Another UN Resolution

Is this the UN General Assembly?


On November 24, the UN General Assembly added to its legacy of uselessness with the infamous "Defamation of Religion" measure. The vote was 85 in favor, 50 against with 42 abstentions. The draft measure, which sounds great on the surface, calls on all nations to alter their legal and constitutional systems to ban "defamation of all religions". The problem is that the measure only refers to one religion being "defamed". That, of course, is Islam, which, according to the UN, "is frequently and wrongfully associated with human rights violations and terrorism." (like Mumbai, perhaps?)

The measure, which was sponsored by Muslim nations with the support of Belarus and Venezuela, has drawn protests from various human rights and legal groups. It seeks to force nations (including ours) to crack down on any criticism of Islam and any speech that links Islam to acts of terror. That is the intent. In reality, the UN and the sponsors of this resolution could care less about anyone criticizing Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism or Judaism (which to the UN of course is part of the whole racist problem anyway-they call it "Zionism".)

You might ask which nations voted for this resolution. Well, to begin with, the Islamic nations all voted in favor. Virtually all of the Western European nations abstained-being the moral cowards that they are. Most Latin American nations abstained with the notable exception of America's greatest Latin American ally, Colombia, which voted against. The US, Australia and Canada all voted against.

So what is the intent in this resolution by the UN? To silence those who speak out against Islamic terror, of course, but how specifically? What this means is that all free nations would turn their constitutions and laws upside down and prohibit any "defamation of Islam". Danish cartoons? Illegal. Geert Wilders' film about Islam entitled "Fitna"? Illegal. How about international arrest warrants issued for Wilders and the Danish cartoonist and his publishers?

You laugh.

Already, judges in places like Syria have issued arrest warrants for Danish cartoonists. Dutch authorities have been diplomatically requested to file charges against Wilders for blasphemy against Islam.

What about talk radio commentators who are already referred to by the left as "Hate Radio" and are threatened by the Fairness Doctrine that the Democrats in Congress want to impose? What about conservative bloggers, especially those who regularly write about the outrages of international terrorism, correctly identifying its perpetrators?

What about me?

Actually, I consider my language to be much more temperate than many when it comes to this issue. I doubt, however, that I could convince the talk police at the UN of my sincere intentions.

Have you heard the term, creeping Shariah? (you can even link from here to a blog by that name). That is precisely what this is. It is directed at the West-those nations like ours which defend freedom of speech-even when it is offensive.

I myself have spoken out many times about defamation of the Jewish religion and pointed out that the speakers are invariably Muslim speakers sponsored by the Muslim Student Union at the University of California at Irvine. I have never, however, called for the speakers to be arrested. What I have called for is that the leadership of the university follow up anti-Semitic hate speech with their own condemnation of such speech. I have also called for hate merchants to be re-directed from the university to a local park soapbox to conduct their discourse.

But for the UN to try and pass an international law aimed directly at those who speak out against Islamic terror and try to get free nations to throw out free speech altogether is just another concrete example of why the United States has no business being in this organization.