UN passes ‘defamation of religion’ resolution

Last week I wrote about the grave danger to liberty posed by an international movement demanding that nations pass laws against “defamation of religion.” This week, a key United Nations committee adopted yet another resolution calling for such laws.

The Third Committee is also referred to as the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee. It operates under the UN Human Rights Counsel. On Monday, that committee passed a resolution called Combating Defamation of Religions, similar in substance to many previously passed resolutions urging countries to adopt laws forbidding the “defamation” of religion.

The resolution passed 85-50 with 42 abstentions. Religious liberty advocates argue, correctly, that such resolutions are a dangerous precedent used to justify laws that violate freedom of speech:

“It provides international cover for domestic anti-blasphemy laws, and there are a number of people who are in prison today because they have been accused of committing blasphemy,” said Bennett Graham, international program director with the Becket Fund, a think tank aimed at promoting religious liberty.

“Those arrests are made legitimate by the UN body’s (effective) stamp of approval.”

While this resolution is non-binding, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the chief sponsor of the bill, has openly called for making it part of a binding UN convention. The American Jewish Committee issued a press release calling the resolution “has turned the concept of a human right on its head.”