Saudi Official Calls on International Community to Criminalize Criticism of Islam

JIHAD WATCH: “This requires everyone to intensify efforts to criminalize insulting heavenly religions, prophets, holy books, religious symbols and places of worship.” What is wrong with this? Who wants to insult “heavenly religions, prophets, holy books, religious symbols and places of worship,” anyway?

One problem with it, among many, is that at a time when hatred and violence are being preached and perpetrated in the name of a “heavenly religion” and justified by reference to a “holy book,” to criminalize criticism of such things would be tantamount to muzzling all resistance to that hatred and violence. And that may be precisely the agenda.

“Criminalize vilification of religious symbols, says Saudi official,” Saudi Gazette, July 26, 2015: » | Robert Spencer | Sunday, July 26, 2015

Salafi Urges UN to Criminalise Contempt of Islam

THE EGYPTIAN GAZETTE ONLINE: CAIRO - Egypt's president and other Muslim leaders should demand the UN criminalise contempt of religion after the release of an anti-Islamic film and cartoons which demonstrate growing racism, said the leader of the biggest ultra-orthodox Islamist party.

Despite doctrinal and political differences with President Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafist Nour Party played a key role in supporting it during presidential elections in June.

Led by Emad Abdel Ghaffour, it now ranks as the second-largest party in parliament and plays a formidable force in Egypt's new politics.

"We call for legislation or a resolution to criminalise contempt of Islam as a religion and its Prophet," said Ghaffour, one of four permanent assistants to the president, on Saturday.

"The voice of reason in the West will prevail if there is mutual respect, dialogue and efficient lobbying for this critical resolution," he told Reuters in an interview. » | Reuters | Sunday, September 23, 2012

Germany Attempts to Silence Criticism of Islam
STONEGATE INSTITUTE: German authorities have officially confirmed that they are monitoring German-language Internet websites that are critical of Muslim immigration and the Islamization of Europe.

According to Manfred Murck, director of the Hamburg branch of the German domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), his organization is studying whether German citizens who criticize Muslims and Islam on the Internet are fomenting hate and are thus criminally guilty of "breaching" the German constitution.

The BfV's move marks a significant setback for the exercise of free speech in Germany and comes amid a months-long smear campaign led by a triple alliance of leftwing German multicultural elites, sundry Muslim groups and members of the mainstream media, who have been relentless in their efforts to discredit the so-called counter-jihad movement (also known as the "Islamophobes") in Germany.

Opinion polls show that growing numbers of ordinary German citizens are worried about the consequences of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged mass immigration from Muslim countries.

Germans are especially concerned about the refusal of millions of Muslim immigrants to integrate into German society, as well as the emergence of a parallel legal system in Germany based on Islamic Sharia law.

In an effort to reverse this tide of public opinion, the guardians of German multiculturalism have been working overtime to regain the initiative by accusing the critics of Islam of engaging in hate speech to try to intimidate the so-called "new right" into silence.

The media campaign has been led by two financially troubled newspapers, the Berliner Zeitung and its sister publication, the Frankfurter Rundschau, as well as Der Spiegel, a leftwing magazine based in Hamburg that has long served as the mouthpiece for German multiculturalism.

In a January 4, 2012 interview with the Berliner Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau, Murck said the owners of anti-Islam blogs "have a disturbed relationship to the democratic constitutional state" and often promote "infringements of human rights protected under our constitution."

Murck continued: "I also see evidence of criminal relevance, such as making threats and public invitations to crime." He said criticism of Muslims and Islam constitutes "an attack against the freedom of religion, which is protected by Article 4 of the Basic Law."

PI's motto reads "Against the Mainstream, Pro-American, Pro-Israel, Against the Islamization of Europe" which encapsulates everything the German left abhors. » | Soeren Kern | Thursday, January 12, 2012

HT: Robert Spencer @ Jihad Watch »

Islamic States: Criminalize Defamation of Islam
THE JERUSALEM POST: The Islamic states circulated a new resolution at the current session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday that would criminalize defamation of Islam as a human rights violation and encourage the imposition of Shari'a.

According to the nonbinding governmental resolution, titled "Combating Defamation of Religions," anything deemed insulting to Islamic sensitivities would be banned as a "serious affront to human dignity" and a blatant violation of religious freedom.

The resolution would attempt to influence "local, national, regional and international levels" to incorporate such guarantees of this perceived freedom in their "legal and constitutional systems."

"It is a covert package coordinated by Pakistan against the West," said Leon Saltiel, director of communications at the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, on Thursday. "They think there is too much liberty and freedom of expression in the Western world, which therefore defames religion."

This resolution is part of the ongoing campaign of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a powerful bloc of 56 states at the UN, which began to introduce annual resolutions in 1999 to ban the "defamation of Islam."

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said during an address to Radio Free Europe in December that "Islamic states pursued the diplomatic battle with a vengeance" because of the post-9/11 war on terror and the controversy ignited by the cartoon of their prophet published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.

"The resolutions pose a major threat to the premises and principles of international human rights law and harm Muslims as much as non-Muslims. International law already protects victims of religious discrimination," for instance via the 1984 Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, declared Neuer.

The resolutions fail to address human rights violations of Muslim countries, notably Iran's persecution of Baha'is, Saudi Arabia's banning of all religious practice aside from Islam, and the persecution of Christian communities in Egypt, Pakistan and Iraq.

The latest resolution is "not really trying to protect individuals from harm," but rather attempting "to shield a set of beliefs from question or debate and to ban any discussion of Islam that may challenge state orthodoxies or offend Islamic sensibilities," Neuer said. >>> Maya Spitzer | Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
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UN May Try to Criminalize Criticism of Islam
RIGHT SIDE NEWS: UNITED NATIONS -- For the last nine years, the U.N.'s annual ban on defaming Islam has been non-binding. In March, the United Nations may try to impose its view on Islamic blasphemy on all of its member nations -- including the United States -- thus making criticism of Islam a crime.

In December, the U.N. General Assembly, as it has every year since 1999, passed a resolution titled "Combating Defamation of Religions."

 The vote was 86-53, with 42 nations abstaining. The United States opposed the measure.

Originally titled "Defamation of Islam," the name of the resolution has changed over the years but not the intent. The only religion mentioned in the seven-page document is Islam.

The resolution's main sponsor is the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. Critics charge the OIC's membership, which includes Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, reads like a Who's Who of religious intolerance.

Saudi Arabia has its own religious police force that cracks down on those who violate the Kingdom's hyper-strict Islamic dress and behavior codes. >>> By Chuck Hustmyre | Friday, March 6, 2009

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Elizabeth Samson: Criminalizing Criticism of Islam
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: There are strange happenings in the world of international jurisprudence that do not bode well for the future of free speech. In an unprecedented case, a Jordanian court is prosecuting 12 Europeans in an extraterritorial attempt to silence the debate on radical Islam.

The prosecutor general in Amman charged the 12 with blasphemy, demeaning Islam and Muslim feelings, and slandering and insulting the prophet Muhammad in violation of the Jordanian Penal Code. The charges are especially unusual because the alleged violations were not committed on Jordanian soil.

Among the defendants is the Danish cartoonist whose alleged crime was to draw in 2005 one of the Muhammad illustrations that instigators then used to spark Muslim riots around the world. His co-defendants include 10 editors of Danish newspapers that published the images. The 12th accused man is Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who supposedly broke Jordanian law by releasing on the Web his recent film, "Fitna," which tries to examine how the Quran inspires Islamic terrorism.

Jordan's attempt at criminalizing free speech beyond its own borders wouldn't be so serious if it were an isolated case. Unfortunately, it is part of a larger campaign to use the law and international forums to intimidate critics of militant Islam. For instance, in December the United Nations General Assembly passed the Resolution on Combating Defamation of Religions; the only religion mentioned by name was Islam. While such resolutions aren't legally binding, national governments sometimes cite them as justification for legislation or other actions.

More worrying, the U.N. Human Rights Council in June said it would refrain from condemning human-rights abuses related to "a particular religion." The ban applies to all religions, but it was prompted by Muslim countries that complained about linking Islamic law, Shariah, to such outrages as female genital mutilation and death by stoning for adulterers. This kind of self-censorship could prove dangerous for people suffering abuse, and it follows the council's March decision to have its expert on free speech investigate individuals and the media for negative comments about Islam.

Given this trend, it's worth taking a closer look at the Jordanian case. Opinion: Criminalizing Criticism of Islam >>> By Elizabeth Samson* | September 10, 2008

*Ms. Samson, an attorney specializing in international and constitutional law, will join the Hudson Institute this fall.

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