The UN Human Rights Council on 2 October adopted the resolution, which the US had co-sponsored with Egypt. The US had finally joined the Human Rights Council in June, and its support for the measure reflected the Obama administration’s stated aim to “re-engage” with the UN.

While the new resolution focuses on freedom of expression, it also condemns “negative stereotyping of religion”. Billed as a historic compromise between Western and Muslim nations, in the wake of controversies such the Danish Muhammed cartoons, the resolution caused concern among European members.

“The language of stereotyping only applies to stereotyping of individuals, I stress individuals, and must not protect ideologies, religions or abstract values,” said France’s representative, Jean-Baptiste Mattéi, speaking for the EU. “The EU rejects the concept of defamation of religion.”

France emphasised that international human rights law protects individual believers, not systems of belief. But European members, eager not be seen as compromise wreckers, reluctantly supported the measure.

On the other side of the fault line stood the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which lobbied for a measure against “religious defamation”.

“We firmly believe that the exercise of freedom of expression carries with it special responsibilities,” said Pakistan’s delegate, speaking for the OIC. The “defamation” of religion, he said, “results in negative stereotyping of the followers of this religion and belief and leads to incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them, therefore directly affecting their human rights.”

Following the OIC’s logic, one could equally apply the language of the resolution to Islamism, a political form which is arguably a “contemporary manifestation of religious hatred, discrimination and xenophobia. It results in negative stereotyping of the followers of other religions and beliefs and leads to incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them, therefore directly affecting their human rights.”

The EU also had other worries. European members felt that the provision in the resolution on “the moral and social responsibility of the press” was objectionable in that it went beyond the limited restrictions set out in article 19, the provision on free expression in the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.

Finally, the EU encouraged the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, Frank LaRue, to continue his work. This was an indirect reference to the attacks made against LaRue by several OIC members at the June session of the Human Rights Council. (Read more here)

The Council stopped short of repeating the OIC’s criticisms of the Special Rapporteur but encouraged him to stick to his mandate. That indicates that he should continue to focus on violations of free expression, rather than purported “abuses” of that right.

While this new resolution reflects new efforts by the US to broker compromises between Western and Muslim nations, it also represents an ominous crack in the defences of free expression.

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The UK’s ambassador at the UN, Peter Gooderham, speaking in the debate at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 4 June, said “freedom of expression is essential to effectively tackle discrimination, corruption, to promote freedom of religion and the right to education”. In those words he summed up the reasons why this freedom has become anathema to the Islamic states, and for their massive campaign to overturn this right within the United Nations system.

From their successful undermining of the mandate of the UN independent expert on freedom of expression in March last year, and the passage of resolutions “combating defamation of religion” in successive years in both the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly, to their successful labelling of the ill-defined term “Islamophobia” as racism, they are winning the battle to silence all criticism of Islam, and any criticism of abuses of human rights by the Islamic states and their allies.

Last week they turned their attention to two senior UN officials: Frank La Rue, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights herself, the South African human rights lawyer Navi Pillay. The attack on La Rue was unprecedented, but not unexpected.

During the debate on La Rue’s report to the Council on 3 June, he was told that “he lacked competence” to advise the Human Rights Council on its work and he had “exceeded his mandate” in attempting to do so. Having won the first round over the change to his mandate last year, the OIC now wanted its pound of flesh.

“We advise the Special Rapporteur to henceforth strictly adhere to his mandate and the code of conduct. The OIC will continue to closely monitor his performance and will take the appropriate course of action in case of any further deviation,” Pakistan warned.

“He receives his instructions from the Council, not the reverse…there are steps that I hope we shall not find ourselves obliged to act upon in the future,” growled Egypt.

Indonesia chimed in with the complaint that “his recommendations were based on opinions rather than facts”. There is something profoundly Orwellian in the idea that the UN expert on the right to freedom of opinion and expression should be threatened for expressing an opinion. “We don’t want to invoke the president’s ruling [on how to terminate his mandate], but…” warned the Indonesians.

What had this respected lawyer done to incur such anger? In his report to the council he had failed to give priority to reporting on “abuses” of the right to freedom of expression (read: expressions of Islamophobia), the hot new requirement in his mandate forced through by the OIC in 2008. He had instead begun his three-year term by reporting on serious violations of freedom of expression: the 60 journalists murdered in 2008, and the 929 reported attacks on media professionals. He also addressed the links between extreme poverty, access to information and freedom of opinion and expression. In other words, he had been doing his job.

The challenge to La Rue did not go unanswered. The United States, Canada, the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and several non-governmental organisations weighed in, pointing out that, according to the code of conduct, it was for the mandate holder alone to decide how to carry out his mandate; his independence must be respected. But the voices of reason are now in a minority at the Human Rights Council.

All week there had been a mood of triumphalism in Geneva as Sri Lanka gloated over its success the previous week. Thanks to support from the OIC and its allies — Russia, China and India — a special session of the council had let Sri Lanka off the hook. There are chilling parallels here with successful efforts by the Chinese to stifle criticism of their actions in Tibet last year. Despite widespread allegations of indiscriminate slaughter of civilians by the Sri Lankan Army, there would be no UN-sponsored inquiry into human rights abuse during the war against the Tamil Tigers. In an interview in Lakbima News, Sri Lanka’s ambassador, Dayan Jayatilleka, gloated: “Stand up for others; they will stand up for you.” In the council on Friday he lambasted France, the UK and others, describing his “contempt” for their continuing calls for an international inquiry.

Then India weighed in with an ad hominem attack on the integrity of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. How dare she call again for an international inquiry into Sri Lanka? She had supported the call for a special session of the council; the special session was held and had concluded that an international inquiry was unnecessary. Why was she defying the will of the council? (Could it be that she is concerned about human rights abuse –– wherever it occurs?)

In her report, the High Commissioner, a UN civil servant whose office is mercifully independent of the council, had referred to a meeting she had attended in Paris to discuss the human rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. How dare she speak out in favour of human rights for homosexuals when the council has no agreed policy on homosexuality, asked Pakistan. (Could she possibly believe that all human beings are entitled to human rights?)

What is at stake here is more than limits on freedom of expression. What we are seeing is a direct challenge to the ability of the Human Rights Council and other UN human rights mechanisms to deal effectively with human rights abuse. When freedom to collect information and express opinions is restricted, then the ability to expose corruption, discrimination and human rights abuse is fatally weakened. Could this possibly be the real objective of the Islamic states and its allies?

At the end of the debate on the High Commissioner’s report, John Fisher of the Canadian HIV/Legal Network asked whether the time had come to revive the idea of a code of conduct for member states.

Sorry, John, it’s far too late.

Roy W Brown is the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s main representative at the UN in Geneva

Read Miklos Haraszti’s report on the rise of ‘religious defamation’ exclusively here

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Within the UN system, structures and procedures put in place to monitor compliance with the ICCPR have been undermined and weakened in the name of regional and cultural differences. The mandates of the Special Rapporteurs (special investigators) charged with exposing and documenting human rights abuses have been rewritten to reduce their scope for action, while a new ‘code of conduct’ gives the states under investigation the right to challenge all and any of the investigator’s findings before they are published. Investigators who used to have an inviolate period of tenure can now be dismissed after one year if they upset the target of their investigations. The very concept of ‘country-specific’ mandates is under threat. Within the past year the mandates of several special investigators have been abruptly terminated.

At the same time, the concept that human rights are universal and vested in the individual has been challenged by the introduction of rights vested in the group — such as ‘the right to development’ — and by regional and cultural variants on universality. For example, the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights has added ‘peoples’ as the rightful beneficiaries of human rights, so that governments, as their legal representatives, have assumed for themselves the rights of their people.

Finally, freedom of expression is coming under increasing threat as the Islamic states seek special protection against ‘defamation’ of their religion.

How has all this come about?

The answer, sadly, is that the majority of member states of the Human Rights Council are united in a single purpose: not the promotion and protection of human rights, but the prevention of the exposure of their own human rights abuses.

The first body charged with the promotion and protection of human rights was the Commission on Human Rights, set up to monitor the ICCPR. By 2005 however the Commission had fallen into such disrepute that the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, concluded that the selectivity and politicisation of its work was in danger of bringing the entire UN system into disrepute, that the Commission was incapable of reform, and that it should be replaced by a new body whose members were truly committed to human rights. That was the idea. But by early 2006, it had become clear that the UN General Assembly was far from keen on such a revolutionary step. After nine long months of negotiation what emerged was scarcely better than the old Commission.

The idea that member states had to sign up to the full package of human rights law had been quietly dropped in favour of a pledge to ‘work towards’ universal acceptance, and member states were to be elected not on the basis of their human rights record, but by region. The result is a Council comprising 47 member states, 17 of whom are members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) who, together with their allies, Russia, China, Cuba and the African Group, make up a permanent 2/3 majority in the Council. The old ‘like-minded’ group of human rights abusers that once dominated the Commission has been replaced by this group united in its opposition to ‘western’ values.

The war of attrition on universal human rights continued in 1990 with the publication of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. This document, which the OIC claims is ‘not an alternative but complementary’ to the UDHR, makes no reference to the Universal Declaration but states that the Islamic Sharia ‘shall be the only source of reference’ for the interpretation of the rights set out therein. When, in March 2008, I attempted to challenge this falsehood in the Council by pointing out the incompatibility of the Cairo Declaration with the UDHR, I was silenced on a point of order by the Pakistani delegate who said: ‘it is insulting to our faith to discuss the Sharia in this Council’. Sadly the president agreed, banning from that point on any ‘judgmental statements regarding any system of law’. In June 2008, the Egypt delegate brought Council proceedings to a halt for almost an hour when he insisted that no reference could be made to Islam, Sharia law or fatwas. Faced with a vote that could have overturned his decision to let the speaker continue, the president backed down, and when the meeting resumed he told the Council that ‘we do not need to discuss religion in this Council, nor shall we’. Islam had won a free pass and is now officially absolved of any responsibility for any human rights abuse carried out in its name.

Meanwhile, other doors had been closing. In March 2008, after a vote engineered by the OIC and supported by its allies, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Expression was changed to require him to report on not only violations but on ‘abuses’ of that right; thereby, in the words of the Canadian delegate, ‘turning the mandate on its head’.

The combined effect of these changes has been to ratchet up the level of immunity enjoyed by the Islamic states from investigation and exposure in the Council. If that was their only objective it would be bad enough. But for the past ten years they have also had their sights set on a far bigger prize, the acceptance and adoption by the international community of the Islamic interpretation of human rights. To achieve this they needed to tackle head on freedom of expression. Their chosen method was to introduce a resolution ‘combating defamation of religion’. Their stated objective was to prevent the negative stereotyping of Islam in the media following 9/11 (although their initial presentation of this resolution predated 9/11 by 2-and-a-half years), the linking of Islam with violence and terror, and increasing discrimination against Muslims. The unstated objective was to create a framework for the world-wide introduction of laws to silence any criticism of Islam, its laws or its practices.

Resolutions combating defamation of religion have now been adopted by the Commission and by the Council every year since 1999, and by the UN General Assembly since 2007. While they are not binding on member states, they are permissive and legitimise any blasphemy laws adopted anywhere in the word — and this despite the fact that the concept of ‘defamation of religion’ has no validity in international law and the resolution is incompatible with the provisions of the ICCPR safeguarding freedom of expression.

The latest version of the resolution has just been passed at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The resolution is deeply flawed. Not only does the concept of defamation of religion have no validity in international law, the resolution is unnecessary because the problem it purports to address, increasing discrimination and incitement to hatred experienced by Muslims, is already dealt with under international law. Article 20 of the ICCPR specifies the steps that states must take to outlaw incitement to hatred or violence. So it is clear that the OIC have another reason for pushing these resolutions; namely, extending restrictions on freedom of expression that already exist in the Islamic states — blasphemy laws — into international law, and thereby silencing critics of Islam in the rest of the world.

Roy W Brown is IHEU’s main representative to the UN in Geneva

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is the world umbrella organisation for national, regional and international humanist, secular and rationalist organisations, with more that 100 member organisations in over 40 countries. IHEU has Special Consultative Status with the UN (New York, Geneva, Vienna), General Consultative Status at UNICEF (New York) and the Council of Europe (Strasbourg), and maintains operational Relations with UNESCO (Paris)

www.iheu.org/

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