Newly elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi speaks at the UN (Photo; Reuters)
In his speech to the United Nations on Wednesday, Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi condemned “insults hurled on the prophet of Islam, Mohammed,” and said the United Nations must do something about it.
“We reject this. We cannot accept it,” he said, speaking of insults to Islam. “And we will be the opponents of those who do this. We will not allow anyone to do this by word or deed.”
The warning that “We will not allow anyone to do this” was spoken through a translator and did not appear in the prepared text of Morsi’s speech.
Mentioning “an organized campaign against Islamic sanctities,” Morsi said the U.N. has a “main responsibility” in addressing Islamophobia, which “is starting to have implications that clearly affect international peace and security.”
“We all have to work together,” Morsi said. “We must join hands in confronting these regressive ideas that hinder cooperation among us. We must move together to confront extremism and discrimination and incitement to hatred on the basis of religion or race.”
Moments later, Morsi addressed freedom of expression, saying it has limits:
“Egypt respects freedom of expression — freedom of expression that is not used to incite hatred against anyone, not a freedom of expression that targets a specific religion or a specific culture; a freedom of expression that tackles extremism and violence, not the freedom of expression that deepens ignorance and disregards others.
“We also, as we have said before and reaffirmed before, we also stand firmly against the use of violence in expressing objection to these obscenities.”
While Morsi did not call for a global ban on blasphemy in his speech to the U.N., other Muslim leaders have done so.
As CNSNews.com reported, the leaders of the world’s two most populous Muslim countries used their speeches at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to call for a legally-binding, global anti-blasphemy protocol.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Pakistan counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, both argued that insults against Mohammed, Islam’s prophet, incite violence and are not legitimate free speech.
For an in depth analysis of the entire Morsi speech see Ryan Mauro’s article, “Morsi Blasts UN With Brotherhood Agenda” at radicalislam.org
Also see Robert Spencer’s Ahmadinejad and Morsi lay out the Islamic agenda (frontpagemag.com)
