Obama made a strong condemnation of “violence and intolerance” in his speech at the UN headquarters on Tuesday. He said world leaders had a duty to speak out against the deadly attacks on Americans in the past two weeks caused by an anti-Islam film made in the United States.
But Muslim kings and presidents and other heads of state said Western nations must clamp down on “Islamophobia” following the storm over the film which mocks the Prophet Mohammed.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, said the film was another “ugly face” of religious defamation.
Yudhoyono quoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as saying that “everyone must observe morality and public order” and commented: “Freedom of expression is therefore not absolute.”
He called for “an international instrument to effectively prevent incitement to hostility or violence based on religions or beliefs.” King Abdullah II of Jordan, a close US ally, spoke out against the film and the violence it sparked.
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari condemned what he called the “incitement of hate” against Muslims and demanded United Nations action. » | Sapa-AFP | Wednesday, September 26, 2012
