Islam and Human Rights

The UN Human Rights Commission was created 60 years ago as a forum in which human rights abuse in any country could be exposed, and the abusers condemned. But by 2005 this dream had become a nightmare and had led to the abolition of the Commission which, in the words of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, had become “too political and selective in its work”. For several years the Islamic states at the Commission had refused to accept any condemnation of human rights abuse in their countries.

The problem dates back to the Iranian revolution of 1979. Shortly after the revolution the Islamic Republic of Iran described the 1948 Universal Declaration as “a Western secular concept of Judeo-Christian origin and thereby incompatible with the sacred Islamic shari’a”. An Iranian representative at the UN General Assembly stated: “.. my country will not hesitate to violate its provisions, since it has to choose between violating the divine law of the country and violating secular conventions.”

In 1990, after several years of debate, representatives of the Islamic states adopted the “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam”. It established shari’a law as “the only source of reference” for the protection of human rights in Islamic states, thus giving it supremacy over the UDHR.

The Cairo Declaration has been strongly criticized by many human rights experts as threatening the inter- cultural consensus on which the international human rights instruments were based; for introducing, in the name of the defence of human rights, discrimination against women and non-Muslims; and for legitimising practices which attack the integrity and dignity of the human being.

In 1994, a UN Special Rapporteur on the Sudan, Gaspar Biro, was accused of a “vicious attack on the religion of Islam” for suggesting that the government of the Sudan bring its legislation into accordance with international instruments to which it is a party.” His proposal was excised from his report and he was publicly threatened by the Sudanese Minister of Justice. Other Special Rapporteurs and NGO representatives have been variously accused of blasphemy, sacrilege and defamation of religion by daring to speak out against human rights abuse in Islamic states. The law of an Islamic country it is deemed an integral part of the Islamic faith, so to criticise any aspect of the law is an attack on Islam, “the most perfect religion”.

The Cairo Declaration received official UN recognition in 1997 when it was published in the UN’s Compilation of International Instruments. No-one has ever explained how such a distorted view of human rights ever received the UN seal of approval without a vote by the General Assembly.

Defamation of Islam?

In 1997, Special Rapporteur Maurice Glélé-Ahanhanzo from Benin reported that “Muslim extremists are turning increasingly to their own religious sources, first and foremost the Qur’an, as a primary anti-Jewish source.” He was accused of “defamation of our religion Islam and blasphemy against its Holy Book Qur’an.” The Commission then “Expressed its indignation and protest at the content of such an offensive reference to Islam and the Holy Qur’an”. For the next seven years the Special Rapporteur omitted from his reports any reference to anti-semitism in Arab countries, in Iran, and elsewhere in the Muslim world. Even quoting the Qu’ran is now considered blasphemy at the UN!

Many of these incidents are described in detail in the book “The Myth of Islamic Tolerance”, edited by Robert Spencer and published by Prometheus.

In 1998, the Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi called for a “revision of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Later the same year, the Geneva Office for Human Rights jointly hosted a seminar which affirmed the divine origin of the Sharia and its binding supremacy over all legislation or UN Declarations and Covenants. One observer asked: “Are we going toward a new Universal Declaration of Human Rights? .. this seminar could constitute support for political attitudes totally in contradiction with the founding principles of human rights.”

In 1999, the OIC began lobbying for the adoption of a Commission resolution against “Defamation of Islam”, citing “the emergence of a new manifestation of intolerance and misunderstanding and misconception of Islam and Muslim peoples” and because “It has already been claimed that Islamic scriptures incite Muslims to violence”. Yet “it was Islam which gave the world the first Charter of Human Rights in the Holy Qur’an”…

The same year, the Sudanese delegation managed to muzzle a charismatic African leader, the late Dr John Garang. He was twice stopped on a ‘point of order’ before he could ask this question:

“In 1992, the regime in Khartoum declared Jihad .. against the people of southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains. Since then, Jihad has been declared again and again. I ask this very important question: is the Jihad a religious right of those who declare and wage it? Or is it a violation of the human rights of the people against whom it is declared and waged?”

A day later the former Sudanese Prime Minister Al- Sadiq Al-Mahdi affirmed that “the traditional concept of Jihad does allow slavery as a by-product.”

Women and Non-believers

No mention was possible within the Commission of the restrictions that Islam places of the human rights of women and non-believers. To do so would be silenced as “defamation of religion”. A Sudanese delegate even privately justified the chopping off of hands for theft; the stoning of women accused of adultery on the grounds of the freedom of religion protected by article 18 of the UDHR!

Deferring to Islam

The extent to which the Human Rights Commission deferred to Islam can be judged from the 2002 statement of then High Commissioner Mary Robinson:

“No one can deny that at its core Islam is entirely consonant with the principles of fundamental human rights, including human dignity, tolerance, solidarity and quality”.

The rules of conduct imposed by the OIC and accepted by many States give the “representatives of Islam” an exceptional status at the UN that has no legal basis and no precedent. These rules give cause for grave apprehension. Will discussion about political issues within the Islamic States be prohibited at the new Human Rights Council? To do so would be in clear contravention of “the right to freedom of opinion and expression” enshrined in article 19 of the UDHR. But the signs are not good.

The ‘Danish Cartoon Affair’ has revealed just how powerful Islamism has become when the depiction of a prophet can cause greater outrage than televising the beheading of innocent hostages.

In February this year, the Secretary-General of the OIC stated: “It is the common sense that Islamophobic acts, which are also against the internationally promoted common values, can not and should not be condoned in the pretext of freedom of expression or press”.

In discussions leading up to the creation of the new Human Rights Council, the Islamic States then called for “governments to demand that the U.N. adopt a clear resolution or law that categorically prohibits affronts to prophets – to the prophets of the Lord and his Messengers, to His holy books, and to the religious holy places.”

The UN’s Inadequate Response

To increase the pressure on the UN, they even discussed the possibility of setting up a break-away organization. The OIC summit meeting in Mecca in December 2005: “called for considering the possibility of establishing an independent permanent body to promote human rights in Member States as well as the possibility in preparing an Islamic Charter on Human Rights in accordance with the provisions of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam and interact with the United Nations and other relevant international bodies.”

The response of the UN was to note in the preamble to the new Council charter that the news media and NGOs have “an important role to play” in promoting respect for religion. One can well imagine how this will be used in the Council to stifle discussion of human rights abuse by those who claim religious justification.

In almost the last act of the now defunct Human Rights Commission, the Special Rapporteur on racism, Doudou Diene, issued a report which even by the now tarnished standards of the Commission will stand as a model of partiality and bias. The report condemned the Danish cartoons but made no mention of the far worse anti-semitic cartoons which appear almost daily in the Arabic press; it (rightly) condemned abuse of Muslims but made no mention of any provocation by Muslims; it criticised the linking of Islam to terror – not by the terrorists who carry out their attacks in the name of Islam, but by those who report on these incidents! In the topsy-turvy world of the Commission, Islamic violence and extremism simply do not exist.

It is time for all who care about human rights to make it clear that the UDHR and its binding conventions are paramount; that Islamic law does not apply to non-Muslims; that Sharia law is unacceptable to free peoples in free countries; and that nothing can be allowed to stifle criticism of human rights abuse, wherever it may occur.

IHEU will continue to work with other NGOs in Geneva to try to ensure that the ideals enshrined in the UDHR are not completely lost in the swamp of submission to Islam, or any other religion.

Roy Brown is IHEU’s past President and Head of IHEU’s UN NGO Delegation at Geneva. He is also Chair of IHEU’s Committee for Growth and Development.