Islamic Society
Religious bigotry and the UN
By Peter Jacob
The United Nations Human Rights Council in its 13th Session passed a resolution called ‘Combating Defamation of Religions’ in Geneva on March 25, 2010. Interestingly, this was not the first occasion a UN body had gone about this exercise, it was rather the 12th time. The Resolution on Defamation of Religions had been tabled every year since 1999 and was hence called an ‘annual exercise’: at the UN Commission on Human Rights seven times, by the UN General Assembly three times and a couple of times at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), the recent induction to the UN human rights system that replaced the Commission on Human Rights in 2006.
In the midst of international concern and a massive debate around the concept of defamation of beliefs and ideas versus the rights of human beings, and whether religious discrimination could be linked to racial discrimination, the support for the Resolution on Defamation of Religions has been dwindling in the UN bodies. While it garnered 101 votes at the UN General Assembly in 2005, the resolution got 86 votes in favour in 2008 and just 80 votes in 2009.
The latest victory of the resolution was with a low margin in the UN Human Rights Council this March. In the house of 47, the resolution got the support of 24 countries in 2007 whereas in 2010 it had only 20 on its side. Minus the support of Russia, China and Cuba, who often want to champion the cause of the Third World, the next resolution might be hard to get through. The trend in the General Assembly showed diminishing support with more countries abstaining, while in the Human Rights Council countries like Brazil, South Korea and Japan seem to have exhausted whatever goodwill they attached to this resolution earlier and moved to vote against it in the past couple of years.
In the midst of international concern and a massive debate around the concept of defamation of beliefs and ideas versus the rights of human beings, and whether religious discrimination could be linked to racial discrimination, the support for the Resolution on Defamation of Religions has been dwindling in the UN bodies. While it garnered 101 votes at the UN General Assembly in 2005, the resolution got 86 votes in favour in 2008 and just 80 votes in 2009.
The latest victory of the resolution was with a low margin in the UN Human Rights Council this March. In the house of 47, the resolution got the support of 24 countries in 2007 whereas in 2010 it had only 20 on its side. Minus the support of Russia, China and Cuba, who often want to champion the cause of the Third World, the next resolution might be hard to get through. The trend in the General Assembly showed diminishing support with more countries abstaining, while in the Human Rights Council countries like Brazil, South Korea and Japan seem to have exhausted whatever goodwill they attached to this resolution earlier and moved to vote against it in the past couple of years.
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5:18 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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