Question: Do you think I should be jailed?
Luiza Ch. Savage has a large story about Islamic "lawfare" in the new Maclean's magazine, pegged to the meeting of the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus that I attended earlier this month.
She starts with an anecdote from that briefing that is startling, even more now that I read it, as opposed to when I was right there:
Asma Fatima, a petite, bespectacled Pakistani diplomat in Washington, sat at the front of a crowded Capitol Hill hearing room on July 18, carefully considering whether a man seated a few places to her left on the panel should be jailed. The occasion was a panel discussion convened by a group of congressmen to educate their colleagues on the issue of religious freedom, and the man was Canadian Ezra Levant, who in February 2006 republished Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his now-defunct magazine the Western Standard, which resulted in, among other things, two complaints of “discrimination” before the Alberta human rights commission. One complaint was withdrawn, but the other continues. If it is upheld, Levant could face a large fine, a lifetime order not to talk about “radical Islam” disparagingly, and be forced to issue an apology. If Levant does not comply with these orders, he could be imprisoned for contempt of court.
Fatima tried to find the right words to explain the depth of the emotions at stake. "The cartoon issue really, really hurt Muslims around the world," she told an audience that included congressional staffers as well as officials from the departments of State, Justice, and the media, and various human rights advocates, including a pair of Buddhist monks in bright robes. "There are certain things that should not be said." Ultimately, though, Fatima concluded that a journalist should be, as she put it "off the hook." Her government has not been so generous.
Pakistan and the other nations that have banded together in the Organization of the Islamic Conference have been leading a remarkably successful campaign through the United Nations to enshrine in international law prohibitions against "defamation of religions," particularly Islam. Their aim is to empower governments around the world to punish anyone who commits the "heinous act" of defaming Islam. Critics say it is an attempt to globalize laws against blasphemy that exist in some Muslim countries — and that the movement has already succeeded in suppressing open discussion in international forums of issues such as female genital mutilation, honour killings and gay rights.
...The fact that the resolutions keep passing, and that UN officials now monitor countries' compliance, could help the concept of "defamation of religions" become an international legal norm, said Livingstone, noting that when the International Court of Justice at The Hague decides what rises to the level of an "international customary law," it looks not to unanimity among countries but to "general adherence." "That's why these UN resolutions are so troubling," she said. "They've been passed for 10 years."
The anti-defamation campaign is itself part of a larger agenda to reshape the understanding of human rights being advanced by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a group of more than 50 states promoting Muslim solidarity and co-operation in economic, social, and political affairs. The organization was founded and is largely funded by Saudi Arabia, a monarchy ruled under strict religious laws, where women, religious minorities and gay people are subject to various forms of discrimination and human rights abuses.
...The religious defamation laws urged by the resolutions rely on subjective emotional reactions and are therefore easy to abuse. "We don't want a jurisprudence of hurt feelings," said Wu. Levant calls the anti-defamation campaign a "soft jihad" — an attempt to advance Islamic law around the world, not through violence but through Western legal channels. "If an army came to our shores saying give up equal rights for women and your freedom of speech, we would defend ourselves," Levant told Maclean's after the briefing. "But when lawyers and lobbyists come, we are confused."
I commend the entire article to you. In a country like Canada, which too often glamourizes foreign court rulings, it's particularly dangerous. Our laws are increasingly being written at the U.N. -- and in Riyadh.
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