Speaking actual truths to corrupt, and unlistening, power

Okay, maybe the UN will listen to the report from the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) but, somehow, I doubt it:

Islamic states are bidding to use the United Nations to limit freedom of expression and belief around the world, the global humanist body IHEU told the U.N.’s Human Rights Council on Wednesday.

In a statement submitted to the 48-nation Council, the IHEU said the 57 members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) were also aiming to undermine the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“The Islamic states see human rights exclusively in Islamic terms, and by sheer weight of numbers this view is becoming dominant within the U.N. system. The implications for the universality of human rights are ominous,” it said.

The statement from the IHEU, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, was issued as the U.N.’s special investigator on freedom of opinion and expression argued in a report that religions had no special protection under human rights law.

Ambeyi Ligabo, a Kenyan jurist, said in a report to the Council limitations on freedom of expression in international rights pacts “are not designed to protect belief systems from external or internal criticism.”

But this argument is rejected by Islamic states, who say outright criticism — and especially lampooning — of religion violates the rights of believers to enjoy respect.

The IHEU statement and Ligabo’s report came against the background of mounting success by the OIC, currently holding a summit in Dakar, in achieving passage of U.N. resolutions against “defamation of religions.”

You can read the rest — which, surprisingly, emanates from al Reuters — here.

I’ll say again what I’ve said before: a religion that is frightened of the marketplace of ideas (that would be Islam) is a religion whose loudest adherents know that it has so many conceptual, theological and practical problems that it cannot compete in that marketplace. And if you can’t compete, and if you’re a totalitarian fanatic, you kill the marketplace.