguistic abuse constantly in mind:

4. Emphasizes the urgent need to address the scourges of anti-Semitism, Christianophobia, and Islamophobia as contemporary forms of racism as well as racial and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas directed at African, Arab, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other communities;

That boilerplate from the Durban II Preliminary Document conflates criticism of Islam with racism. Consequently, references to racism in subsequent documents must be read more broadly.

What constitutes incitement to religious hatred? In effect, any negative expression regarding Islam. This fact becomes clear when we examine the documents behind previous resolutions: Fitna & the Danish Cartoons. The Secretary General made the matter abundantly clear.

Reuters quotes U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about Fitna:

“There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence,” Ban said in a statement. “The right of free expression is not at stake here.”

According to the Secretary General, a documentary juxtaposing verses from the Qur'an and the ravings of Imams with riots in the Arab street constitutes hate speech and incitement. Geert Wilders proved that the Qur'an inculcates hatred and preaching it incites violence. That is truth, not hate speech! The obvious intention and effect is to make all criticism of Islam a criminal offense.

ICCPR

Article 20

1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.

If Article 20 of ICCPR was enforced, the Qur'an would have to be outlawed as propaganda for war and advocacy of religious hatred inciting violence.

It is likely that the OIC's proposal will be included, along with boilerplate from previous resolutions, in the anticipated Defamation of Religions resolution. The Nigerian proposal differs: it omits provisions 3 & 4.

Compare the OIC's proposal to Article 4 of the Ad Hoc Cmte Draft Document. See also my analysis of the Pakistan/OIC submission made last spring.

Religious Freedom Report: Suicidal Orwellianism

Remarks on the Release of the 2009 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom
2009 Report on International Religious Freedom.

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
October 26, 2009

The right to profess, practice, and promote one’s religious beliefs is a founding principle of our nation.

It is the first liberty mentioned in our Bill of Rights, and it is a freedom guaranteed to all people in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Our founders made an understandable oversight, relying on the traditional acceptance of institutions popularly considered to be religions, perhaps because they did not anticipate the development of modern transportation with its resultant increase in immigration which brought Islam to the West.

Unfortunately, Islam does not fit the pattern for two reasons. First, it is a war cult, not a legitimate religion, being founded for a mercenary mission. Second, it is intolerant and violent, denying others the tolerance and respect it demands from them.

The practice of Islam involves Jihad, and Jihad involves terrorism & genocide. How can that be tolerated?

We commend Jordan’s role in initiating the common word dialogue...

The Common Word Between Us and You, a missive from the Ulema to Pope Benedict XVI, is a pious fraud. Christianity and Islam have nothing in common except what Islam plagiarized from Judaism & Christianity,

These important efforts build on the shared values and common concerns of faith communities to sow the seeds of lasting peace.

Christianity values life and peace. Islam values war and death. We have no shared values.

Now, some claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called anti-defamation policies that would restrict freedom of expression and the freedom of religion. I strongly disagree. The United States will always seek to counter negative stereotypes of individuals based on their religion and will stand against discrimination and persecution.

Anti-defamation policies have nothing to do with protecting freedom of religion. Their purpose is to protect Islam from truthful criticism. The OIC and their allies are complaining of and campaigning for the criminalization of "negative stereotyping of religions", particularly association of terrorism with Islam.

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 is particularly important since persons of different faiths will inevitably hold divergent views on religious questions. These differences should be met with tolerance, not with the suppression of discourse.

The proper practice of Islam involves warfare for the purpose of making it dominant. Islam perceives our freedom of expression as an impairment of their demonic duty to enforce Islamic law, which prescribes the death penalty for any negative expression about Allah, Muhammad and their doctrines & practices.

Based on our own experience, we are convinced that the best antidote to intolerance is not the defamation of religion’s approach of banning and punishing offensive speech, but rather, a combination of robust legal protections against discrimination and hate crimes, proactive government outreach to minority religious groups, and the vigorous defense of both freedom of religion and expression.

In its practical implementation, "proactive government outreach to minority religious groups" means appeasement of Islam.

So it is our hope that the International Religious Freedom Report will encourage existing religious freedom movements around the world and promote dialogue among governments and within societies on how best to accommodate religious communities and protect each individual’s right to believe or not believe, as that individual sees fit.

If the Secretary would read Sahih Bukhari 1.8.387, she might learn that only Muslims have rights. How can we have rights when our blood and property are not sacred to Muslims?


The secretary called on Assistant Secretary Michael Posner to elaborate further on the report

Briefing on the Release of the 2009 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom


Michael H. Posner
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

QUESTION: Can I ask – the Secretary was quite strong in her comments about the defamation laws that – U.S. opposition to – well, perhaps not defamation laws, but I think this refers to something at the Human Rights Council. Is that – that’s correct? Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? And I thought it was sufficiently watered down or defeated that – and that that met your concerns.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY POSNER: There are really two separate issues that have been raised and sometimes conflated at the United Nations. I was part of the delegation last month at the Human Rights Council, where we actually joined with Egypt in promoting a resolution on freedom of expression that did, in fact, meet our concerns. There was a debate in the context of that about how to deal with issues of defamation, and we agreed after much negotiation, much discussion, that there is a legitimate subject as to whether or not an individual, an individual of any particular faith, can be defamed and whether that kind of harassment or discrimination is to be condemned. It clearly is.

Assistant Secretary Posner wants us to believe that the concept of defamation was excluded from the recently passed Freedom of Opinion and Expression Resolution. Like most politicians, his words are deceptive. The concept is present, slightly disguised. [Emphasis added.]

6. Recognizes the positive contribution that the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, particularly by the media, including through information and communication technologies such as the Internet, and full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart information, can make to the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and to preventing human rights abuses, but expresses regret about the promotion by certain media of false images and negative stereotypes of vulnerable individuals or groups of individuals, and about the use of information and communication technologies such as the Internet for purposes contrary to respect for human rights, in particular the perpetration of violence against and exploitation and abuse of women and children and disseminating racist and xenophobic discourse or content;

"Related intolerance" is a code phrase for "Islamophobia", which is a code word for any negative expression about Islam, which is considered defamation. "false images and negative stereotypes" and "racist" are codes for criticism of Islam. If you have been reading my posts, you know that those codes refer to the Danish Cartoons and Fitna, the short video documentary by Geert Wilders. See You've Been Mooned for the proof.

There’s a second resolution that was promoted – that’s been promoted by the Islamic Conference at the UN, which is a broader defamation of religion resolution. It’s being debated, in fact, in one form right now. And it goes, we think, too far in restricting free speech – the notion that a religion can be defamed and that any comments that are negative about that religion can constitute a violation of human rights, to us, violates the core principle of free speech which is so central to us in our own system.

There is one little detail he does not tell us: that other forum is working on a protocol to ICERD, which will be enforcible international law, not a non-binding resolution. .

When asked about misogyny, whether it was of religious origin:

ASSISTANT SECRETARY POSNER: No, I reject that. I think the major religions of the world are all predicated based on assumptions of humanity and ethical behavior. The fact that people take a kind of extreme view and interpret religions in a way that promotes violence and discrimination, I think, is an aberration. That’s part of the purpose of this report. I think we are all mindful of the fact that people of deep faith throughout the world are driven by and motivated by their religious beliefs. We want to encourage that. And we want to discourage people who misuse that faith in a way that’s going to undermine basic human rights.

He thinks that all major religions are predicated on humanity and ethical behavior. He thinks that extremists interpret Islam in a way that promotes violence and discrimination, which are abberations. Does he actually know anything about Islam? I doubt it. In Islam, women are chatle property, literally fields to be plowed. Muslims have Allah's permission to beat their wives. Women are inferior in intelligence and religion.

Violence and discrimination are also intrinsic and foundational. Mr. Posner would know that if he had read Book O of Reliance of the Traveller.

Introduction

First, religious freedom is the birthright of all people, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. Enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments, the freedom to profess, practice, and propagate one's faith must be respected by all societies and governments. The United States takes this obligation seriously. "America will always stand," the President said in his Ramadan message to Muslims, "for the universal rights of all people to speak their mind, practice their religion, contribute fully to society, and have confidence in the rule of law."

There is an absolute right to profess, practice and propagate, regardless of the substance of the faith; its doctrines and practices. If the doctrines include supremacism & triumphalism and the practices include conquest, genocide & terrorism, that's ok with our Department of State. It ain't ok with me; is it with you? What they did in Beslan and are doing in Darfur is foundational to Islam. It is intrinsic and inseverable; impossible to reform. Who gives a damn? Certainly not our government.

Al-Anfal 39 commands warfare against pagans until resistance ceases and only Allah is worshiped on a global scale. Al Anfal 12 declares that Allah will cast terror and orders Muslims to decapitate their victims and cut off their fingers and toes. Al-Anfal 60 orders Muslims to build armies and stock up on weapons with which to terrify their enemies. Al-Anfal 67 informs us that while Moe wanted ransom money, Allah prefers great slaughter. At-Taubah 29 commands Muslims to make war on Christians & Jews until they are subjugated and extorted. Moe confirmed the order by declaring that he was ordered to fight with men until they became Muslims and that their blood and property were not sacred to Muslims until they did so. Those doctrines are foundational to Islam [3:7], can't be abandoned and can't be changed.

By expressing agreement with the false concept of an absolute right to Jihad, our Federal Government is engaging in civilizational suicide.
Executive Summary

`Multilateral, Global, and Regional Challenges to Religious Freedom

In addition to these country-by-country concerns, the wide spectrum of efforts to undermine the right to religious freedom extends to multilateral, regional, and global fora. For instance, over the past decade, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an inter-governmental organization comprising 57 states with majority or significant Muslim populations, has worked through the United Nations (UN) to advance the concept of "defamation of religions" by introducing annual resolutions on this subject at the UN Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly. While the United States deplores actions that exhibit disrespect for particular religious traditions, including Islam, we do not agree with the "defamation of religions" concept because it is inconsistent with the freedoms of religion and expression.

"While the United States deplores actions that exhibit disrespect for particular religious traditions, including Islam"; then the United States deplores this blog post. because it tells the truth about Islam. Since when is truth defamatory? What is wrong; deplorable about naming and shaming the enemy?

The United States understands the primary concern of the resolution to be the negative stereotyping of members of religious groups, particularly minority groups, and the contribution of such stereotypes to disrespect and discrimination. The United States shares concerns about the impact of negative stereotypes and believes that such stereotyping, particularly when promoted by community, religious, or government leaders, contributes to disrespect, discrimination, and in some cases, to violence. The United States, however, believes the best way for governments to address these issues is to develop robust legal regimes to address acts of discrimination and bias-inspired crime; to condemn hateful ideology and proactively reach out to all religious communities, especially minority groups; and to defend vigorously the rights of individuals to practice their religion freely and to exercise their freedom of expression.

"The United States shares concerns about the impact of negative stereotypes and believes that such stereotyping, particularly when promoted by community, religious, or government leaders, contributes to disrespect, discrimination, and in some cases, to violence." Jihad, genocide & terrorism are intrinsic sacraments of Islam. That is a fact, not stereotyping. The terror attacks at Beslan, London, Madrid & Washington D.C. were perpetrated by young Muslim Males who shouted "Allahhu Akbar" as they murdered innocent victims. Only a damn fool can tolerate the continued propagation of the damnable doctrines which motivated those men to murder for the promise of eternity in a celestial bordello.

"To condemn hateful ideology"? Why don't they condemn Islam? Don't they know that it curses us and declares perpetual war against us? Don't they know that it declares genocide as a prerequisite to Judgment Day, when they hope to gain admission to the celestial bordello?

"Proactively reach out to all religious communities, especially minority groups"; those are code words for appeasement. A lot of good that foolishness has done Israel in the last 60 years. Are these fools incapable of learning?

With their lips, our Department of State pays lip service to freedom of speech. With their pen, they co-authored a UNHRC resolution which erodes that freedom, while ignoring the composition of a protocol to ICERD which will criminalize all criticism of Islam, effectively nullifying our First Amendment.