Progress at the UN

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Ian Bushfield - September 25th, 2008 in News 0 votes Vote Up! Vote Down!

CFI’s own Austin Dacey, representative to the United Nations, has been making some headway with the help of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in blasting apart the proposed “defamation of religion” additions to the Human Rights Council.

Basically the idea behind “defamation of religion” would be that individual countries could pass laws preventing you from criticizing religions. This is a short step from basically having the UN endorse blasphemy laws.

You can follow the latest updates from Dacey’s blog, The Secular Conscience, but here’s a quick summary of the (positive) progress they’ve been making:

The tide really does seem to be turning in the debate on combating defamation of religion – even to the point where there are hopes among some delegates that the concept will soon be buried, at least in the Human Rights Council.

Following attacks by France and Belgium last week on the notion of defamation of religion, several NGOs joined the attack on Thursday with several strong statements.

The Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies with Article 19, the European Center for Law and Justice, and Center for Inquiry in a joint statement with IHEU were among those who weighed in.

Gregor Puppinck of the European Centre for Law and Justice stated that they could not support the concept of defamation of religions or phobias when applied to religions or beliefs. The concept of phobia should not be employed as it did not describe reality but psychological instability. The use of the concept phobia victimised a part of the population. They also recalled that the concept of defamation was incompatible with human rights. It endangered the rights of religious minorities and would lead to international approval for blasphemy laws.