Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the eminent Turkish Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was recently welcomed in Europe, the U.S. and Australia.
However, this organization has an agenda to criminalize criticism of Islam, which threatens to strangle dissent and reform.
Established in 1969 and based in Saudi Arabia, the OIC represents 57 member states with sizeable Muslim populations, and wields considerable influence in the U.N.
Professor Ihsanoglu believes "no one has the right to insult another for their beliefs" but does it follow that insults should be criminalized?
Although the OIC does not define offensive speech, the policies and practices of member states are instructive. Muslims wishing to give up Islam are branded apostates, often with dire penalties. Ahmadis and Baha'is are persecuted as "insulters" of Islam. Saudi journalist Najeeb Kashgari was recently charged with apostasy following three tweets considered heretical by Saudi clerics. He fled the country, but was arrested in Malaysia on the way to New Zealand and extradited. Christian Egyptian Naguib Sawiris faces trial for insulting Islam, after tweeting images of a bearded Mickey Mouse and veiled Minnie Mouse.
In 2007, Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer was jailed for articles criticizing Al-Azhar university and calling then president Hosni Mubarak a dictator. He was sentenced to three years in prison for "contempt of religion" and one year for "defaming the President of Egypt." Liberal Egyptian theology professor Nasr Abu Zayd was declared an apostate and ordered to divorce his Muslim wife. Both fled to the Netherlands.
Since President Zia-ul-Haq instigated the death penalty for blasphemy in 1986, more than a thousand cases were registered in Pakistan. There were no authorized executions but Islamist vigilantes killed some of the accused. In January 2011, Salmaan Taseer, the Muslim governor of Punjab, was murdered by his bodyguard for opposing capital punishment for insulting Islam and also defending Christian Pakistani woman Asia Bibi against a blasphemy charge. Taseer's killer received widespread support. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Minorities Minister and a Christian, was killed in March 2011 for opposing the blasphemy laws.
Earlier attacks on free speech have included the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and the bloody riots associated with the Cartoon Intifada in 2005.
Since 1999, resolutions on defamation of religions have been introduced repeatedly on behalf of the OIC in the UN Human Rights Council, and from 2005, in the UN General Assembly. These were aimed at making criticism of Islam an international crime. Limitations on freedom of speech were already manifest in 1990, when the OIC adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which declared, in Article 22, that everyone had the right to free speech as long as it was not contrary to sharia (Islamic law).
The European Centre for Law and Justice and Women Living Under Muslim Laws have asserted that defamation of religion is an invalid concept according to international standards that protect individuals rather than religions and beliefs.
The concept is also contrary to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression."
In October 2008, The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe determined that the offence of blasphemy be eliminated, and insult to religious feelings not criminalized without incitement to hatred as an essential component.
Defamation was reworked as incitement to discrimination, at the U.N. World Conference against Racism (Durban II) in April 2009. In their 4th Annual Report on Islamophobia in April 2011, the OIC defined incitement by applying the "test of consequences," so that criminal liability only fell on the instigators and not on the responders. In this way, any perceived provocation, insult or "defamation" could be penalized on the grounds that it led to incitement.
The circular argument was ignored in December 2011, when a State department conference entitled "The Istanbul Process" adopted Resolution 16/18 of March 2011. The resolution, which combated discrimination and incitement to violence against individuals based on religion, was still compatible with the OIC's aim to criminalize criticism of Islam. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described it as a breakthrough for free expression and religious tolerance. The endorsement might have been instrumental in giving the Director General of the OIC a stamp of approval for a noncontroversial tour of the West, and the platform to launch a campaign against Islamophobia linked to criticism of Islam.
Pressure to criminalize criticism of Islam was observed in the U.K., with attempts, particularly by the Muslim Council of Britain, to include a clause on Incitement to Religious Hatred in the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, 2001, and again in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, 2005. Both were dropped after opposition in the House of Lords. The law would have made criticism or jokes about Islam illegal. The government reintroduced the clause as the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, 2005. This was amended in the Lords, opposed by the government in the Commons, but in January 2006, the amended clause was passed by one vote.
Several European countries, including France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands, have implemented laws to prosecute people for "vilifying" Islam. In a recent case, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, an Austrian activist, presented three lectures considered critical of Islam and was convicted of "denigrating religious symbols of a recognized religious group."
Restrictions to free speech could seriously impact Islamic reformers who campaign against gender discrimination. Secular feminist activists, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan and Taslima Nasreen, and practising Muslims like Shirin Ebadi and Raheel Raza have already suffered abuse and death threats.
In the Islamist sweep of the Arab Spring, the Middle East provides fertile ground for restrictions on free speech. Turkey is also becoming Islamized and journalists have experienced increasing intimidation and imprisonment for criticizing the government. Recently the European Court of Human Rights ruled against a Turkish court that had sentenced journalist Erbil Tusalp to pay compensation to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Tusalp had written two satirical articles deemed critical of the Prime Minister.
If the OIC were serious about combating discrimination based on religion, they could start with opposition to male guardianship of women, unilateral divorce, a woman's testimony counting for half that of a man's, stoning to death for adultery, lashing sentences for homosexuality and sex outside marriage, and growing persecution of Christian minorities in the Middle East.
A version of this article was originally published in The Australian.
Follow Ida Lichter, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/IdaLichter
Gary Hart: The Plight of Youcef Nadarkhani
PAY ATTENTION...don't allow freedoms to be taken away. If Islam is truly "perfect," why can't it tolerate criticism?
Why, then, isn't is a crime to 'vilify' Christianity, but it's not. Islam teaches hate against Jews & Christians in the qur'an & hadith, yet Islam isn't banned or imams & Muslims arrested for repeating these hateful things. Why?
Why should Islam & Islamists get special rights? But that is what they are demanting everywhere while they vilify, demean, blaspheme & offend non-Muslims with impunity in the West & in all Muslim occupied lands. Something isn't right here.
Regarding Holocaust denial and free speech, you could argue it should not be criminalized on grounds of freedom of speech. However, Holocaust denial is based on demonstrable falsehood, so the motivation of a holocaust denier becomes suspect. Similarly, someone who denies slavery existed or was not as bad as generally presented, might be suspected of being an apologist for slavery.
when you pledge your oath to America and if Jan and Abdul Karim are corect when they state you have to say you renounce all other sovereignty To a Muslim this is an act of Shirk (Blaspheme) the only sin God will not forgive as he is willing to forgive everything else.
God is al malik the Soverign
God is Al Akbar the greatest none is above him including Barack Obama.
God is al Hukum the law maker his law is the supreme law.
As a French nobleman put it -
My soul belongs to God, my loyalty to the King, but my honour is my own.
In America, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. If you can't accept that, it is a poor choice to move here. If you put another law first or try to replace the Constitution with some other law, that is seditious or even treasonous and should be dealt with as sedition or treason.
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The OIC also declares that allegiance to the Umma transcends the oath of citizenship:
"Speech 0f His Excellency Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General 0f the Organisation 0f the Islamic conference, at Columbia University
Date: 21/09/2008
[…]
The Muslim Ummah, means the “community of the faithful”. It is a unique bond that has no similar example under any other political or religious system in the world. It is a belonging to ideals which bring Muslims together in an eternal brotherhood lock which transcends all other consideration of allegiance or loyalties or barriers of nationhood, ethnicity, geography or language."
http://www.oic-oci.org/topic_detail.asp?t_id=1419&x_key=
The US oath of naturalization:
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic;...
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=facd6db8d7e37210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=dd7ffe9dd4aa3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD
One person cannot honestly maintain allegiance to Sharia law and American law simultaneously. A choice must be made.
We already know that some American Muslim citizens have lied when speaking their citizenship oaths--Shahzad said as much in his Times Square bomb trial.
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Who should I believe, you or the Secretary General of the OIC?
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Well, he's absolutely wrong, at least from the perspective of the West. In the West, no one has the right to claim to be insulted for their beliefs. It's understood that people's beliefs, if made public, are then subject to scrutiny and even mockery.
To mock and to sneer, to point fingers and giggle is the right of the Westerner. Anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to stay home.
November 2007 in Sudan, following complaints from parents and colleagues, fifty-four year-old British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons was arrested on charges of blasphemy. Her crime was allowing her class of 7-year-old primary school pupils, at Unity High School in Khartoumto, to name a teddy bear 'Muhammad.' She was officially charged with "insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs." Ironically on the 30th of November, as Gibbons appealed for non-Muslim tolerance towards Muslims, ten thousand Muslim protesters took to the streets, many waving swords, machetes, and clubs, demanding Gibbons's execution after imams across the city denounced her actions during Jumu'ah (Friday prayers), some even calling for violence. During the march, protester chanted "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance: execution", "Kill her, kill her by firing squad" Western journalists were harassed, and newspapers bearing her photographs were burnt. Hundreds of riot police were deployed, but they did not attempt to stop the protest. Due to fears for her safety, she was then moved to a secret location. The Sudanese Assembly of the Ulemas, which is made up of some of Sudan's top clerics, called for a harsh punishment, "What has happened was not haphazard or carried out of ignorance, but rather a calculated action and another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam," Thankfully, following the outrage in the UK, she was spared flogging or a long sentence.
I would also add to the list aliaa magda elmahdy, girlfriend of kareem amer and egyptian blogger who recently had to flee egypt (along with kareem) after she posted nude protest pictures. As well as kacem el ghazzali, a moroccan blogger who had to also live in hiding and then eventually flee his country after his atheism was made public.
http://www.truechristianityevangelism.org/koranhell.html
http://www.truechristianityevangelism.org/hell.html
http://www.eurasiareview.com/20032012-the-worlds-worst-religious-persecutors-oped/
This year, Uscirf named 16 countries as the most egregious and systematic religious freedom violators in the world and recommended them for official “Country of Concern” (CPC) designation by the U.S. State Department. They are: Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, (north) Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
Persecution is intensifying now in the Muslim world, as documented throughout the Uscirf report.
Christians are far from the only religious group persecuted in these countries. But, Christians are the only group persecuted in each and every one of them.
In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of just such attacks on churches in Egypt, Iraq, and Nigeria. Nigeria’s Catholic bishops report that some 200 individuals, mostly Catholic worshippers, were killed in coordinated Christmas bombings in 2011. In Iraq, there have been 70 documented church bombings over the past eight years.
The distinction between legitimate criticism and defamation or insult is not that difficult to make.
If someone can take a fact, teaching or practice from a given group practicing Islam, including which group or groups within Islam specifically support that fact, teaching or practice, and then rationally state one's criticism of that fact, teaching or practice --- that's legitimate criticism, in my opinion.
Insult, fabrication and defamation is not the same as criticism -- obviously.
Being American, I tend to come down solidly on the side of free speech --- I'm just saying that I don't know that everyone is as far apart on all this as it may seem.
If some non-Muslims want the right to exaggerate, fabricate, insult and defame ... you probably can't reasonably expect that most Muslims (or non-Muslims) will ever agree that that's fine.
Alternately, though: for those who may be genuinely interested in criticizing given teachings or practices advocated by some Muslims or Muslim groups -- you may well find that Muslims in general are more amenable to rational, fact-based criticism than you might currently believe.
Many Muslims actually seem a lot more open to true intellectual criticism and related discussion than many Christians do.
F & F.
Oh Doug, where can you be? We are all waiting for an answer.
Bukhari Volume 3, Book 34, Number 432:
Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri:
Females taken captive and raped with Muhammad's approval. In this case it is evident that the Muslims intend on selling the women after raping them because they are concerned about devaluing their price by impregnating them. Muhammad is asked about coitus interrupts.
"that while he was sitting with Allah's Apostle he said, "O Allah's Apostle! We get female captives as our share of booty, and we are interested in their prices, what is your opinion about coitus interrupt us?" The Prophet said, "Do you really do that? It is better for you not to do it. No soul that which Allah has destined to exist, but will surely come into existence."
( Imam Bukhari, (196-256AH / 810-870AD), was a Sunni Islamic scholar of Persia.[3][4] He authored the hadith collection named Sahih Bukhari, a collection which Sunni Muslims regard as the most authentic of all hadith compilations.)