Human Rights at the United Nations has always been a battlefield, but with the creation of the new Human Rights Council in 2006, the enemy have consolidated their control of the high ground. Membership of the Council is heavily biased in favour of the Islamic States and their supporters. They make strange bedfellows. What is it that brings India into an alliance with Pakistan? And why would China and Cuba, archetypal atheist states, support theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia? The answer, sadly, is that by supporting one another each can ensure that their own abuse of human rights, however blatant, will never be censured or condemned by the Council.

The battle is raging on many fronts. The Council was supposed to be a new start, wiping clean the tarnished history of the old Commission for Human Rights, starting afresh with new rules and procedures. But the rules of procedure have themselves become part of the battle. UN Special investigators, or “Special Rapporteurs”, are now to be constrained by a code of conduct that will ensure that independent criticism of any state will more likely result in censure of the Special Rapporteur than of the state concerned. It is argued that the universal periodic reviews that will apply to every UN member state have eliminated the need for the investigation of individual complaints against states. It does not. And the last session of the Council in September adopted a resolution regarding the right to development. This may sound innocuous, but it was opposed by several Western states because lack of development was being held out by some states as an excuse for their failure to honour their commitments to human rights.

On 5 September the Netherlands Information Service announced that the EU would hand in to the new session of the Council a resolution that “emphasises the right to apostasy”. To our surprise, when the draft text was published as a resolution on “The Elimination of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief” we found that while it mentioned “Islamophobia”, “Christianophobia” and Anti-semitism, it made no mention of either non-believers or apostates. At an informal meeting to discuss the wording of the resolution I suggested that the resolution make specific reference to these two groups. The Egyptian, Pakistani and Russian delegates all objected – not to this idea, but to the principle that an NGO be permitted to propose changes to the wording. Any one of the 14 member states sponsoring the resolution could have picked up my suggestion, but none did. The final draft therefore made no reference to either apostates or non-believers. Yet surely the legal murder of apostates in some Islamic states is a far more grievous abuse of human rights than upsetting the sensibilities of Islamic extremists with a few cartoons. Despite this blatant example of pre-emptive cringe on the part of the European Union, the resolution still failed to attract sufficient support to bring it to the vote. Consideration has now been deferred until March 2008 at the earliest.

The Islamic states have been pressing for limitations to freedom of expression, particularly in the area of “defamation of religion” a concept they have chosen not to define. In the debate at the Human Rights Council on 13 September, I argued that, rightly understood, there is no conflict between religious freedom and freedom of expression. (See Box 1)

Meanwhile, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour was accused by the Islamic states of failing to take seriously her obligations set out in the 2006 Council resolution “Combating Defamation of Religions”. Although what precisely she could have done other than report on the reality is difficult to understand. Perhaps in an attempt to appease the Islamic states (sorry High Commissioner, it can’t be done!) Louise Arbour then went on record as saying that bigotry and prejudice, especially in regard to Muslims, were common in Europe, and called on governments to tackle the issue [1]. My immediate reaction to her statement – that she was “just plain wrong” – was widely reported. Her comment had been in response to a report by Doudou Diène, the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of Racism, that Islamophobia, which he defines as “baseless fear or hostility towards Islam”, was on the rise, particularly in Europe. I was finally able to present a more considered response to this report on 25 September in a joint statement on behalf of IHEU and three other NGOs (See Box 2). Diana Brown also presented a statement on behalf of World Population Foundation on the chilling effect that religious doctrine was having in the field of reproductive health and rights (See Box 3).

The strategy adopted by the Islamic states at the Human Rights Council and elsewhere, aided and abetted by the likes of Doudou Diène, is to attempt to equate criticism of religion, particularly Islam, with racism. Fortunately the European Union is not, so far at least, prepared to go along with it, although their opposition to the idea can at best be described as muted. The Portuguese delegate, speaking on behalf of the EU did, however, say that they “could not see any direct connection” between the disrespect for religion and racism.
There were, however, some particularly good statements from several non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism directly challenged the report of Doudou Diène.

To read that report, the Western democracies are the home of anti-Muslim racism, mosques are burning in Europe, and women wearing the veil are regularly attacked.

The league holds this assessment to be false: "data from independent organisations in no way corroborates these assertions".

The European Centre for Law and Justice argued:

Many supporters of the concept of defamation of religion have presented a conception [that] it is the religion and not the believer that merits the greatest attention and protection, and the standard of incitement becomes a purely subjective one, where the listener or object of the speech determines whether they are offended and whether incitement has occurred. This has even led at times to the dubious claim that speech has violated religious freedom, not because it has incited violence towards a targeted group, but because violence has resulted from the targeted group.

The NGOs may have won the argument but it will make little difference. The Human Rights Council has accepted that defamation of religion is a crime against human rights, and last December the UN General Assembly passed a similar resolution. The objective of these resolutions is to silence any criticism of human rights abuse justified by religious belief or practice.

Elsewhere the situation is not quite so bleak. As we reported in the last issue of International Humanist News, in June this year the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed two resolutions, one [2] calling on states to ensure that religious leaders take an unambiguous stand in favour of the precedence of human rights over any religious principle, and the other [3] that blasphemy should not be a criminal offence. Attempts to give religions special status within the Council of Europe have (for the time being at least) been set aside following strong interventions by IHEU delegates at conferences in San Marino and St Petersburg.

At the Warsaw meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in September, David Pollock, president of the European Humanist Federation, made a strong statement attacking religious privilege and in defence of free speech and Hanne Stinson of the British Humanist Association called for non-believers to be included in inter-faith dialogue.

And last but not least, following meetings with several Humanist and secular leaders, Asma Jahangir, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, devoted a substantial part of her report to the UN General Assembly [4] to the concerns of non-believers.

1 http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1789786020070917?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
2 http://assembly.coe.int/Mainf.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta07/EREC1804.htm
3 http://assembly.coe.int/Mainf.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta07/EREC1805.htm
4 http://www.iheu.org/node/2809

Roy Brown is IHEU representative at UN, Geneva, and past-President of IHEU

We wish to comment on the somewhat fraught interrelationship between religious freedom and freedom of expression.

In her report to the Council the High Commissioner for Human Rights rightly states that “Freedom of expression and freedom of religion walk together”.

Rightly understood, there is no conflict between freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief. All must be able to follow their consciences, express their beliefs and practise their religion, subject only to the constraint that in so doing they do not impede the right of others to do the same.

When dealing with issues that are this politically sensitive it is vital that terms are clearly defined. But sadly, for example, none of the repeated resolutions on combating defamation of religions sponsored by the OIC and adopted by the old Commission, by the Council and recently by the UN General Assembly, define what is meant by “defamation of religion”. This is a serious omission because we note with dismay that this lack of clarity is already being used in some quarters to stifle criticism of human rights abuse carried out in the name of religion.

A clear distinction must be drawn between, on the one hand, protecting the rights of believers, and on the other, attempting to protect ideas, beliefs and practices from legitimate criticism.

The report on Islamophobia by Mr Doudou Diène, the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism is seriously flawed in three important respects.

First, he fails to distinguish between Islamophobia, which he defines as “baseless hostility and fear vis-à-vis Islam”, and concerns regarding the rise of Islamic extremism.

Secondly, he fails to recognise differences that exist between the Islamic and modern European worldviews. Rather than dismissing Europe’s defence of its values, he should recognise that these values are neither intangible nor exclusively “European”. They include the dignity and autonomy of the individual, equality of the sexes, democracy, and human rights – the very rights that this Council ought to defend. That these differences exist, and are far from intangible, is evidenced by the OIC’s promotion of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam rather than the Universal Declaration.

Doudou Diène condemns as Islamophobic those whom he says portray Islamic values as “fundamentally opposed to those of Western civilisation”. Why does he ignore the increasing number of Islamic leaders who present Islam in precisely this way? It is not “Islamophobia” to oppose such views.

Thirdly, and in common with the OIC and its repeated calls to “combat defamation of religion”, he fails to distinguish between opposition to Islamic extremism and hostility towards Muslims. Opposition to Islamic extremism is both necessary and legitimate. Hostility towards Muslims is neither. To imply they are the same thing is to obscure an important step in understanding the problem.

The small but regrettable level of hostility towards Islam did not arise in a vacuum, but largely as a reaction to Islamic extremism. More and more European mosques are promoting hard-line Islamic ideology, including the demonisation of Jews, infidels and homosexuals, and contempt for Western culture and civilisation.

It is regrettable that Doudou Diène failed to address the contribution of Islamic extremism to the rise of religious confrontation in Europe.

We are deeply concerned by the possible negative impact of the repeated resolutions here, and in the UN General Assembly, “Combating Defamation of Religions”.

In our work of promoting reproductive health and rights we often find ourselves being opposed by religious leaders. In our programs for sex education for young people in Africa it is more often than not the churches who oppose us, believing that ignorance in matters of human reproduction is better than knowledge. In Africa, many campaigns for AIDS prevention have been cut back or replaced entirely by religiously-inspired and totally ineffective campaigns promoting abstinence only – in a continent where abstinence is simply not an option for many young girls. And we actually find church leaders telling lies about the efficacy of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

In March this year we presented to the Council a paper on the cruel practice of child marriage. In some countries we are told that this blight on the lives of young girls has divine sanction, and that to criticise it is tantamount to blasphemy – defamation of religion.

If States use the Council resolutions combating defamation of religions to justify legislation along similar lines, then there is clearly a grave danger that the effect will be to stifle opposition to religiously-sanctioned human rights abuse.

We would like to bring to the attention of the Council two recent recommendations by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, one of which [1] states unequivocally that human rights must take precedence over religious principles, and the second of which opposes any attempts to criminalise blasphemy [2] (or “defamation of religion”)

We believe that the Council resolutions combating defamation of religions are inappropriate and misguided. It is people that merit protection, not their beliefs.

It is the responsibility of this Council to defend the human rights of all, whoever may be opposed to them. It is surely not the responsibility of this Council to defend religions against the human rights of people.

PACE Recommendation 1804 (2007)
http://assembly.coe.int/Mainf.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta07/EREC1804.htm
2 PACE Recommendation 1805 (2007) http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta07/EREC1805.htm