Freedom Of Speech Or Religious Intolerance

From the National Review comes this report about a United Nations initiative to create a framework for limiting any criticism of Islam.

An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference) to combat “Islamophobia” may soon result in the delegitimization of freedom of expression as a human right.

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But thanks to a puzzling U.S. diplomatic initiative that was unveiled in July, Resolution 16/18 is poised to become a springboard for a greatly reinvigorated international effort to criminalize speech against Islam, the very thing it was designed to quash.

Citing a need to “move to implementation” of Resolution 16/18, the Obama administration has inexplicably decided to launch a major international effort against Islamophobia in partnership with the Saudi-based OIC. This is being voluntarily assumed at American expense, outside the U.N. framework, and is not required by the resolution itself.

Will there be any reciprocity?  Will Muslim majority countries stop persecuting those of other faiths?  Will those countries pass laws to protect those that exercise their right to leave Islam, or even convert to another faith, instead of the current practice of prison...or worse?

Will the synagogues that used to exist before the re-creation of Isreal be rebuilt?  Will there the Saudis reform their education curriculum that teaches that polytheists are to be killed, that Christians are enemies, and that Islam should be spread via 'jihad'?

I'm not holding my breath.

This initiative is shaping up to be one-sided. As Akram said, “The Resolution 16/18 was driven more by the kind of discrimination in Europe and the West in general against Muslims.” He added: “I don’t think any country in the Muslim world is deliberately discriminating against minorities.” Ihsanoglu took a similar tack, writing that “the Islamic faith is based on tolerance and acceptance of other religions. It does not condone discrimination of human beings on the basis of caste, creed, color, or faith.”

To be clear, my position is that every person retains the individual right to be criticize every religion that exists, has existed, or ever will exist.  That right greatly supersedes the sensitivities of any religious community.

The UN is no friend of liberty.  It places freedom of speech in second place to the "purposes and principles" of global governance.

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.