Learning from the mistakes of others, or not

The battles in Canada with the forces of multi-culturalism and political correctness to preserve free expression have been well publicized in the United States, the one country in the world that truly enshrines in its laws the unfettered right of free speech (unfettered by government fiat).

So you would think Americans would have learned something from us.

Nope.

The Obama government appears to be going down the same path that we took nearly two decades ago that has left us today with a tattered and nonsensical notion of human rights as they apply to free expression.

As part of Obama’s outreach program to Muslims, the U.S. has joined the odious United Nations Human Rights Council, dominated by the Islamic states who regularly engineer resolutions condemning the state of Israel and who have supported resolutions in the General Assembly calling for members of the U.N. to criminalize the “defamation of religion”, meaning the defamation of Islam, since Islam regularly defames other religions and non-religious beliefs.

As a counter to that resolution the U.S. has initiated a resolution that says the following, among other things:

Also expresses its concern that incidents of racial and religious intolerance, discrimination and related violence, as well as of negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups continue to rise around the world, and condemns, in this context, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, and urges States to take effective measures, consistent with their international human rights obligations, to address and combat such incidents.

The resolution was passed at the Council and presumably is sent up the ladder to eventually be passed into U.N. law.

This poisonous stew is understood by Islamic nations to be a prescription whereby Muslims can use the government organs of non-Islamic states to prosecute criticism of Islam within those states, or they wouldn’t have supported it.

The key phrases in this paragraph for Muslims are “negative stereotyping of religions” and “advocacy of … religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination…”

Religions ought not to be exempt from criticism, especially a religion that is also a political ideology like Islam.

Consider these words in Canada’s Human Rights Act.

13. (1) It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate … any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Religion is one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination under this statute.

These words justified several human rights agencies in Canada taking action against two news publishers; one who published the Danish cartoons and the other who published an excerpt from a book by author Mark Steyn who wrote about the rise of Islam in Europe. These actions were prompted by Muslim activists who claimed they were “likely to be exposed to hatred or contempt” because of these publications.

It would be easy to contemplate exactly the same actions being processed by the human rights regimes here on the grounds that these publications were advocating religious hatred that constituted incitement to discrimination.

It may also have unintended consequences. For example, if a secular advocacy group wanted to challenge the ritual of prayer in government legislatures, could that group be accused of inciting discrimination because it hated the idea of religion mixing with government? Would complaining about the separation of church and state become off-limits?

This is a slippery slope Mr. Obama’s “feel good” diplomacy has led America to and we know better than anybody what is at the bottom of it.

Canada's hypocrisy at the United Nations

The ridiculously named United Nations’ “Human Rights Council” is in the news again trying to push through a several times re-written resolution criminalizing any criticism of religion. It is sponsored by Pakistan and, although it is couched in the feel good language of pluralism and understanding, its real intent is to the open the door to a worldwide purge of cartoonists who make fun of Mohammed and to students, like Afghani, Pervez Kambaksh, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for questioning why Islam treated men differently than women.

Canada has taken a correct and principled stance.

"Canada rejects the basic premise that religions have rights; human rights belong to human beings," said a Foreign Affairs spokesperson.

Hmmm.

I wonder how that spokesperson would explain section 296 (1) of the Criminal Code of Canada to the U.N:

(1) Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an
indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not
exceeding two years.

(2) It is a question of fact whether or not any matter that is
published is a blasphemous libel.

(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section
for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or
attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and
conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious
subject

This provision has been present in every amended version of the Code since 1892. The last prosecution for blasphemous libel occurred in 1935, but sometimes seemingly moribund laws have a phoenix-like way of reviving themselves in peculiar cases.

And what exactly does this defense mean – “decent language”? What was considered decent language at the height of the Victorian Age is a far cry for what passes for normal speech today. In fact, it is probably true that decency in language in the 21st century had been relegated to just another interesting artifact of history.

Canada would do well to try to lead by example, rather than just mouthing liberal platitudes on the international stage, and abolish section 296 (1).

Then it can tell the Muslim world to “screw off”.

In decent language, of course.

What happens when trolls get to vote

These are the little piggies who feast at the trough of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The British media were in a flutter because the United Nations’ Human Rights Council issued a report suggesting that the United Kingdom should ditch the Queen and go the Republican route. It was the Sri Lankan delegate who brought this up. But the report was endorsed by other members of the HRC, like Saudi Arabia, which has a pretend monarchy.

There has been a monarch in England for more than a thousand years. The so-called kings in Arabia have been enthroned for about 70 years. The British monarchy will still be viable long after Saudi Arabia has had its revolution and the Saudi royal family is replaced by a theocracy.

Furthermore, it is difficult to understand how the British system of government relates to human rights, other than to show the rest of the world how it is done properly.

The Human Rights regimes in Canada that have been so much in the news lately are paragons of virtue compared to the hypocrisy of the U.N.H.R.C.

Just take a look at the members.

Consider that Sri Lanka has been in a state of civil war for 30 years with plenty of atrocities laid at its government’s door. Saudi Arabia has abysmal civil and human rights. Cuba, an island prison for the last half century and a member of this soap opera company, also piled on the U.K. Ditto Syria, whose leaders suppressed a rebellion by slaying 25,000 of its citizens; and, Algeria, whose army overthrew a legitimately elected government and prompted a civil war with 100,000 casualties.

Then there are a couple of other choice ones, like, Sudan, that thinks the U.K. discriminates against Muslims, conveniently overlooking the government sponsored slaughter of 200,000 of its black Muslims by its Arab Muslims; and, rounding out the hypocrites is Iran, a country operated under the Sharia that complained that Britain should do more to emancipate women.

How does the British representative on this useless and farcical council keep a straight face during these discussions? It is hard to make somebody like Barbara Hall look good, but if anybody can do it, trust the U.N.