Islamic plan to criminalize Gospel message crumbling

By Bob Unruh

U.N. vote shows 'continuing pattern of growing opposition' to proposal

Support for a United Nations proposal that critics contend would be used to ban criticism of Islam, censor the message of Jesus Christ and attack and kill Christians and members of other faiths is plunging, according to the newest vote totals.

A resolution has been pending in one form or another since 1999 and originally was called "Defamation of Islam."

The name later was changed to "Defamation of Religions," but Islam remains the only faith protected by name in the proposal.

It is being sought by the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to "protect" Islam from what OIC members perceive as "criticism," which could include anything referencing Christianity since that could be considered a challenge to the beliefs of Muslims.

The latest vote on the nonbinding proposal came as the U.N. headed into the weekend, with 80 votes in favor of the proposal, 61 against and 42 abstentions. The results show support declining from the 86 yes votes a year ago and the 108 yes votes from two years ago.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, has been working to raise the world's awareness of the implications of the plan for several years. He's especially concerned that the ultimate goal appears to be a binding action by the U.N.

"For several years now, we have been working to oppose this resolution and this afront to religious freedom," he said in a blog posting shortly after the vote. 'During that time, we have seen a dramatic decline in support for this resolution.

He saw today's vote as "a very encouraging sign."

"What this tells us is that our message is getting through," he said. "A growing number of nations around the world understand that this resolution is unacceptable – that it is harmful, not helpful, to preserving religious liberty and freedom.

We will continue to work on this issue and to educate more nations about the dangers of this resolution and encourage them to vote against it."

Lindsay Vessey, advocacy director for Open Doors USA, an international Christian ministry operating in many Islamic states, previously told WND that U.N. human rights provisions always have focused on individuals, but the concept of protecting a religion would give authoritarian governments virtually unrestrained power to attack individuals whose message they don't like.

"It would legitimize national blasphemy laws in countries that are actually going to persecute religious minorities, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan," she said.

Open Doors President Carl Moeller recently published a commentary describing what could happen under the proposal.

"The United Nations is once again on the verge of introducing a resolution that goes against everything the world body supposedly stands for. A successful resolution would actually undermine the religious liberty and personal safety of Christians and members of other faiths," he wrote.

He contended the resolution would "silence words or actions that are deemed to be against a particular religion, and that religion is Islam. While the stated goal seems relatively innocuous – blocking defamation of people's deeply held religious beliefs – in practice the statement is used to silence those whose only crime is to believe in another faith, or no faith at all."

He said the OIC is the driving force behind the plan and noted, "The OIC's goal is anything but peaceful."

More at WND

Iranian Student Becomes Unlikely Hero for Criticizing Ayatollah

An unassuming college math student has become an unlikely hero to many in Iran for daring to criticize the country's most powerful man to his face.

Mahmoud Vahidnia has received an outpouring of support from government opponents for the challenge — unprecedented in a country where insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a crime punishable by prison.

Perhaps most surprising, the young math whiz has so far suffered no repercussions from the confrontation at a question-and-answer session between Khamenei and students at Tehran's Sharif Technical University.

In fact, Iran's clerical leadership appears to be touting the incident as a sign of its tolerance — so much so that some Iranians at first believed the 20-minute exchange was staged by the government, though opposition commentators are now convinced Vahidnia was the real thing.

Details of the encounter were reported on the state news agency IRNA and in a pro-government newspaper, Keyhan, which gave its account with a headline reading, "The revolutionary leader's fatherly response to critical youth." Even Khamenei's official Web site mentioned the incident.

Still some of those in attendance at the Oct. 28 forum say Khamenei appeared taken aback by the questioning and left the meeting early, according to commentary posted on pro-reform Web sites.

The session began with a speech in which Khamenei told the students the "biggest crime" was to question the results of the June 12 presidential election that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Khamenei himself declared Ahmadinejad the victor despite opposition claims of widespread fraud.

After the speech, Vahidnia raised his hand, then for 20 minutes he criticized the Iranian leader over the fierce crackdown on postelection protests, in which the opposition says 69 people were killed and thousands were arrested.

In brief excerpts broadcast on state TV, the thin, bespectacled Vahidnia was shown standing behind a podium, gesturing at times for emphasis.

"I don't know why in this country it's not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you," said the student, wearing a long-sleeved blue polo shirt and appearing calm.

"In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader," he said, referring to the clerical body that chooses the country's supreme leader.

Khamenei countered, "We welcome criticism. We never said not to criticize us. ... There's plenty of criticism that I receive," according to accounts in state media and on opposition Web sites.

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Source: FoxNews

Pat Condell: Wake up, America

Push to criminalise criticism of Islam

Christopher Hitchens | March 09

THE Muslim religion makes unusually large claims for itself. All religions do this, of course, in that they claim to know and to be able to interpret the wishes of a supreme being.

But Islam affirms itself as the last and final revelation of God's word, the consummation of all the mere glimpses of the truth vouchsafed to all the foregoing faiths, available by way of the unimprovable, immaculate text of "the recitation", or Koran.

If there sometimes seems to be something implicitly absolutist or even totalitarian in such claims, it may result not from a fundamentalist reading of the holy book but from the religion itself.

And it is the so-called mainstream Muslims, grouped in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, who are now demanding through the UN that Islam not only be allowed to make such absolutist claims, but that it be officially shielded from any criticism as a result.

Although written tongue-in-cheek in the language of human rights and of opposition to discrimination, the non-binding UN Resolution 62/154, on "combating defamation of religions", seeks to extend protection not to humans but to opinions and to ideas, granting only the latter immunity from being "offended".

The preamble is jam-packed with hypocrisies that are hardly even laughable, as in this delicious paragraph, stating that the UN General Assembly: "Underlining the importance of increasing contacts at all levels in order to deepen dialogue and reinforce understanding among different cultures, religions, beliefs and civilisations, and welcoming in this regard the Declaration and Program of Action adopted by the Ministerial Meeting on Human Rights and Cultural Diversity of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, held in Tehran on September 3 and 4, 2007."

Yes, I think we can see where we are going with that. The stipulations that follow this turgid preamble are even more tendentious, and become more so as the resolution unfolds.

For example, paragraph five "expresses its deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism", while paragraph six "notes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, 2001".

You see how the trick is pulled? In the same weeks this resolution comes up for its annual renewal at the UN, its chief sponsor-government (Pakistan) makes an agreement with the local Taliban forces to close girls' schools in the Swat Valley region (a mere 150km or so from the capital in Islamabad) and subject the inhabitants to sharia law.

And this capitulation comes in direct response to a campaign of horrific violence and intimidation, including public beheadings.

Yet the religion of those who carry out the campaign is not to be mentioned, lest it "associate" that faith with human rights violations or terrorism. In paragraph six, an obvious attempt is being made to confuse ethnicity with religious allegiance. Indeed this insinuation (incidentally dismissing the faith-based criminality of September 11 as merely tragic) is in fact essential to the entire scheme. If religion and race can be run together, then the condemnations that racism axiomatically attracts can be surreptitiously extended to religion, too.

This is clumsy, but it works: the useless and meaningless term Islamophobia, now widely used as a bludgeon of moral blackmail, is testimony to its success.

Just to be clear, a phobia is an irrational and unconquerable fear or dislike. However, some of us can explain with relative calm why we think faith is the most overrated of the virtues. (Don't be calling us phobic unless you want us to start whining that we have been offended.)

And this whole picture would be much less muddied and confused if the state of Pakistan, say, did not make the absurd and many-times discredited assertion that religion can be the basis of a nationality. It is such crude amalgamations -- is a Saudi or Pakistani being profiled because of his religion or his ethnicity? -- that are responsible for any overlap between religion and race. And it might help if the Muslim hadith did not prescribe the death penalty for anyone trying to abandon Islam; one could then be surer who was a sincere believer and who was not, or (as with the veil or the chador in the case of female adherents) who was a volunteer and who was being coerced by her family.

Rather than attempt to put its house in order or to confront such grave questions as the mass murder of Shia Muslims by Sunni Muslims (and vice versa), or the desecration of Muslim holy sites by Muslim gangsters, or the discrimination against Ahmadi Muslims by other Muslims, the UN resolution seeks to extend the whole area of denial from its existing homeland in the Islamic world into the heartland of post-enlightenment democracy, where it is still individuals who have rights, not religions.

See where the language of paragraph 10 of the resolution is taking us. Having briefly offered lip service to the rights of free expression, it goes on to say that "the exercise of these rights carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to limitations as are provided for by law and are necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals and respect for religions and beliefs."

The thought buried in this awful, wooden prose is as ugly as the language in which it is expressed: watch what you say, because our declared intention is to criminalise opinions that differ with the one true faith. Let nobody say that they have not been warned.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist with Slate.

Source: The Australian

Off the Table: The UN declares criticism of Islam haram.

By Joseph Klein

Islam was born as a religion spread through violence. There is a direct line from the prophet Muhammad to today’s Islamic terrorists, whose latest deadly attacks wreaked havoc in Mumbai, India. The ongoing effort in the United Nations and the politically correct media to disassociate Islam from terrorism is a sham.

Just days before the Mumbai attack, a United Nations Committee passed a resolution entitled “Combating Defamation of Religions”, which will be going to the General Assembly for approval in mid-December. It is one in a series of such resolutions pushed by the Organization of Islamic Conference. While ostensibly applying to all religions, it refers only to Islam by name. The text “expresses deep concern … that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.”

The New York Times’ lead news stories in the aftermath of the Mumbai massacre played right into the Organization of Islamic Conference’s campaign of obfuscation. It omitted the central fact that the terrorists who murdered more than 170 innocent people were fanatical Islamists. The Times referred to them simply in generic terms as “gunmen”, “attackers”, and “militants”.

The only hint of a Muslim connection to the terrorist acts reported in the New York Times’ lead article on November 28, 2008 was the recounting of a complaint from two of the attackers to local television stations about the treatment of Muslims in India and about hostilities in the disputed territory of Kashmir. The Times actually quoted one of these cold-hearted terrorists, who tried to play victim in justifying the carnage. Read more ...

Source: FrontPage MagazineUnited Nations
Latest recipients of The Dhimmi Award

Curbing Criticism With Defamation

By Supna Zaidi

The OIC wants a UN resolution to prevent defamation of Islam. Yet, one of its member nations proves yet again that it is simply a pretext to curb criticism of Islamic societies internationally.

The resolution, called "Combating Defamation of Religion," is sponsored by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). According to the text of an OIC proposal, the new UN body should state clearly that the "defamation of religions and prophets is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression" and that states, organizations and the media have a "responsibility in promoting tolerance and respect for religious and cultural values.

Malaysia arrested internet blogger, Raja Petra Kamarudin, for insulting Islam, though what he really did was criticize the Malay government. Petra published an article in Malaysia Today website accusing Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Razak, of involvement in the 2007 murder of a Mongolian woman. Mr Razak denies the charge.

The current Malaysian administration under Abdullah Badawi is being challenged not only by critics like Petra, but also Anwar Ibrahim, who is leading the politician. Ibrahim gained national attention after he was thrown in jail under alleged trumped of charges of sodomy and corruption almost a decade ago. He is back in the game, leading the opposition against the Badawi government.

Petra's was sentenced to two years detention under the Internal Security Act, which many critics argue is meant for terrorists, not legitimate critics of government and society. The Islamic Development Department (Jakim) director-general Datuk Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz has argued that the comments and criticisms throughout Petra's writings are reminiscent of "anti-Islamic" statements westerners usually make.

Thus, Petra must be an agent for the west in Malaysia, insulting Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and Muslims with impunity. Malaysia is not the only Muslim country that hides behind religion to attack individuals that they have a very secular "beef" with. Consider:

1. Pakistan repeatedly attacks non-Muslims, especially Christians with blasphemy. In reality many cases involve work, family, or neighborly feuds that have nothing to do with religion. See, here, here, and here.

So, what does the resolution to prevent Defamation against religion really mean to OIC members when blasphemy is used as a tool against political enemies who are Muslim themselves, like Petra? Moreover, what does such behavior suggest if blasphemy were a weapon Muslim nations could yield against non-Muslim nations? Already, we have seen the following encroachments on secular life in the west:

1. Sharia Finance;

2. Islam in public schools;

3. Violations of basic hygiene policy by Muslim medical staff;

4. Censorship of literature.

To debate any of the above, Islamists label dissenters bigots and racist, rather than address the concerns and respond on topic.

Unfortunately, instead of western nations taking a stand against the manipulation behind the OIC resolution, some countries are caving in. Norway, for example, passed anti-blasphemy laws in 2006 after the Dutch cartoon incident.

The Norwegian Penal Code states:

"Law 150-A, which has been approved by parliament, criminalizes blasphemy and clearly prohibits despising others or lampooning religions in any form of expression, including the use of photographs," Norway's Deputy Archbishop Oliva Howika told reporters after a meeting in Doha with Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

The United States, along with many European nations, are trying to defeat the resolution. Critics of the resolution correctly realize that it is meant to curb criticism of Islam though it permeates the economic, political and social life of 57 nations, and Islamist immigrants in the West.

Islamist immigrants are the real threat, and the OIC knows it. Instead of respecting and appreciating the various democratic institutions and values like tolerance and pluralism that many of their home countries lack, Islamists want Sharia.

Curbing criticism of such attempts is what the resolution against defamation of Religion attempts to do. Any challenges to unreasonable requests for religious accommodation by Islamists would now be considered discrimination, ignoring the significant difference between equal treatment under the law with special treatment of one faith over all others.

The resolution must fail. It is hypocritical considering how the 57 Muslim nations treat non-Muslims and even Muslim minorities in their own states. Moreover, it is a weapon to silence the spread of Islamism in the West by tying the hands of critics. Malaysia's Raja Petra Kamarudin is but one example of many victims of blasphemy laws in the Islamic world already. The resolution against the defamation of religion would make detentions' like his the norm and not news worthy if passed.

Source: Muslim World Today