We are deeply concerned with the changes to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by a coalition of Islamic states within the United Nations that wishes to prohibit any criticism of religion and would thus protect Islam’s limited view of human rights.
In view of the conditions inside the Islamic Republic of Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Syria, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Afghanistan, we should expect that at the top of their human rights agenda would be to rectify the legal inequality of women, the suppression of political dissent, the curtailment of free expression, the persecution of ethnic minorities and religious dissenters—in short, protecting their citizens from egregious human rights violations. Instead, they are worrying about protecting Islam. What is truly shocking is the new human rights council (so called) has rallied “the international community” to its side.
Pushed by a political coalition of Islamic states called the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), each year since 2005 the United Nations General Assembly has passed resolutions combating “defamation of religions” that encourage U.N. member states to limit free expression out of respect for religious beliefs, particularly Islamic beliefs. Similar resolutions have been issued by the U.N. Human Rights Council since 1999. As we write this, the 63rd General Assembly has passed the resolution again, flying in the face of outcry from human rights advocates around the world.
This is a disaster for the credibility of the U.N. and, more important, for the lives of the citizens of Islamic states. As representatives of the Center for Inquiry argued before the Council in September 2008, these efforts to combat the defamation of religion are unnecessary and dangerous.
They are unnecessary because existing human rights instruments such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights already protect religious believers from speech that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence.
They are dangerous and deadly because they give legitimacy to the oppressive thought control perpetrated by autocratic governments and religious authorities. Islam does not need protection from Pervez Khambakhsh, the young journalism student sentenced to life in prison in Afghanistan for circulating an Internet article critical of the religion’s treatment of women. Pervez Khambakhsh needs protection from those who speak in Islam’s name.
The U.N. should be doing everything in its power to stamp out the criminalization of blasphemy and apostasy in Islamic states, not lending its moral authority to them.
One glimmer of hope is that democratic forces are beginning to fight back against the OIC’s terrible parody of human rights. The defamation-of-religions resolution garnered fewer lost votes this year than last, thanks in large part to opposition spearhead by the United States and a movement of nongovernmental organizations.
Still, the struggle is only entering a new chapter. The OIC has declared its intention to create its own charter of Islamically correct human rights that would be legally binding on signatory states. As indicated by the most recent report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism and an expert seminar conducted at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the debate appears to be shifting away from the concept of defamation to the concept of incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence, which is well-established in international law. On this principle, even speech respectfully critical of a religious teaching would be interpreted as an incitement to violence against its adherents.
We expect the OIC to attempt to expand the notion of incitement to cover incidents of criticism, satire, ridicule, and sacrilege against orthodoxy. Unfortunately, in this strategy they will have help from the jurisprudence of European human rights courts, which historically have ruled to protect Christian and Jewish sentiments from offense. It is only fair, it will be argued, that the same privilege be extended to all of the Abrahamic faiths.
It is therefore crucial that those of us committed to secularism say unequivocally that rights and privileges belong to persons, not beliefs, no matter what their denomination. Joining together with the courageous defenders of human rights in Islamic states, we must embolden our leaders to defeat the OIC’s political agenda at the United Nations and beyond.
These self-serving governments that cloak themselves in Muslim solidarity are desperate to beat down dissent because they know that their undemocratic edifices cannot withstand it. But sixty years after the first promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nothing can stop people everywhere from claiming the right to speak their minds. As the American poet Carl Sandburg wrote in his soaring ode to democracy, “The People, Yes”: “This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.”
To learn more about the Center for Inquiry’s campaign to restore the universality of human rights, visit www.centerforinquiry.net/UN.
Paul Kurtz is professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the chair of the Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism, and editor in chief of Free Inquiry. Tom Flynn is editor of Free Inquiry. Austin Dacey, PhD, is an associate editor of Free Inquiry and the Center for Inquiry’s representative to the United Nations.
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
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