the blog quebecois

Colleen Carroll Campbell:

Once again belying its stated purpose of "promotion and protection of human rights around the globe," the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution last week straight out of George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984." The measure, sponsored by Pakistan on behalf of a group of Islamic states, employs Western-style references to "diversity," "interfaith harmony" and "tolerance" in defense of a decidedly intolerant objective: a global ban on criticism of religion — specifically, criticism of Islam.

"Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism," states the resolution, the brainchild of the powerful 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. One of the main culprits in this "Islamophobia," the measure says, is "the print, audio-visual and electronic media." The solution: Governments must "combat defamation of religions," including "stereotyping of religions, their adherents and sacred persons."

Not surprisingly, Canada, Chile and the European Union nations that sit on the Human Rights Council opposed this resolution, which they recognized as a thinly veiled attempt to legitimize the anti-blasphemy laws that theocratic Muslim regimes use to squelch dissent and persecute religious minorities. Indeed, it was hard for the measure's supporters to argue otherwise, given that Islam was the only religion specifically mentioned in the resolution and the list of nations backing the measure could, with a few exceptions, double as a who's who of human-rights violators

Oooh! Lemme try! Lemme try!

a) Fuck Islam.
b) Fuck Allah.
c) Fuck Muhammad.
c) (i) And the horse he rode in on.

Oh, and I nearly forgot:

d) Fuck the U.N.

Missed it by ---><--- that much! Maybe if I tried a different font size?