It’s lost past the time to kick the U.N. out of the U.S.
Muslim countries have won a battle to prevent Islam from being criticised during debates by the UN Human Rights Council. Religions deserve special protection because any debate about faith is bound to be “very complex, very sensitive and very intense”, council President Doru-Romulus Costea said Wednesday.
Scholars: Only religious scholars should be allowed to discuss matters of faith, he told journalists in Geneva.
While Costea’s ban applies to all religions, it was prompted by Muslim countries complaining about references to Islam.
Costea issued his “presidential ruling” on Monday during the eighth meeting of the council’s 47 members, which do not include the United States. The ruling will not affect findings by the council’s experts, just its chamber debates.
On Monday Egypt, Pakistan and Iran angrily protested attempts by a humanist group to link Islam to human rights abuses such as female genital mutilation and so-called honour killing of women. The interventions sparked a heated debate which threatened to sour the mood of the meeting. The council’s resolutions carry no legal weight but are intended to throw a spotlight on governments that abuse their citizens.
“This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it,” Costea ruled after an emergency break to calm the situation.
Link: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008/06/19/story_19-6-2008_pg7_6
Remember, criticizing Islamofascism is “very complex, very sensitive and very intense”, because the practitioners of the ‘peaceful religion of Islam’ might do things like this:
Robert Spenser summarizes:
……The ban came after a heated session on Monday, when the representative of the Association for World Education (AWE), in a joint statement with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, denounced female genital mutilation, the penalty of stoning for adultery and child marriage as sanctioned by Islamic law. Egypt, Pakistan and Iran angrily protested, interrupting the AWE speaker, David Littman, with no less than 16 points of order, and succeeding in getting the Council’s proceedings suspended for over half an hour.
In the course of this contentious discussion, the representatives from the Islamic countries made numerous revealing statements – statements that are well worth examining as Islamic nations and organizations call with increasing insistence for restrictions on free speech in the West.
……In sum, then, what Littman was saying was accurate, and the Egyptian, Pakistani and Iranian representatives consistently characterized these truthful statements as insults to Islam, and moved to have them suppressed. Not only does this shameful episode bode ill for the human rights of women in the Islamic world; it also represents another victory in the war against free speech that Islamic supremacists have been pursuing with particular energy lately, calling on Western authorities to prosecute Dutch politician Geert Wilders for his film Fitna and Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard for his drawing of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, and in general to outlaw what they perceive as insults to Islam.
They have won at the UN Human Rights Council. That will not be the only battle of this war. But it remains to be seen whether any governing official in the West has the courage and the clear-sightedness to stand up to this challenge before it’s too late — before we are required by law to stand by as mute witnesses to our own conquest and Islamization.
Link: http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=79F671A7-DE83-4F6C-A219-B12076BA3AD3
Former U.S. Ambassador, John Bolton had the right idea:
As U.S. Ambassador, John Bolton has placed human rights firmly at the center of Washington’s agenda at the UN. Bolton was instrumental in steering the Bush Administration away from joining the UN’s new Human Rights Council, set up this year to replace the hugely discredited Commission on Human Rights, because that body was not a substantial improvement over its predecessor.
The Council’s lack of membership criteria rendered it open to participation and manipulation by the world’s worst human rights abusers. Tyrannical regimes such as Burma, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Zimbabwe all voted in favor of establishing the Council, in the face of strong U.S. opposition. The brutal North Korean dictatorship also gave the Council its ringing endorsement.
When Council elections were held in May, leading human rights abusers Algeria, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia were all elected. In a disheartening repetition of one of the old Commission’s worst failings, the Human Rights Council decided to hold its first emergency session on Israel and adopted a one-sided resolution condemning that nation and ignoring the provocations of Palestinian armed groups. This brief, disappointing record vindicates the Bush Administration’s decision to adopt a wait and see attitude toward the Council.
Link: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16249
The so-called U.N. ‘Human Rights Council’ is an Islamofascist toady and has no business being in a position to judge anyone under the guise of ‘human rights’.