Tag Archives: OIC

UN Pressures Germany to Bow to ‘Hate Speech’ Hysteria

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United-Nations-signBy Andrew Harrod & Sam Nunberg:

A recent decision by the United Nation’s (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) foreshadows an ominous future for free societies should Muslim entities like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) achieve their goal of having “Islamophobia” defined internationally as a form of prejudice.

Former German central bank board member Thilo Sarrazin has got himself in trouble with the UN, as the Turkish Union in Berlin-Brandenburg (Türkischer Bund in Berlin-Brandenburg or TBB) stated with satisfaction in an April 18, 2013, German-language press release.  The spokesman of this German-Turkish interest group, Hilmi Kaya Turan, praised a February 26, 2013, “historic decision” by the CERD condemning Germany for not having prosecuted Sarrazin’s criticism of Arab and Turkish immigrants.

Sarrazin, a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands or SPD), produced a storm of controversy with his August 2010 book Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab: Wie Wir Unser Land aufs Spiel Setzen (“Germany Abolishes Itself:  How We Are Risking Our Country”).  In the context of this controversy, CERD’s detailed 19-page decision extensively excerpted in English translation a fall 2009 interview with Sarrazin.  In the interview, the Berlin magazine Lettre International discussed some of the upcoming book’s themes.

CERD complained that “[i]n this interview, Mr. Sarrazin expressed himself in a derogatory and discriminatory way about social ‘lower classes’, which are not productive’ and would have to ‘disappear over time’ in order to create a city of the ‘elite’.”  Sarrazin specified that about 20% of Berlin’s population depended on welfare payments, which he wanted to cut, “above all to the lower class.”

Berlin’s indigent included within the immigrant population a “large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, whose numbers have grown through erroneous policies, have no productive function, except for the fruit and vegetable trade.” Compounding the problem for Sarrazin was a birthrate among Arabs and Turks about three times their percentage of the population.  Sarrazin thereby saw “Turks…conquering Germany just like the Kosovars conquered Kosovo: through a higher birth rate.”  Sarrazin “wouldn’t mind if” these immigrants “were East European Jews with about a 15% higher IQ than the one of Germans.”  Central to Sarrazin’s thesis was the assumption that “human ability is to some extent socially contingent and to some extent hereditary.” Sarrazin’s “solution to this problem” was “to generally prohibit influx, except for highly qualified individuals and not provide social welfare for immigrants anymore.”

As noted by CERD, Sarrazin’s interview comments prompted on October 23, 2009, a criminal complaint by the TBB under the German Criminal Code’s Article 130 against “Incitement to Hatred” (Volksverhetzung).  Yet upon review, German prosecutors suspended their investigations on November 23, 2009, deciding that Sarrazin’s views fell under the protection of free speech contained within Article 5 of Germany’s Basic Law (Grundgesetz).  Prosecutors quoted by CERD had judged Sarrazin’s statements as a “contribution to the intellectual debate in a question…very significant for the public.”

Read more at Front Page

See also:

Muslims Demand Germany “Make Islam Equal to Christianity” (gatestoneinstitute.com)

 

Pat Condell takes aim at the “Organization of Islamic Criminals”

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images (1)

Free speech will never be allowed to die…not in a blizzard of crooked UN resolutions and not in a million manufactured riots. There’s more chance that pigs will literally fly….

 

 

Learn more about the OIC’s attempt to criminalize criticism of Islam: Threat to Free Speech

 

ACT! for America Launches National Free Speech Campaign

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freedomOfSpeech

On September 25, 1789, Congress passed the Bill of Rights, anchored by the very important First Amendment. Today, our cherished right of freedom of speech is under assault. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) wants to criminalize speech that “denigrates” Islam. Muslim Brotherhood connected organizations and their politically correct enablers regularly engage in name calling and character assassination to silence those who dare speak out about the threat of radical Islam.

This is why, on September 25, 2013, 224 years after the passage of the Bill of Rights, patriots across America will host events and educate the public about how freedom of speech is under attack – and what we all can do to protect it.

Free_Speech_Day

 

WHEN: SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

 

WHAT: HIGHLIGHTING AMERICA’S COMMITMENT TO FREE SPEECH AND THE ONGOING EFFORTS BY THE OIC AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD TO STRIP US OF THAT FREEDOM.

signup

  1. Commit to host the event on September 25, 2013.
  2. You must hold the event in an indoor location where a video can be shown and access can be controlled (versus an outdoor venue), such as:
    - Meeting in your home
    - In a church, synagogue or other house of worship
    - In an American Legion, VFW, or similar hall
    - A public library
    - A hotel meeting room
  3. You also have the option during the day on September 25th to hold up signs and hand out printed materials at public venues, such as street corners.
  4. You will be provided instructions and materials to use at your indoor event and at outdoor public venues (if you choose that additional option).
  5. Commit to this being an educational event, not a confrontational event. Our goal is to help people understand how their free speech rights are under assault, not to get into confrontations with those who disagree with us.
  6. Put the word out and get RSVP’s for the indoor event so you will know how many to expect, to ensure your venue is adequate.

ACT! for America will announce how many “Freedom of Speech Day” events will take place and will advertise exact locations of each venue for those hosts who confirm to us that they want us to.

 

In this series of national webcasst, ACT! for America documents the growing worldwide clamor for suppression of speech perceived as “offensive” to Islam, and what ACT! for America is doing to combat this increasingly serious threat to the First Amendment:

Part One with Brigitte Gabriel and Guy Rodgers:

 

Part Two with Deborah Weiss:

 

Part Three with Guy Rodgers:

 

 Sign ACT! for America’s letter opposing this threat to free speech!

An Open Letter to Members of the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and the State Legislatures 

Oppose the Implementation of UN Resolution 16/18:
A Threat to Free Speech

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an organization of 56 Muslim states and the Palestinian Authority, has been trying for more than a decade to win UN-wide support of a resolution that calls on nations to prohibit speech that allegedly “defames” religion.

However, the evidence is clear that the OIC is concerned primarily about any speech it views as being critical of Islam, what it calls “Islamophobia.”

In the past, the United States has opposed such resolutions, correctly asserting that they are contrary to our First Amendment right of free speech.

In 2011, at the U.S.’s request, the OIC drafted a new resolution that would supposedly balance America’s constitutional protection of free speech with OIC concerns about “Islamophobia.” This resolution passed, with U.S. backing.

This new resolution, UN Resolution 16/18, no longer uses language such as “defamation,” but instead uses European-style hate speech language that has been used to criminalize speech critical of Islam in countries such as Austria and the Netherlands.

The OIC is now aggressively working to implement its definition of the resolution. Its position is clearly spelled out in a February 18, 2013, article in the Saudi Gazette entitled “OIC gears up to get denigration of religions criminalized.”

Given that the OIC is now pushing for nations to criminalize speech that it views as “Islamophobic,” we, the undersigned, call on our legislators to pass resolutions opposing the implementation of UN Resolution 16/18 as both unnecessary and a threat to America’s constitutional protection of free speech.

Obama Administration Paves the Way for Sharia Law

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Sharia-Law-in-Americaby William Bigelow, 6 Aug 2012 at Breitbart:

The most terrifying danger Americans face from a second Barack Obama term isn’t the economy, which is scary enough.

The most harrowing prospect is the Obama Administration’s passivity in the face of attempts to introduce aspects of sharia law into our legal system.  Now there is strong and open evidence of the Obama administration collaborating with Islamist activists to ensure the path toward sharia law is accelerated.

Just last week, Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, was asked this question by Trent Franks (R-AZ), a member of the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution: “Will you tell us here today that this Administration’s Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?”

Perez refused to answer. Four times.

And why would Franks target Perez?

Here’s why:

Last October, at George Washington University, there was a meeting between DOJ officials, including Perez, and Islamist advocates against free speech. Representatives from the Islamist side included Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The ISNA was an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding trial in 2008, as well as functioning as a Muslim Brotherhood Front. The leader of the Islamist attack was Sahar Aziz, an Egyptian-born American lawyer and Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a Muslim advocacy group based in Michigan. At the meeting, the Islamists lobbied for:

  1. Cutbacks in U.S. anti-terror training
  2. Limits on the power of terrorism investigators
  3. Changes in agent training manuals
  4. A legal declaration that criticism of Islam in the United States should be considered racial discrimination

Aziz said that the word “Muslim” has become “racialized” and, once American criticism of Islam was silenced, the effect would be to “take [federal] money away from local police departments and fusion centers who are spying on all of us.”

And what was the response from Perez and the DOJ officials? 

Nothing.

That’s right: no objection, no defense of our first amendment right to free speech.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and its Role in Enforcing Islamic Law:

The Alliance of Civilization Jihad

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unaoc5 by , February 27, 2013:

As reported here early this morning, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations met today in Vienna to… well, to do whatever it is alliances of civilizations do.

Actually, the goal of this Alliance is quite clear, even if it is not stated explicitly: to impose the will of the United Nations on all Western countries, especially those that have not yet implemented laws against “defamation of religions” as demanded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

We are approaching endgame in the OIC’s long march through the major international institutions of Western culture. It began with the announcement in 2005 of the ten-year plan to end Islamophobia in the West, and the establishment of the Islamophobia Observatory shortly thereafter. These were obviously not enough to meet the Ummah’s needs, so it shifted its focus to other institutions. The OSCE must have also proved disappointing, as it is not high-profile and offers no prominent global platform.

The OIC has had better success with the General Assembly of the United Nations, taking virtual control of the organization by means of the votes of its 56 member states (57 if you count “Palestine”). However, this too is insufficient from the point of view of the embryonic World Caliphate. To establish full control, a permanent seat on the Security Council is an absolute necessity. The would-be Caliph — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who obviously aspires to an office higher than prime minister of Turkey — has made it clear that Islam must be granted such a seat.

The process now unfolding before us on the international scene mirrors the “Civilization Jihad” launched long ago by the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States. With the installation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, the Ikhwan has now positioned all its American pieces on the board in preparation for the final takedown of Israel. To secure their international geopolitical position, the Brothers and the OIC need to complete their takeover of the United Nations.

Today it seems they are very close to achieving success in — what shall we call their operation?

Perhaps the “Alliance of Civilization Jihad” would be most fitting.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Henrik Ræder Clausen and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff were in Vienna to attend and report on today’s event, the 5th Global Forum — UN Alliance of Civilizations.

Read Elisabeth’s account at Gates of Vienna

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via Is The Alliance Of Civilizations A Pro Sharia Front? (libertiesalliance.org)

The 5th Global Forum of The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations takes place in Vienna today.  In our experience most UN initiatives these days have a pro-sharia twist.  The UNHRC for instance spends a lot of time criticising Israel but does not seem to adequately confront the human rights abuses elsewhere (1). Perhaps the UNHRCs work is corrupted because it gives membership to countries who are human rights abusers.  It produces UNHRC Resolution 16/18 but apparently does nothing to ensure that the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) permit the religious freedom, a freedom that it purports to uphold.  In effect UNHRC Resolution 16/18 has become a pro-sharia document designed specifically to expand the reach of sharia.

We expect that the Alliance of Civilizations will be no different and will prove to be yet another mechanism to demonise sharia critics and facilitate the expansion of the zone of sharia compliance that already causes immeasurable misery around the world.  We will be watching the 5th Global Forum with great interest.

See Tundra Tabloids for updates.  Updates will also be posted below:

(1) Israel right to say ‘Enough!’ to grotesquely biased UNHRC inquiry (Haaretz)

—

Updates:

We are told from people on the ground at the event that the person who introduced the event suggested that they expected more harmony from this forum.  Below is a gist of what specific individuals talked about:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Suggested that anti-Muslim sentiment was commonplace. That Muslims are being vilified instead of being embraced.  That leaders need to speak the language of tolerance.  That the three most important issues that needed to be addressed by all speakers were:

1) The impasse between Israelis and Palestinians

2) The situation in Mali

3) The situation in Syria

Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Suggested that racist attacks are on the rise.  That the magnitude of the threat is threefold:

1) lack of information

2) Intolerance

3) Prejudice – he believes that we can eliminate the threat posed by prejudice.  He

mentioned that there are many good examples of people living in harmony and such societies are more successful – however he did not name any of these countries or societies.

He suggested that we witness harsh and insulting behaviour towards Muslims and that this is an unconscionable act.  Also that we need to act on prejudices and need to consider Islamophobia as a crime against humanity. He suggested that no religion would ever endorse violence, that Islam is a religion of peace and that the word ‘Islam’ means peace.

On behalf of turkey he asked whether the UN Security Council represented the whole world and he concluded that it did not. He asked whether it represented all religious groups.  He suggested that the fundamental problem is that the Alliance of Civilizations needs to establish and alliance with the Security Council.

ICLA Comment: Our prediction of that the Alliance of Civilizations is a pro-sharia front seems to be coming true based on much of what has been reported above.  The focus seems very focused on issues that are seen as important to Islamic countries.  Nothing has been said about the persecution of non-Muslims in the Islamic world.  It seems from what Mr Erdoğan was saying about the Security Council that there should be permanent Islamic representation on that body.  This perhaps is an indication that Islam has political objectives.  It must be remembered that the Security Council is not a religious assembly.

We have a further update.  It appears that human rights issues have not been raised at this event though the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was mentioned twice.  Much has been said with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the plight of the Palestinian.  There was a round of applause when Palestine’s receipt of UNESCO status was mentioned.

Outgoing High Representative of the Alliance of Civilisations, Jorge Sampaio

He emphasized that we should not be talking but doing.  He raised the issue of successes and achievements of the Alliance of Civilizations but did not mention a single one.  He suggested that we need common ground and minimum standards of behivaiour, though he never mentioned what this might mean in practice.  He spoke about his desire for a world conference hosted by the Alliance of Civilizations with goal being to address the need to go back to zero with a bold vision and measurable goals.

Incoming High Representative of the Alliance of Civilisations, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser

He referred to the prevalence of intolerance and xenophobia.  He emphasised the importance of the role of the Alliance of Civilizations to enhance international cooperation to advance a vision and ensure responsible leadership and good decision making.

ICLA Comment: It is clear that the Alliance of Civilizations is nothing more than a tool for totalitarian tyrants to impose their will on the rest of the world.  Dictatorships just want to impose their tyrannical rules on the rest of the world. When the free world says that it will not tolerate despotic rule, these dictatorships say that it is an insult to their culture. 

OIC Ramps Up ‘Islamophobia’ Campaign

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kaffash20130201102509687-450x332By : The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has long been on the forefront of the Islamist mission to establish the equivalent of Islamic blasphemy laws in the West.  Now, during its 12th Islamic Summit held in Cairo February 7-8, 2013, the OIC set forth new and creative ways to silence, and ultimately criminalize criticism of Islam.

The OIC is a 57-member state organization that claims to represent 1.5 billion Muslims around the globe.  As the second largest international organization in the world, behind only the UN, and as the largest Islamic organization in the world, it is obviously quite powerful.  Though it is arguably the largest voting block in the UN, most people have never heard of it.

One of the OIC’s primary aims for at least the last fourteen years has been the international criminalization of speech that is critical of any Islam-related topic, including Islamic terrorism, Islamic persecution of religious minorities and human rights violations committed in the name of Islam.

Since 1999, the OIC has set forth UN resolutions that would “combat defamation of religions.”  These resolutions condemned criticism of religion, but in the OIC’s interpretation, it applied only to Islam.  True statements of fact constituted no exception.

Support for the resolutions declined once the United States and other Western countries caught wind of the true meaning of “defamation of religions” and its inevitable chilling effect on freedom of expression.

In 2011, at the State Department’s request, the OIC drafted an alternative resolution that was intended to retain freedom of expression and still address the OIC’s concerns about alleged Islamophobia.  The result was Resolution 16/18 to Combat Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief.

The US State Department and numerous Christian organizations were elated, believing that the OIC had abandoned its mission to protect Islam from so-called “defamation,” and instead replaced it with the goal of protecting persecuted religious minorities from discrimination and violence.  In other words, many assumed a paradigm shift away from providing legal protections to a religion and toward legal protections for people.

But the OIC had some very creative interpretations of the language embodied in the new resolution.  By its manipulation of words such as intolerance and incitement, giving new meanings to what many thought was plain English, the OIC made it clear that it had not dropped its ultimate goal of protecting Islam from “defamation.”

Read more at Front Page

How Sickening Will Sweden Get?

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by Douglas Murray:

Their gamble is that if we give the Organization of Islamic Cooperation just a little something — just a “harmless” little law — then we might all just be able to get along. But for every inch of encouragement the free nations of the world give the OIC, the more Reza Jabbaris we sacrifice — and a million more free-thinking souls.

How to deal with one madman is tricky enough, but how do you rectify things if the whole world has gone mad? Take Sweden and its apparent determination to deport Reza Jabbari back to his native Iran, most likely to be killed for having converted from Islam to Christianity.

First, there is the growing phenomenon of individuals being targeted for retribution if they have been seen to “insult” Islam. In particular there is the terrible recent case of Lars Hedegaard, who was targeted by an assassin at his home in Denmark earlier this month. The larger tapestry that hangs behind incidents such as the attempted assassination of Lars Hedegaard, Kurt Westergaard and others, however, is not just the attempt to silence a few brave voices, but the attempt to silence an entire planet. I refer of course to the attempt to criminalize – around the world – any speech which is deemed to be offensive to Islam.

This process is not only ongoing among the 57 Islamic countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), but is being considered – rather than laughed out of the room – by, among other countries, the United States of America.

For more than a decade the OIC, originating from Pakistan, has been attempting to bring in legislation via the UN to criminalize “Defamation of Religions.” Last December Hillary Clinton made a speech at the Istanbul Process’s meeting (in London, shamefully) on “Combating intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief.”

Here is the first paragraph:

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and I want to thank you all for participating in this conference where we are working together to protect two fundamental freedoms – the right to practice one’s religion freely and the right to express one’s opinion without fear.

Right there is the problem. Because her two “fundamental freedoms” might be a square peg or a round peg. But there is absolutely no way that either will ever fit into an OIC-shaped hole. Of course the OIC will continue to talk in generalities. So let us talk specifics. While the OIC pretends to worried about its feelings, let us consider a real-life, concrete, current example.

Reza Jabbari is an Iranian by birth. He is also a convert to Christianity. He is currently seeking asylum in Sweden. Why would this possibly be necessary? Surely if the OIC are being honest, Mr. Jabbari is merely someone with a different opinion from the people who run the country of his birth? And surely if the Iranians are worried about “offense” to religion, they would be standing up to ensure that Mr. Jabbari does not have his Christian faith insulted by the claims of Muslims that he is forever Muslim because he happened to have been born into a Muslim family.

Alas, the realities of the OIC are otherwise. As are those of the Swedish authorities, who appear to be doing everything they can to ensure that Mr. Jabbari is returned to Iran, where he is likely to be imprisoned, sentenced to death, or both. I suppose the Swedes reason that do not have room for him, even with all those empty homes the Jews left behind when they fled Malmo.

Read more at Gatestone Institute

 

OIC Seeks Global Watchdog on Free Speech

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Rashad Hussain,

Rashad Hussain,

By Clare Lopez:The 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) met in Cairo, Egypt February 6-7, 2013 with a full agenda of issues to address.

The U.S. Special Envoy to the OIC, Rashad Hussain, attended. One of the key takeaways from the two-day Heads of State Summit appears to be a renewed commitment to the Istanbul Process, the OIC-initiative to criminalize criticism of Islam globally.

According to Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, director of cultural affairs at the OIC general secretariat and spokesman for the OIC secretary general, the next session of the Istanbul Process will be held sometime in the spring of 2013 and will focus anew on getting individual nation states to draft laws that would criminally sanction “denigration of religions.”

Read more at Radical Islam

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Organization of Islamic Cooperation on the Defensive Over Shariah in America

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20110225_Shariah4Americaby CLARE M. LOPEZ

For all who’ve been working hard to educate Americans on the facts about  Islamic Law (shariah), there are some encouraging signals. The Organization  of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its affiliated network, including the  Muslim Brotherhood in America, would seem to be in full-on defensive mode about  shariah if a recent Brotherhood conference and a couple of new reports are  indicative.

At the Muslim American Society (MAS)-Islamic  Circle of North America (ICNA) conference in Chicago, Illinois 21-25  December 2012, a few thousand mostly Arabic speaking Muslims circled the wagons  for a five-day program aimed at rousing them to defense of Islam. The Islamic  Circle of North America (ICNA), acknowledged in the Brotherhood’s 1991 “Explanatory  Memorandum” as one of its organizations, and the Muslim American Society  (MAS) co-sponsored the 11th Annual MAS-ICNA  Convention. The Convention speakers roster featured Tariq  Ramadan, scion of the Brotherhood’s al-Banna founding family; Nihad  Awad, the Executive Director of HAMAS’  U.S. branch, CAIR  (Council on American Islamic Relations); Siraj  Wahhaj, Imam of the al-Taqwa Mosque in Brooklyn, NY and included on a list  of unindicted  co-conspirators from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial;  and  Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA),  the largest Muslim  Brotherhood front group in the U.S.

The Convention theme of “Renaissance” was all about getting American Muslims  to experience a “double revolution in intellect and psychology,” as Ramadan put  it, so they’d be energized enough to stand up to an alleged atmosphere of   “Islamophobia” in the U.S. that has shariah in its sights. This theme, of  course, is straight out of the OIC’s “Islamophobia  Observatory” which hyperventilates about such things at Foreign Ministers  meetings and in regular reports posted to its website.

A 19 January 2013 report from the Brookings Institute’s Doha Center entitled,  “A  Rights Agenda For The Muslim World,” presents a full-throated apologia for  the OIC’s allegedly frustrated efforts to get its recalcitrant member states to  integrate shariah with modern international standards on human rights. The  problem seems to be that the OIC allows some of those countries with a “conservative  brand of Islam” too much leeway to cling to their  “emphasis  on national sovereignty,” which just wrecks the OIC Secretary General  Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu’s sincere efforts to implement more effective “supra-national  human rights mechanisms.”  Apparently, according to the report’s  author, Turan Kayaoglu, Ihsanoglu wants to make human rights the centerpiece of  the OIC agenda, which Turan says “shows  a gradual move away from emphasizing the centrality of shariah.” Supposedly,  Ihsanoglu increasingly is willing to “discuss  these issues in the context of international human rights rather than  exclusively within that of Islamic law and tradition.” A quick check of the  OIC website shows the “Islamophobia Observatory” is still up and the Human  Rights page features the UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 (the one  about restricting free speech criticism of Islam) and other items about “combating intolerance,  negative stereotyping, and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to  violence and violence against persons, based on religion or  belief“-i.e., Islam.

Nothing much about international standards of human rights superseding  shariah anytime soon, but the OIC did establish an “Independent Permanent  Commission on Human Rights” (IPHRC) in 2011, the Brookings report says, that is  supposed to “promote  the civil social, and economic rights enshrined in the organization’s human  rights documents.” Of course, the 1990 Cairo  Declaration that abrogates the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human  Rights in favor of shariah is still posted in its usual spot on the OIC’s Human  Rights page, so maybe they just haven’t gotten around to updating that yet. But  in the meantime, the OIC wants everyone to know that its focus on shariah is  definitely on the wane. Really.

Read more: Family Security Matters

‘Defamation of Religion’ Rule Applies to Islam Only

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Deborah Weiss

Deborah Weiss

by: Ryan Mauro

Deborah Weiss, Esq. is an expert on the defamation of religions U.N. resolutions set forth by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.  She is a frequent contributor to FrontPage Magazine and The Washington Times, and is co-author of the book, Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Terrorist Network: America and the West’s Fatal Embrace.” A partial listing of her work can be found at www.vigilancenow.org

The following is RadicalIslam.org National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro’s interview with Deborah Weiss:

Ryan Mauro: What is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and what is its end goal?

Deborah Weiss: The OIC is the largest Islamic organization in the world, claiming to represent 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide.  It’s comprised of 56 UN Member States plus the Palestinian Authority.  They tend to vote together as a block in the UN and are arguably the most powerful voting block in the UN as a whole.  They are certainly the most powerful voting bloc in the UN’s Human Rights Council.

Though the OIC holds itself out as a “moderate” organization, it is clear from its own documents and its concepts that it is anything but moderate.  Its long term goal is the worldwide implementation of Sharia law and the supremacy of an Islamic State.

In its immediate activities, it is working to solidify the relationships among Muslim majority countries, to unify the Muslim voice, to support the so-called “Palestinian struggle” and to restrict all speech that is critical of anything related to Muslims or Islam including Islamic terrorism and Islamic persecution of religious minorities.

Mauro:  Tell us about the OIC’s concept of “Combating Defamation of Religions” and its impact.

Deborah Weiss:  “Combating Defamation of Religions” is a concept which gives an idea or religion, in this case Islam, protection from criticism, as opposed to what we have in the American legal system which only gives defamation protections to people.

Additionally, the OIC’s definition of defamation includes anything that sheds a negative light on Islam or Muslims, even if it’s true and even if it’s opinion.  In fact, it goes even further and condemns any free expression that would violate Islamic blasphemy laws even when, and perhaps especially when, expressed by non-Muslims.  So it’s the OIC’s attempt to pressure non-Muslims to comply with Islamic blasphemy codes.  Its target is the West and failure to comply with its demands is deemed “Islamophobic” even when no actual bigotry or prejudice is present.

The impact of putting the concept of combating defamation of religions into effect has numerous consequences and implications.

First, though it’s called “combating defamation of religions,” the OIC interprets and applies it to Islam only without any reciprocity for other religions.  In fact, the concept of protecting Islam from “defamation” is used in many OIC countries to persecute religious minorities.  The concept gives credence to Islamic blasphemy laws, which not only operate to suppress freedom of religion, but also violate human rights.  For example, in Pakistan, Ahmadiyya Muslims believe in a prophet after Mohammad. They generally have a peaceful, egalitarian interpretation of Islam.  Yet, they are considered heretics, and it is not only illegal for them to practice their faith, but it is criminal.  Merely sending out a wedding invitation with an accurate quote from the Koran can land an Ahmadiyya Muslim in jail.

Last, but not least, the implementation of the concept of combating defamation of religions has serious consequences for freedom of speech.  This is the main concern from a Western, and specifically American perspective.  The OIC as well as other Islamist organizations continue to work hard to stifle free speech.  They are constantly placing pressure on Western governments and societies to refrain from saying or dong anything that violates Islamic blasphemy codes, even though they don’t word it this way.

For example, the OIC encourages “hate-speech” laws in Europe that make it illegal to speak negatively about Islam.  And in America, though the government has thus far declined to make such speech illegal, it is enacting policies that discourage such speech even when it’s critical in protecting US national security.

Though not necessarily a direct result of the OIC’s UN resolutions, the implementation of the concept of combating defamation of religions has resulted in America’s recent cleansing of all national security training material for the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the National Counterterrorism Training Center.  National security and intelligence professionals will still learn about terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, but will be deprived of teachings regarding the underlying[Islamist] ideology, disconnecting the motivation from the terrorist behavior.  This ties one hand behind America’s back in fighting the War on Terror and is very dangerous.

Read more at Radical Islam

Also see ”Making Islamic sense of free speech“ by Harris Zafar, National Spokesperson for Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA, which was published in the Washington Post recently. Can you spot the taqiyya?