 by M. A. KhanThe Swiss ban on mosque-top minarets on the ground of its being a symbol of political domination of Islam, an instrument incompatible with the secular Swiss society with strict separation between religion and state, has attracted widespread condemnations worldwide. Most of all, Switzerland is poised to be brought before the European or the U.N. Commission of Human Rights because the ban, if enforced, would constitute a violation of religious freedom of Muslims. Does the minaret ban constitute a violation of Muslims’ religious freedom? It may constitute such a violation, but only to a small measure, as their freedom of worship, including the freedom to build mosques, is not tampered with. The Minaret, religiously, is not a major component of Islam.
On the flipside, the Swiss ban may represent a backlash against the widespread Muslim violation of religious freedom -- even the right to life -- of non-Muslims. While the world has engaged in the intense condemnation of the Swiss minaret ban as a violation of Muslims’ religious freedom, hundreds, probably thousands, of non-Muslims across the Muslim world have been suffering intimidation and violence, even death, for simply being non-Muslim or trying to observe their religious rituals and rights in the most peaceful and submissive manner. Over the past weeks, while the Swiss minaret ban hysteria was going on, a 3,000-strong hysterical Muslim mob engaged in rioting in Egypt, attacking Christians and their businesses -- a frequent occurrence.
 Swiss nationals are voting on whether to ban the building of minarets on the country's mosques.Opinion polls before Sunday's refendum, back by the country largest political party - the right-wing Swiss People's Party - indicated that it would be defeated, but only by a small margin. About 400,000 Muslims live in Switzerland - whose population is just under eight million. Most Muslim citizens are immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey. Although Islam is the country's second largest religion after Christianity, there are only four mosques with minarets in the whole country. Supporters of the proposed ban say minarets represent the growth of an alien ideology and legal system that have no place in the Swiss democracy.
"Forced marriages and other things like cemeteries separating the pure and impure - we don't have that in Switzerland, and we do not want to introduce it," Ulrich Schlueer, Co-President of the Initiative Committee to ban minarets, said. "Therefore, there's no room for minarets in Switzerland."
But Switzerland's Muslims have said that the referendum is fuelling anti-Islamic feeling in the country.
"The initiators have achieved something everyone wanted to prevent, and that is to influence and change the relations to Muslims and their social integration in a negative way, Taner Hatipoglu, the president of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Zurich, said.
"We are frightened, and if the atmosphere continues to be like this and if the anti-Islamic hate increases, then the Muslims indeed will not feel safe anymore. This of course is very unpleasant."
Posters have appeared in many Swiss cities showing a dark, almost menacing figure of a woman, shrouded from head to foot in a black burka. Behind her is the Swiss flag, shaped like a map of the country, with black minarets shooting up out of it like missiles.
The cities of Basel, Lausanne and Fribourg banned the billboards, saying they painted a "racist, disrespectful and dangerous image" of Islam. The United Nations Human Rights Committee called the posters discriminatory and said Switzerland would violate international law if it bans minarets. There is also an online game, which has proved very popular, in which players can shoot down minarets as they rise up on the skylines of Switzerland's major cities.
Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from Bern, said that there was a political message behind Sunday's referendum. "The reality is, as was described to me by a Swiss resident who is not a Swiss citizen, this is the right-wing Swiss People's Party sending out a message to Muslims: 'Know your place in Switzerland'," he said. "They believe, the right-wing People's Party, that if the Muslims get their mosques and their minarets it will follow on that they will want, perhaps, separate schooling and there could be a campiaign to turn Switzerland, of all places, into a place that practices Sharia." Earlier in November, Muslim prayer rooms across Switzerland opened their doors to the public, in the hope of reassuring voters that they had nothing to fear from minarets.
The Swiss government and business leaders have opposed a minaret ban, saying it would be harmful to the country's image abroad and disastrous for the Swiss economy.
The Swiss People's Party forced the referendum after collecting 100,000 signatures within 18 months from eligible voters supporting the motion. Al Jazeera 
 By ELIANE ENGELER GENEVA — The campaign posters are inflammatory: Minarets rising like missiles from the national flag. A proposal championed by right-wing parties to ban minarets in Switzerland goes to a nationwide vote on Sunday in a referendum that has set off an emotional debate about national identity and stirred fears of boycotts and violent reactions from Muslim countries. With tensions running high, the Geneva Mosque was vandalized Thursday by unidentified individuals who threw a pot of pink paint at the building's entrance. It was the third incident against the mosque this month: earlier, a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating a muezzin's call to prayer, and vandals threw cobble stones at the building, damaging a mosaic. Business leaders say a minaret ban would be disastrous for the Swiss economy because it could drive away wealthy Muslims who bank in Switzerland, buy the country's luxury goods, and frequent its resorts. The vote taps into anxieties about Muslims that have been rippling through Europe in recent years, ranging from French fears of women in body veils to Dutch alarm over the murder by a Muslim fanatic of a filmmaker who made a documentary that criticized Islam. Polls indicate growing support for the proposal submitted by the anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party, but it was doubtful it will gain enough momentum to pass. Muslims in Switzerland have kept a low profile, refraining from a counter-campaign. "Switzerland's good reputation as an open, tolerant and secure country may be lost and this would bring a blow to tourism," said Swiss Hotel Association spokesman Thomas Allemann. The nationalist Swiss People's Party has led several campaigns against foreigners, including a proposal to kick out entire families of foreigners if one of their children breaks a law and a bid to subject citizenship applications to a popular vote. The party's controversial posters have shown three white sheep kicking out a black sheep and a swarm of brown hands grabbing Swiss passports from a box. The current campaign posters showing missile-like minarets atop the national flag and a fully veiled woman have drawn anger of local officials and rights defenders. The cities of Basel, Lausanne and Fribourg banned the billboards, saying they painted a "racist, disrespectful and dangerous image" of Islam. The U.N. Human Rights Committee called the posters discriminatory and said Switzerland would violate international law if it bans minarets. More at AP
 Obama just had the U.S. at the UN consponsor with Egypt a resolution against inciting religious hatred. But apparently his Secretary of State is not on board, or not completely on board. "Clinton Denounces Proposed 'Defamation of Religions' Policies," by Michelle A. Vu for the Christian Post, October 27 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced strong opposition Monday to proposed U.N. resolutions on "defamation of religions," saying that such policies would restrict free speech. In opening remarks for the release of the State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, Clinton said that while some claim so-called defamation of religions policies would help protect freedom of religion, she "strongly disagree[s]." "The United States will always seek to counter negative stereotypes of individuals based on their religion and will stand against discrimination and persecution," Clinton stated. "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 and religious discourse is important in a world with many different faith beliefs, asserted the high-ranking U.S. diplomat. Earlier this year, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted an anti-defamation draft resolution that human rights groups warn would protect a religion rather than adherents of religions. Leonard A. Leo, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, last week testified to Members of Congress that the only religion and religious adherents that are specifically mentioned in the "defamation" resolutions - this year's and past years - are Islam and Muslims. "Aside from Islam, the resolutions do not specify which religions are deserving of protection, or explain how or by whom this would be determined," Leo stated.... And "defamation of Islam," as we have seen so many times at Jihad Watch, means efforts to resist the jihad and Islamic supremacism -- as far as all too many Muslims are concerned. Source: JihadWatch
 Harold Evans Judge Goldstone has been suckered into letting war criminals use his name to pillory Israel Aren't the British sickened by the moral confusions of their government? First, we have the weasel words to justify the unjustifiable release of the Lockerbie bomber. Now we have the sickening spectacle of Britain failing to stand by Israel, the only democracy with an independent judiciary in the entire region. It was to be expected that the usual suspects of the risible UN human rights council would be eager to condemn Israel for war crimes in defending itself against Hamas. If you treat people as the Chinese do the Tibetans or Uighurs ("Off with their heads!"); or as the Russians eliminate Chechen dissidents; or as the Nigerians tolerate extrajudicial killings, the evictions of 800,000, rape and cruel treatment of prisoners; or as the Egyptians get prisoners to talk (torture) and the Saudis suppress half their population … well, go through the practices of all 25 states voting to refer Israel to the security council for the Gaza war, and you have to acknowledge they know a lot about the abuse of humans. Anything to divert attention from their own atrocities. Only six refused to join the farce – Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine and the US. Britain didn't just abstain. It shirked voting at all (along with those beacons of civilisation Angola, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, and surprisingly, France). Of course, here the fig leaf for being scared of dictators, especially oil-rich abusers, is the report by the South African judge Richard Goldstone. Poor Judge Goldstone now regrets how his good name has been used to single out Israel.
The Swiss paper Le Temps reports him complaining that "This draft [UN human rights council] resolution saddens me … there is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report. I hope the council can modify the text." Fat hope. The truth is he was suckered into lending his good name to a half-baked report – read its 575 pages and see. He said that, as a Jew himself, he was surprised to be invited. He shouldn't have been, and should never have accepted leadership of a commission whose terms of reference were designed to excuse the aggressor, Hamas, and punish the defender, Israel.
The council's decision was to "dispatch an urgent, independent, international fact-finding mission … to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and [it] calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully co-operate with the mission". Israel is not an "occupying power" in Gaza in either fact or international law. Four years ago it voluntarily pulled out all its soldiers and uprooted all its settlers.
Here was a wonderful chance for Gaza to be the building block of a Palestinian state, and for Hamas to do what the Israelis did – take a piece of land and build a model state. They didn't. Instead of helping the desperate Palestinians, they conducted a religious war. Read more here,,,, Source: The Guardian
 Even Judge Goldstone opposes the UN Human Rights Council's anti-Israel resolution.
"This draft resolution saddens me as it includes only allegations against Israel . . . There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report. I hope that the council can modify the text." So said none other than Judge Richard Goldstone himself to the Swiss Le Temps newspaper on Friday before the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution (without modifying the text) endorsing the Goldstone Report, clearing the way for discussion in the UN Security Council. The resolution also condemned Israeli activity in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank even though these were not part of the Goldstone remit. Was Goldstone so naive as to think that his report would not be turned into a political and legal weapon to use against Israel by the UNHRC? Commentator Robin Shepherd points out the obvious hypocrisy and depravity of the UNHRC's membership and those that voted for the resolution: Among the supporters of the resolution, the presence of so many despotisms as well as many others that are ranked by Freedom House as only "partly free" speaks for itself.
Countries ranked as "not free" by Freedom House in the group are: China, Cuba, Egypt, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Partly free countries in the group are: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Djibouti, Jordan, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Senegal, Zambia.
Of the 25 countries who voted against Israel 17 (68 %) are either outright despotisms or are seedy and corrupt pseudo-democracies. As UN Watch's Hillel Neuer states: The grossly imbalanced resolution grants Hamas terrorists the political victory they desperately crave.
Council members like Pakistan, China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia have won again with their strategy of focusing on Israel in order to hide the world's real abuses, especially their own.
With this being the council's 6th special session on Israel -- versus only 4 for the whole world combined -- it's tragic that once again politics is trumping human rights. Source: Honest Reporting
 BRITAIN was roundly criticised last night after opting out of a controversial United Nations vote that condemned Israel for war crimes.
Peter Gooderham, the British Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, blamed wrecking tactics by other countries for his failure even to abstain.
Britain had been involved in efforts to wrest last-ditch concessions from Israel amid warnings from Jerusalem that the resolution before the UN Human Rights Council would do irrevocable harm to the Middle East peace process.
Those efforts failed, and the Palestinian resolution, which endorsed the controversial Goldstone report into alleged war crimes in Gaza, passed overwhelmingly.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said that the Government, "by standing by", had helped to undermine peace efforts.
"This is no basis on which to proceed against a country defending itself against eight years of unrelenting rocket attacks, when even that essential contextual background was missing from the report," said the board, the main representative body for Jewish people in Britain.
Israel criticised the events in Geneva as "unjust" and a "diplomatic farce". Gordon Brown, who failed to convince Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, of the need for an investigation into the Gaza conflict in an acrimonious telephone call earlier this week, tried again in a series of frantic calls to Jerusalem yesterday (Friday) as the vote approached.
Britain has been planning to abstain over concerns that the resolution was unfairly biased against Israel, but was unwilling to risk weakening Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, by standing with Washington against it. But that position began to unravel yesterday (Friday) morning when it became apparent that other European members on the council, including Italy and the Netherlands were planning to vote against. That would leave Britain and France, looking exposed and out of step with the rest of Europe.
British officials said Mr Brown and President Sarkozy of France decided to offer their support to Mr Netanyahu if he would move on three concessions that they believed could help to rescue the peace process: a freeze on all settlement activity, an independent Israeli investigation and an immediate lifting of the blockade on Gaza.
Those last-minute efforts, however, were thwarted twice by Egypt, a co-sponsor of the resolution, which refused France's request for a two-hour deferral of the vote. France reiterated the demand, but Egypt refused again, forcing a vote before any concessions could be wrung from Israel. Britain and France therefore failed either to cast a vote or abstain.
"We were very disappointed by what happened," Peter Gooderham, the British Ambassador to the UN in Geneva told The Times, denouncing Egypt's wrecking move as "political".
The intense lobbying surrounding the vote showed the depth of concern over the report's unintended consequences for the future of Middle East peace. More than 1,000 people died in the Gaza conflict, the vast majority of them Palestinians. The report concluded that there were abuses by both sides, but also highlighted the use of phosphorous munitions by the Israelis which are banned in built up areas.
The US, which had lobbied Britain along with other European allies, to vote against, said it had tried but failed to get the Palestinians to reword their text to a form they could back.
Israel said the vote was "unjust" and a "diplomatic farce".
In remarks published in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps, Sir Richard said: "This draft resolution saddens me as it includes only allegations against Israel. There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas, as we have done in the report."
 BARACK Obama's attempts to resume Middle East peace talks looked doomed last night after a UN committee endorsed the Goldstone report into the Gaza conflict, which accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes. The UN Human Rights Council approved a Palestinian-backed resolution after two days of debate on the report, which it commissioned following the December 27 to January 18 conflict in which almost 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed. The resolution passed 25-6, with developing countries mostly in favour and the US and five European countries opposing. Eleven mostly European and African countries abstained, while Britain, France and three other members of the 47-nation body declined to vote. US diplomat Douglas M. Griffiths told the council Washington was disappointed with the vote. The US had wanted the report to stay in Geneva, and is likely to veto any action in the Security Council. The resolution - which also condemns recent Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories and East Jerusalem - endorses the report's recommendation that both sides in the conflict should show the Security Council within six months that they are carrying out credible investigations into the claims of abuse. Before the vote, Israel warned that any endorsement of the report would endanger the Middle East peace process. Israel engaged in an intense last-minute effort, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to stop the report's endorsement. Mr Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak telephoned world leaders to ask their countries to vote against the report. In one conversation, described as "robust", Mr Netanyahu was reportedly rebuffed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who told him Israel could avoid being criticised by the UN if it held its own independent inquiry. South African judge Richard Goldstone held an inquiry into the Gaza war, and his report said Israel and Hamas might be guilty of crimes against humanity. Last night's vote means the Goldstone report can now be passed to the UN General Assembly and possibly the International Criminal Court, where charges could be brought against Israeli politicians or military officials in charge of the war. Read more here,,,, Source: The Australian
 The UN Human Rights Council will hold a special session in Geneva, as requested by the Palestinian Authority, in which the Goldstone report is expected to be addressed, Al Jazeera has learnt. The session will begin on Thursday and is expected to last into the following day. The request by the Palestinian Authority (PA) is co-sponsored by the 18 member states of the human rights council. Those members are: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Senegal. The meeting will be the 12th special session of the council, following the Security Council's open debate on the Middle East expected in New York on Wednesday. The Palestinians have pressed for a vote on the report at the UN Human Rights Council, effectively a policy reverse by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, whose government had earlier agreed to delay the vote for six months. That decision, apparently made under US pressure, sparked sharp criticism and protests across Palestinian society. Should a vote takes place by the council, the matter could be referred to higher UN bodies that could, in theory, push for a war-crimes prosecution. The news of the UN special session comes a day after Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, lashed out against the Goldstone report, which criticises Israel for deliberately targeting civilians during its war on Gaza earlier this year. He called the report, compiled by a team led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, a "distorted report, written by this distorted committee". "This report encourages terrorism and threatens peace," he said, and announced that he would never allow any of the country's leaders or soldiers to be put on trial for war crimes. Read more here,,,, Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 GENEVA — Palestinian diplomats said Friday they will ensure a United Nations report on war crimes in Gaza "remains alive," despite agreeing to delay a vote in the U.N. Human Rights Council on passing the document to the General Assembly for further action. The investigation, led by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone, concluded in a 575-page report that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during their Dec. 27-Jan. 18 conflict in Gaza. The 47-nation rights council had been expected to pass a resolution this week that could have brought Israeli officials one step closer to prosecution at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It decided instead to delay a decision until March, after what officials described as "intense diplomacy" from the United States. Palestinian deputy ambassador Imad Zuhairi said Friday that the deferral was a result of his government's desire to build broad international support for action next year. "This is not a victory for Israel," Zuhairi told The Associated Press. "The report is there and we will ensure that the report remains alive." Washington and its close ally Israel have rejected the U.N. document as biased. Read more here,,,, Source: FoxNews
By Alan Dershowitz The UN Human Rights Council is a scandal. It's a successor to the defunct UN Human Rights Commission. Both organizations have a long history of singling out Israel for condemnation and of ignoring real human rights abusers by the world's worst offenders, several of which dominate the Human Rights Council and it predecessor. As Hudson Institute scholar Anne Bayefsky recently noted: "The Council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all the other 191 UN member states combined. The more time the Council spends demonizing Israel, the less likely it becomes that it will ever get around to condemning genocide in Sudan, female slavery in Saudi Arabia, or torture in Egypt." The very mandate that authorized the Gaza investigation reveals its bias against Israel. The council has already concluded, without any pretense an investigation, that Israel is guilty of "grave violations of human rights.due to its military attacks." It has also concluded that the Gaza Strip "remains occupied," despite Israel having ended its occupation and having removed every single soldier and settler in 2005. Moreover, the Council's current president has limited the scope of the investigation to "violations committed in the context of the conflict that took place between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009." Those are the dates of the Israeli response to more than seven years of rocket attacks by terrorists operating behind human shields in Gaza. During the period prior to 27 December 2008, Hamas and its terrorist allies fired thousands of rockets and mortar shells into civilian areas of Israel, killing, maiming and traumatizing Israeli women, men and children. But these attacks that provoked Israel's self-defense military actions, are excluded from the investigation, according to the mandate and its interpretation by the president of the council. It would be as if they UN convened an investigation of the United States and terrorism but limited the investigation only to actions taken after September 12, 2001. The very idea of the UN Council conducting an "independent" or objective investigation Israel is preposterous. It would be as if an all-white Mississippi court were investigating a black man's self-defense in response to years of lynchings by whites and limiting its investigation to the event following the lynchings. There is simply no way of an investigation conducted under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council and be fair. Its history of bias should not be legitimated by men and women of decency who care about real human rights. That is why it was so surprising and disturbing to see a good man like Richard Goldstone agree to head the investigation team appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Goldstone is a South African who fought against Apartheid and led an important investigation into the causes of violence there, ultimately blaming the government itself for instigating violence through a "third force." Read the rest here... Source: JP Blogs United Nations
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 By Jeffrey Imm The United Nations' Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has no problem with its members suggesting that the 9/11 attacks were an "inside job" perpetrated by the United States on itself. The human rights of America's 9/11 victims are not a priority for UNHRC's Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, who engages in 9/11 conspiracy propaganda, while working for an organization headquartered in New York City funded by U.S. tax dollars. This is Richard Falk's protected freedom of speech. Denying the role of Jihadists in the 9/11 attacks is apparently perfectly acceptable freedom of speech for the UNHRC, but criticizing Sharia law is another story. On June 16, 2008, UNHRC president Doru Romulus Costea announced that criticism of Sharia law will not be tolerated by the UNHRC, based on the complaints and pressure by Islamist delegates to the UNHRC. In effect, the Islamist nations represented at the UNHRC have effected a Jihad against freedom of speech at the United Nations when it comes to criticizing Sharia or Islamic supremacist (aka Islamist) theocratic ideologies that threaten the freedom and lives of innocents around the world. This again demonstrates the key imperative of control for Islamists - in this case in terms of controlling ideas, thoughts, and words of an international organization intended to promote human rights. Outgoing UNHRC Commissioner Louise Arbour subsequently raised concerns about debates on Sharia becoming "taboo" within the United Nations group, stating that it "should be, among other things, the guardian of freedom of expression." Read more ...Source: Counterterrorism BlogRichard Falk, Doru Romulus Costea & UNHRC
Latest recipients of The Dhimmi Award
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by M. A. Khan
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