But it is still very high. "OIC Slams 'Demonic' Portrayal of Islam, But Support for Religious 'Defamation' Measures Continues to Erode," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, December 21:
(CNSNews.com) - An Islamic-led campaign against religious "defamation" has taken another blow the United Nations, where support among member states has dropped to a new low amid escalating concerns that defamation resolutions endanger non-Muslims in Islamic societies and harm freedom of expression.While much of the world's attention was focused on Copenhagen late last week, the U.N. General Assembly passed a range of human rights-related resolutions. For critics of the world body and its Human Rights Council, the results were mixed.
The latest in a string of religious defamation resolutions considered by the General Assembly and human rights bodies over the past decade saw more countries than ever oppose the measure.
The resolution passed by 80 votes to 61 against, with 42 countries abstaining. The result is the worst ever for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member states and their allies, many of them not free democracies. It marks a continuing decline since 2007, when in the wake of the Mohammed newspaper cartoon furor a similar resolution passed by a vote of 108-51, with 25 abstentions.
Not only has the number of countries opposing the move climbed (see graph), but several member states in the developing world have moved from supporting the resolutions to abstaining.
Ten countries in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific moved from abstaining in 2008 to opposing the OIC resolution this year - Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Panama, St. Lucia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Vanuatu, Nauru and Tonga.
Another five states which supported the resolution last year abstained this time - Honduras, Jamaica, Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda and Lesotho.
Moving in the other direction, Liberia, Cape Verde and Belize abstained this year, having opposed the OIC resolution in 2008; and Congo moved from abstaining last year, to supporting the resolution this time.
The OIC argues that Islam and its teachings, symbols and prophetic figures are being denigrated by non-Muslims as a result of ignorance, fear and prejudice.
But critics charge that the OIC is trying to shield Islam, Islamic practices and clerics from legitimate examination, noting that it is in some Islamic countries themselves that non-Muslim beliefs and activities are proscribed....
Although the resolutions are non-binding, they are taking place in conjunction with a separate OIC-led push to have an existing, legally-binding anti-racism treaty, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), amended to cover speech deemed as religiously defamatory.
In a letter written to member states ahead of the vote, Angela Wu, international law director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty - a leading opponent of the resolutions - argued that the measures "provide international support for domestic blasphemy laws that have been used by oppressive regimes to silence, rather than protect, vulnerable minorities and dissenters."
Wu contested the very concept of religious defamation, saying the human rights law systems is meant to protect individuals, not ideas or religions.
Yep.
The Orthodox Patriarch, Bartholomew, was on 60 Minutes last night. His controlled anguish at the Turkish government's policy, the death-of-a-thousand-cuts, and especially at the closing of the single seminary in Turkey for the training of Orthodox priests, which will have consequences for only a Greek from Turkey, it seems, can become Patriarch, and if none are trained....
Had the O.I.C. had its way, no doubt even this program about the Orthodox church and the Patriarch would have never been filmed or broadcast, as tending to bring into disrepute, and encouraging hostility towards, a Muslim government acting according to the precepts of, or perhaps better demonstrating the attitudes and atmospherics of, Islam.
The behavior of the Erdogan government in never explaining its cruelties, large and small, never replying to the Patriarch's dignified inquiries, is consonant with everything else that government does. But it is not motiveless malignity. The motive, the prompting, comes from the texts and tenets of Islam. When Islam was held i check, when those who agreed with the Kemalist program held power in Turkey, things were better. But Islam didn't disappear, and it is back, with a vengeance, in Turkey, and elsewhere, where the OPEC trillions have given Muslims world-wide a sense of power, and Muslim migrant millions, within the countries of the West, have provided what looks at this point like a classic fifth column. Those trillions appear able to buy everything, armaments, every kind of goods and services, "respect" from Western governments, and armies of Western hirelings ready to defend and protect Islam, and its votaries, from scrutiny by non-Muslims. And those millions of Muslim migrants show every sign of not integrating, not accepting the ways of their host countries, but attempting to conduct aggressive campaigns to demand special accommodation, and in so doing to change the very nature of the societies that have generously allowed them in, societies fashioned of, by, and for non-Muslims, and beyond the art, the science, the music, the literature of those societies, based on an idea of man, a solicitude for the individual, quite foreign to the extreme collectivism of Islam, with loyalty owed only to Islam itself, and to fellow members of the Umma.
These Mahoundians in the UN won't give up...as long as the UN wields political power the UN will support Islam...The UN should be stripped of it's military and political departments and only be concerned with real humanitarian aid...What started out as someones good idea has morphed into a monster...
The UN has become a rotting pit of corruption...it was destined from the beginning to do that...When you give power to despots, that's what you get...The US should get out of the UN, and the UN should get out of America...
The OIC argues that Islam and its teachings, symbols and prophetic figures are being denigrated by non-Muslims as a result of ignorance, fear and prejudice.
No, no, no... It's quite the opposite. As Hugh has pointed out several times, the behavior and attitudes of mahoundians everywhere, and the never-ending news of carnage and massacres carried out by mahound-worshippers have made more and more people, especially those living in parts of the world where mahoundianism hasn't laid everything to waste (due to the fact that it hasn't managed to dominate those places as it does dominate the barren wastelands of Dar al-Mahoundistan), learn the hard truth about mahound-worshipping by reading Mein Qurampf, the Hadith and the Sira on their own... Without any islamophilic filtering/whitewashing by the mainstream media, without falling for the lies peddled by the likes of most of the West's political elite; or by fat weasels like CNN's Octavia Nasr, who would have us all believe that "mahoundianism means peace", and that "sharia is not barbaric and medieval, but rather 'fluid', 'flexible' and very capable of adapting to modern times", despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary in places like Somalia, Opensewerabia, Afghanistan and Porkistan.
The time of ignorance is coming to an end... But the end is not to what mahoundians consider ignorance, or jahilliyya; which is, in their view, a factor responsible for making infidels reject the "gift of mahoundianism"; no, the time of letting those lying weasels of the OIC and the mainstream media get away with fooling people about mahoundianism's inherently destructive and intolerant true nature is what is running out of time. The time of ignorance of the threat posed by mahoundianism to human rights (especially religious freedom, equality for all before the law, women's rights and gay rights), democracy, the sciences and the arts in the civilized West is truly what is approaching its last days.
But....but.......but...........Mohammed was an individual! What about his rights! He had the right to kill kuffars, rape their wives and sell their children into slavery! How can you protect other individuals rights and ignore those of the "perfect" man! This is unseemly!
Abdullah Bhullah, the world's wackiest mullah and master of the Hidden Cave!
And one more thing on "ignorance, fear and prejudice"... As even mahound-loving, anti-semitic Jean Ziegler has acknowledged regarding the Swiss ban on minarets, to mention that brave example of a Western victory against mahound's imaginary alter-ego's worshippers, there was nothing ignorant, prejudiced or fearful in the Swiss vote, but quite the opposite, the extreme opposite. People interviewed on the streets by the Swiss TV station SF1 said that their vote for the ban was meant to take their country away from the path of sharia-fueled cultural suicide and freedom for "true mahoundianism" to blossom taken by Sweden, the Netherlands, France and the UK. Moreover, the way Swiss women tilted the vote in favor of the ban shows that their awareness of what was at stake is more evidence of that; this couldn't have been any more clearly evident than in the following words, “If we give them a minaret, they’ll have us all wearing burqas,” said Julia Werner, a local housewife. “Before you know it, we’ll have sharia law and women being stoned to death in our streets. We won’t be Swiss any more.”
Hugh mentions the CBS 60 Minutes Program, The Patriarch Bartholomew above, which can now be viewed online.
... amid escalating concerns that defamation resolutions endanger non-Muslims in Islamic societies and harm freedom of expression.
This is a carefully written sentence. The words escalating concerns implies that there is a possible outcome other than endangering non-Moslems and harming freedom of expression, and that such an impossible alternate outcome is possible.
*** 33:36 ***
This facade, this massive global fiction, that Islam and its Moslems can be looked at and handled like everybody else will come to a head one of these days, probably sooner than later, and probably involving a thermonuclear moment either on the subcontinent or in a city in North America or Western Europe.
*** 87:10 ***
My, my it's supremely ironic that as the West eases into the long slumber of secular humanism, the Moslems are charging at us with the Religion From Hell, waving that awful book, their eyes bulging like they've gulped way too much dark roast Starbucks coffee.
hopefully more people are realizing that this socalled religion insults the best of humanity and despoils the countryside, especially when Shaira is imposed, enforced and extolled.
The time of ignorance is coming to an end... But the end is not to what mahoundians consider ignorance, or jahilliyya; which is, in their view, a factor responsible for making infidels reject the "gift of mahoundianism"; no, the time of letting those lying weasels of the OIC and the mainstream media get away with fooling people about mahoundianism's inherently destructive and intolerant true nature is what is running out of time. The time of ignorance of the threat posed by mahoundianism to human rights (especially religious freedom, equality for all before the law, women's rights and gay rights), democracy, the sciences and the arts in the civilized West is truly what is approaching its last days.
So true, the truth will out. More and more people, ordinary moms and pops, and their parents, are reading and understanding more of what Islamic dominations within is all about, and they don't like it. They see it on their streets and markets, women covered up following behind their men; they see the loud and aggressive true believers on major city streets, blocking traffic, making threats, calling for the "death of..." at every (peaceful) demonstration; and they see it in watching their daughters and grand-daughters treated with sexual disrespect and disdain, even raped, by these followers of their evil Mahomedan creed. They fear leaving their pad at night, for they can be accosted in their neighborhood by the "peaceful ones", and beaten to a pulp. And they talk, to each other comparing stories, taking notes, and slowly despite the best efforts of their social "elites" to massage the message to paint the invaders in their best light, it all comes up darkly, because the Mohamedans are what they are. The truth cannot be occulted forever, eventually reasonable and intelligent people, voters, do understand how the civilized world had been invaded by a primitive medievalism, a cruel barbarism that threatens to eventually engulf that same civilization that so graciously allowed them to migrate in. It has to stop, people are talking, and voting, and it is only a matter of time for the growing monster in western society to be radically excised. They know, because as Proud_Kafir says, the "time of ignorance is coming to an end".
... this socalled religion insults the best of humanity and despoils the countryside...
Having had the misfortune to travel to a couple of countries in Dar al-Islam, I was immediately struck by the very low hygiene. Litter laying all over the place, the use of gutters as garbage dumps, public defecation, rancid odors wafting about, you name it.
*** Bukhari Vol 1 Bk 4 Nbr 149 ***
For a people who're always bragging about how clean and pure they are, Moslems sure run filthy cities and towns. One of the many ironies from those people.
Expose Islam to the light of day and even many of the ordinarily dense will begin to grasp just how repressive (and touchy) Mohammedanism is. That's what's going on here but there is still much work to do. But that Islam can't eventually help revealing what it's really about is a given. Still, though, we're in the early years of Islam's ultimate discrediting in the eyes of the world at large.
One can only hope that yourself and Proud_Kafir are correct. Myself and my friends stand ready for the excorsism.
"The OIC argues that Islam and its teachings, symbols and prophetic figures are being denigrated by non-Muslims as a result of ignorance, fear and prejudice."
What utter garbage. Islam, its teachings and symbols are being used by Muslims to justify, motivate and compel followers to kill non-Muslims just like Muhammad did. The only ignorance, fear and prejudice is coming from these psychopathic Muslims who hate non-Muslims and see it as their duty to kill them.
The OIC is one of the most rotten organisations around. They're enemies of freedom of speech and what do you expect when they are comprised of some of the world's worst governments.
Islam = Repression and The Death Of Freedom.
From the article:
"Ten countries in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific moved from abstaining in 2008 to opposing the OIC resolution this year - Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Panama, St. Lucia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Vanuatu, Nauru and Tonga.
"Another five states which supported the resolution last year abstained this time - Honduras, Jamaica, Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda and Lesotho."
All those who changed their vote from support to opposition, should receive strongly appreciative letters from jihadwatchers, commending them for their decision, and perhaps drawing on some of Mr Spencer's trenchant analyses of that dangerous OIC-sponsored Resolution, to stiffen their resolve for the next time the Muslims try to ram it through.
All ten who changed to 'No' are majority-Christian countries; East Timor knows from bitter experience what Muslims are like when in power, for they suffered full-on jihad for thirty years under the ruinous rule of the Indonesian army.
Papua-New Guinea are particularly to be commended for sticking their neck out and voting against this 'don't criticise Islam or else!' resolution, for they have a land border with huge, aggressive and rapidly-sharia-izing, Infidel-persecuting Indonesia, which is most likely trying both to bribe and threaten them. The da'wa artists and mosque builders are busy in PNG, as they are just about everywhere else, to judge from the little snippets of information I come across in the Barnabas Fund prayer booklet.
Those countries which changed their vote from support to abstention, should also receive a flood of letters, thanking them and urging them to show real moral courage and come right out in opposition.
It is always easier to do what is right, if you become aware that there are many, many people standing behind you cheering you on.
Oh dear. Preview is my friend! How I miss the 'edit' button.
Correction: the line reading "All those who changed their vote from support to opposition, should receive strongly appreciative letters" should read "All those who changed their vote from abstention to opposition, should receive strongly appreciative letters...".
"The Cartoons that Shook the World" a book about the 2006 cartoon riots was released October of this year.
http://yalepress.typepad.com/cartoons/
"This book is the first comprehensive investigation of the conflict that aroused impassioned debates around the world on freedom of expression, blasphemy, and the nature of modern Islam.
Jytte Klausen interviewed politicians in the Middle East, Muslim leaders in Europe, the Danish editors and cartoonists, and the Danish imam who started the controversy.
She concludes that the Muslim reaction to the cartoons was not—as was commonly assumed—a spontaneous emotional reaction arising out of the clash of Western and Islamic civilizations.
Rather it was orchestrated, first by those with vested interests in elections in Denmark and Egypt, and later by Islamic extremists seeking to destabilize governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya, and Nigeria.
Klausen shows how the cartoon crisis was, therefore, ultimately a political conflict rather than a colossal cultural misunderstanding."
--------------------------
JW readers might add that it was both a political conflict, and a colossally negligent cultural misunderstanding.
"The OIC argues that Islam and its teachings, symbols and prophetic figures are being denigrated by non-Muslims as a result of ignorance, fear and prejudice."
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I do think that the world's unbelievers, especially here in the USA are not prejudice, ignorant or fearful of Islam or Muslims.
This is what bothers the OIC and the countries of Dar al Islam.
In order to effectively spread Islam and it's Sharia they need and people who are intimidated and silent.
Muslims and Islam have never, since Mohamed invented Islam, allowed any criticism or questioning of Islam.
Mohamed had his critics killed. Here in the West,we are free to mock and question everything including statements of faith as well as political statements.
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"Although the resolutions are non-binding, they are taking place in conjunction with a separate OIC-led push to have an existing, legally-binding anti-racism treaty, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), amended to cover speech deemed as religiously defamatory"
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That needs to be stopped.
good news from u.n. but no country should be in favor of these
anti-human right resolutions.