Israel Matzav

US and EU spearheading the end of free speech

The European Union has recently joined the United States in spearheading a movement designed to make criticism of Islam a crime that cannot take advantage of the ordinary protections of free speech in the West (Hat Tip: Dan F). From the laundry list of European countries that have already prosecuted people for speaking out against the Islamic cult, it sounds like the Europeans don't need a whole lot of help in terminating free speech for their citizenry anyway.

The Istanbul Process – its explicit aim is to enshrine in international law a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and/or Islamic Sharia law – is being spearheaded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 57 Muslim countries.

Based in Saudi Arabia, the OIC has long pressed the European Union and the United States to impose limits on free speech and expression about Islam.

But the OIC has now redoubled its efforts and is engaged in a determined diplomatic offensive to persuade Western democracies to implement United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 16/18, which calls on all countries to combat "intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of … religion and belief." (Analysis of the OIC's war on free speech can be found here and here.)

Resolution 16/18, which was adopted at HRC headquarters in Geneva in March 2011, is widely viewed as a significant step forward in OIC efforts to advance the international legal concept of defaming Islam.

However, the HRC resolution – as well as the OIC-sponsored Resolution 66/167, which was quietly approved by the 193-member UN General Assembly on December 19, 2011 – remains ineffectual as long as it lacks strong support in the West.

The OIC therefore scored a diplomatic coup when the Obama Administration agreed to host a three-day Istanbul Process conference in Washington, DC on December 12-14, 2011. In doing so, the United States gave the OIC the political legitimacy it has been seeking to globalize its initiative to ban criticism of Islam.

Following the Obama Administration's lead, the European Union now wants to get in on the action by hosting the next Istanbul Process summit, tentatively scheduled for July 2012.

Read the whole thing.

I think this is worth a question from to the Republican Presidential candidates at the next debate. Freedom of speech is something about which most Americans feel strongly.

Labels: freedom of speech, Islamophobia

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:36 AM