On March 29, I scanned all the Indian newspapers to see if the amendment in the UN Human Rights Council to the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression got any mention. It was an idle hope. There was nothing. Not a word about this massive attack on human rights, one of the most significant and pernicious changes to human rights in modern times, a change moreover which negates almost all the progress made in human rights in the second half of the twentieth century.

In case it is supposed that human rights as an issue do not carry much weight in India, I decided to take a look at some American and British newspapers of that date. Lo and behold, there was not a single mention of the amendment in any of these. A decision that turns Freedom of Expression on its head, one of the most momentous rulings in the annals of the United Nations was not worth even a single paragraph in the most reputed journals of the world. Surely that’s a comment on what the media’s priorities are? Islamic newspapers routinely vilify the West while Indian and Western newspapers carry stories on Islamic jihad almost everyday. But an attack on the very foundation of human rights is completely ignored, as though freedom of expression can be treated casually. And yet the right to freedom of expression was hard-won. It evolved delicately through the ages, and at every step there have been obstacles to its survival. One of these is the blasphemy law which still exists on the statute books of many countries, including some in the West. It is even today used to torture otherwise law-abiding citizens and sometimes even kill them. In India, which lauds itself on its tolerance and pluralism, some states are yet trying to introduce a law against conversion to another religion, with the sole aim of victimising religious minorities.

In almost all countries that are taking tentative steps forward towards democracy, the most contentious right is the right to express oneself fearlessly. This right is mostly construed as a threat to the prevailing (dis)order, mainly because of its power to expose corruption and lies. True democracy can exist only when this right is allowed an unfettered existence. But the temptation to withdraw this right and then shackle one’s opponents is too strong to be overcome in most undemocratic setups. Torture, disappearances, detention, all these are the reward of those who dare to express dissent against some unfair policy of the state.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the last bulwark against all religious fanatics. It protects the rights of the minorities and guarantees to them freedom to speak out against injustice. Though not justiciable, nonetheless it forms the guiding principle for many human rights instruments in various countries across the world. Now a handful of countries, themselves undemocratic and barbarian in their approach to human rights, have managed to undermine the very foundations of the UDHR by bringing in an amendment to police Freedom of Expression, as though to protest against religious oppression is an insult to religion! It is a clever move for it ensures that the case to bring pressure upon these countries to become more democratic and less arbitrary is conclusively weakened. After all, if the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression is being forced to report on the abuse of the freedom rather than its suppression by the state, then the concerned state has now found a new weapon to victimise its interrogator.

This happened only because not enough people, not enough countries are convinced of the importance of this right. After all, the amendment was allowed to be passed in the Human Rights Council. There is a new danger in the world today, and that danger stems from the rise of religious revivalism. Secularism is increasingly veering towards the concept of equal respect for all religions, and not the separation of church from state. States, instead of firmly stamping down upon any tendency to bring in religion out of the strictly personal sphere, have become more and more tolerant of such acts. They perhaps believe, mistakenly, that tolerance of religion is a secular act. It is the exact opposite. When a woman is instructed by clerics to marry her father-in-law, who raped her, and treat her husband as her son, it is the state that needs to come to her rescue by rubbishing such an instruction and soundly punishing the rapist. If the judge then sends the rapist to prison against the injunction of an illiterate and immoderate cleric, will this be treated as an insult to Islam? On the other hand, is the state supposed to treat this as a religious matter and not intervene? Fortunately for the woman, Imrana, the Indian government chose to flex its secular muscle and send the rapist to prison. But a more ‘tolerant’ government might have treated this case as a matter of personal law and chosen to allow the cleric’s sentence to hold.

There is a case for respect of the ‘other’. There is, in fact, always a case for respect for the ‘other’ even without it being codified in such a crude manner. But there is a stronger case for the freedom of the individual to register protest, to act according to her conscience while respecting the secular law of the land. The women who marched in protest against the fundamentalist clerics of the Islamic seminary in the North Indian town of Deoband did not show disrespect to Islam when they decried the barbaric verdict. Or at least before 28th March 2008 they didn’t. Now who knows. The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression might have to record this as an ‘abuse’ of freedom of expression, and point it out to India. In that case will India, in future, suppress such forms of protest?

Clearly the amendment has opened a new chapter in the history of human rights, the chapter of their reversal. Equally clearly, nobody seems to care. In the new spirit of ‘tolerance’ and ‘pluralism’, extra points are being awarded for greater religious extremism. Surprisingly there is very little outcry against this kind of backdoor revival of intolerance. The media, even the liberal media, hasn’t bothered to raise its voice against such a crude attempt to crush dissent.

This is all the more reason why Humanists around the world need to raise their voice in all available forums against the malicious intent of some intolerant countries to give religion a special place in the language of rights. The media, particularly, need to be alerted to the manner in which Islamic countries are trying to take over the human rights agenda in a bid to crush it. Otherwise, very soon protesters will find themselves on the wrong side of the law and illiterate clerics will define what is right for people.

Sangeeta Mall is Editor, IHN