Last Friday, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva pushed through a controversial resolution prohibiting defaming religions, particularly Islam. (AP article here.) This resolution was primarily spearheaded by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) countries in response to the Jyllands-Posten cartoons controversy.

At this UN meeting in Geneva, the Jubilee Campaign issued an intervention (with thanks to a staffer of US Congressman Trent Franks) highlighting Kareem’s case an example of the dangerous precedent this resolution can lead to. The Becket Fund mentioned Kareem as well at the UN, and has published its condemnation of the defamation resolution.

While criticizing, mocking, and defaming faiths can be offensive to those who adhere to that faith, it contradicts our basic human right of free speech to deny anyone the right so express their opinions. Opinions are opinions and they do not harm anyone. Furthermore, there’s no opinion expressed by someone that does not offend at least one other person on the globe.

You can download the Jubilee Campaign’s statement here. (MS Word document).

You can download the Becket Fund’s statement here. (Adobe PDF).

Excerpt from the Jubilee Campaign’s statement:

Last month, a Muslim law student was sentenced to three years in prison for “insulting Islam.” In this case, the government justified the Court’s decision on the basis that freedom of expression can be limited in order to protect against the “defamation of religions”, namely Islam. This case is but one example of a pervasive problem with defamations laws. It exposes the critical need to clarify the difference between advocacy of religious intolerance which qualifies the state’s intervention under Article 20(2) of the ICCPR, and expressing opinions that may unintentionally offend the religious sensitivities of another. The Council needs to clarify that offending the religious sensitivities of another does not necessarily implicate advocacy of religious intolerance. If religious institutions are given precedence over individual rights to belief, all adherents become vulnerable to defaming religion.

Excerpt from the Becket Fund’s statement:

Just this past February, an Alexandria court sentenced Egyptian blogger “Kareem Amer” to three years in prison for “inciting hatred” of Islam. Free press groups have decried the sentence, but the Egyptian embassy in America published a letter in the Washington Post citing international law and Egyptian cultural values as justification for the sentence. See Letter from Kareem Haggag, Press Attaché, Embassy of Egypt, to the Editor, Washington Post (5 March 2007, Page A14). The letter emphasised that free speech is a value held dear in Egypt, but also justified specific limitations with regard to religion alone. The letter demonstrated that like all state censorship, Egypt’s is selective.

At the meeting, the OIC remarked:

There was a license apparently for anyone to attack Islam and Muslims. The Organization of the Islamic Conference hoped that the Human Rights Council would look at the resolution again to see how best the concerns of the OIC in this matter could be addressed.

The European Union voted against the resolution:

It was problematic to reconcile defamation with discrimination, as the two were of a different nature… The main focus should remain the rights and freedoms of individuals, and such an approach would be better for this resolution. International human rights law protected individuals in the exercise of their freedom of religion and belief, and not the religion itself.

So did Canada:

There was also concern that the protection of the religions themselves, rather than the protection of the adherents to the resolution, was the focus of the resolution.

Switzerland:

[I]t would have preferred that the resolution be against discrimination based on religion, and not defamation per se. Its unclear wording could lead to restrictions on the freedom of expression.

In his last blog post, Kareem himself said:

I hereby declare, in all frankness and clarity, my rejection and repudiation of any law, any legislation, and any regime that does not respect the individual’s rights and personal freedom, and does not acknowledge the absolute freedom of the individual in doing anything – as long as he does not affect anyone around him in a physical way –, and does not acknowledge the individuals’ absolute freedom in expressing their opinions, whatever they may be and whatever they cover, as long as this opinion is merely an opinion or words coming from a person, and is not coupled with any physical action that harms others.

We don’t agree with everything he wrote on his blog, but this is a statement we agree with. We invite anyone who disagrees with Kareem to join us in following Voltaire’s principle: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”