http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Council#Resolution_concerning_religion

Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights now redefines freedom of religion to include freedom from “defamation of religions” by insisting debate and commentary about religion must be “responsible”.

Indeed, the ‘right’ to religious expression and speech can legally be restricted if take account of “public health and morals” and thus “respect for religions or belief”. In June, 2008, the Article 19 sponsors – the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, led by Pakistan – further succeeded in banning any criticism of Islam during UN Human Rights Councils sittings.

These sorts of measures might make some practical political sense, particularly in some of the world’s more volatile polities, such as Pakistan, but to legitimise these localised and culturally-specific measures as universal and a “right” to all humanity is obscene.

While it would be silly to argue that these developments discredit the notion of ‘human rights’ ab initio, it would be even sillier to allow public equation of UN ‘human rights’ with ‘Australian agreement.’ Canada, Mark Steyne.?

To be sure, many human rights organisations, including Amnesty, have expressed opposition to these developments in the Human Rights Council. On the other hand, they were much more demure during the frist twelve months when the focus was anti-Israel So does Amnesty now claim the authority to pick and choose which UN “human rights” are acceptable, and which one’s Australia’s should ‘agree’ on?

It is this very Human Rights Council that all the pro-Charter of Rights Australians want to just copy and past hollus-bollus into our Charter!

YIKES!

Standing for something is far superior to finger-pointing and I don’t think Islam’s particularly bad. It’s just that the Enlightenment is reaching them last. Given the forked-tongue and dual visages shown the Muslim world by the West over the last century and a bit I don’t really blame them for their hestance to endorse the virtues of modernity.

The asymmetry was not seen in straight women and gay men.
…

I’d be very keen to see your jurispredential lasers pierce the government’s intention to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Persons. Keith Windschuttle sets out the issues nicely in this month’s Quadrant, summarised in today’s Oz.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23874574-7583,00.html

Repeat after me 100 times – “There is no such thing as freedom from offense. There is no such thing…” (ad nauseum)

Because it’s their property, and anyone (including you) who wants to force them to print an article they otherwise wouldn’t is advocating the use of government aggression against private property. There is no moral justification for this.

Perhaps you would have no objection if the government forced you to give me full control over your blog for a day, yes?

I think the CIC were entitled to ask for equal space to be given to a Muslim writer, but certainly not entitled to try to force the magazine to adopt a similar length piece by an author of their choice. In the latter scenario, the magazine has no choice in the matter, presumably no right to veto any part of the article and has no idea which author will be chosen. You can’t reasonably expect a commercial entity which relies on publication for its income to do that.

If I had been the CIC, I would have sourced a quality article before I made such demands, and then presented it to the magazine – the magazine would be far more likely to accept something which they could assess and vet than to accept someone else dictating the publication of an article where the magazine would have no idea of the content or the author.

In addition, I understand that the magazine did publish a number of Letters to the Editor (primarily from members of the CIC) which expressed views about the inaccuracies of the Steyn piece and the fact that it was insulting to some Muslim people.

I seriously think, also, that there is an (unintended) backhanded compliment to Muslims in Steyn’s writings. The West is castigated by Steyn as morally weak, unwilling to stand up for its own values and unwilling to defend its religion – and these things are portrayed as bad things…whereas the Muslim world has no problem (in Steyn’s view) with moral weakness, standing up for Muslim values or defending its religion to the hilt. Thus, I detect a bit of unconscious envy there (ie, if only “we” had those strengths). Whether his depiction of the Muslim world as a monolithic block of faithfulness is accurate…well that’s a different story.

In the end, I see both Steyn and the CIC as divisive – expressing a real “Us” and “Them” mentality. But that being said, I do believe Steyn has the right to say these things, even though I don’t agree with him.