VIEW: Religious bigotry and the UN — I —Peter Jacob

If the Resolution on Defamation of Religions was so important and yet needed to be passed annually in the past 12 years, it is nevertheless a contradiction in terms. Why is the UN allowing a resolution to be passed over and again?

The United Nations Human Rights Council in its 13th Session passed a resolution called ‘Combating Defamation of Religions’ in Geneva on March 25, 2010. Interestingly, this was not the first occasion a UN body had gone about this exercise, it was rather the 12th time. The Resolution on Defamation of Religions had been tabled every year since 1999 and was hence called an ‘annual exercise’: at the UN Commission on Human Rights seven times, by the UN General Assembly three times and a couple of times at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), the recent induction to the UN human rights system that replaced the Commission on Human Rights in 2006.

In the midst of international concern and a massive debate around the concept of defamation of beliefs and ideas versus the rights of human beings, and whether religious discrimination could be linked to racial discrimination, the support for the Resolution on Defamation of Religions has been dwindling in the UN bodies. While it garnered 101 votes at the UN General Assembly in 2005, the resolution got 86 votes in favour in 2008 and just 80 votes in 2009.

The latest victory of the resolution was with a low margin in the UN Human Rights Council this March. In the house of 47, the resolution got the support of 24 countries in 2007 whereas in 2010 it had only 20 on its side. Minus the support of Russia, China and Cuba, who often want to champion the cause of the Third World, the next resolution might be hard to get through. The trend in the General Assembly showed diminishing support with more countries abstaining, while in the Human Rights Council countries like Brazil, South Korea and Japan seem to have exhausted whatever goodwill they attached to this resolution earlier and moved to vote against it in the past couple of years.

The situation merits comment and queries both on the content and intent of this move. If this resolution was so important and yet needed to be passed annually in the past 12 years, it is nevertheless a contradiction in terms. Why is the UN allowing a resolution to be passed over and again? Are the movers of this resolution and the UN bodies serious? Do they mean business? Is it some kind of manipulation of the human rights agenda at the UN? What would be required to stop such a manipulation? Should Pakistan as a member state support this resolution?

As far as the content is concerned, all these resolutions (or should it be called one resolution) had ‘defamation of religions’ in the title and looked inclusive. Secondly, although it presumably meant to stop any insult to all ‘religions’, yet Islam was the only religion expressly mentioned and it portrayed only Muslims as victims of xenophobia and discrimination on the basis of religion and belief. For example, point eight and nine of the resolution passed by the General Assembly in 2008 (A/62/439/Add2) has been a common feature of all resolutions, i.e. “(UN) Deplores the use of the print, audio-visual and electronic media, including the internet, and any other means to incite acts of violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination against Islam or any other religion, as well as targeting of religious symbols; (UN) Stresses the need to effectively combat defamation of all religions and incitement to religious hatred, against Islam and Muslims in particular.”

Thirdly, the Pakistan Mission at the UN has been the proponent all along on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). Looking at the internal political situation might offer insight into the dynamics of the Pakistani Mission’s role concerning this move at the UN. The Resolution on Defamation of Religions was first tabled by the Pakistan Mission in April 1999 when Mr Nawaz Sharif was at the helm and the famous Shariat Bill meant to pontificate him as Ameerul Momineen had been moved in the National Assembly of Pakistan six months before the resolution was introduced in the UN body. The tabling and passage of the resolution gained momentum during the Musharraf era. This resolution was moved eight times on the world forum during his enlightened and moderate democracy that alone understood the fine difference between good and bad Taliban. Finally, it has been passed thrice during Mr Zardari’s fully restored democracy, admittedly in desperate need of looking for ‘Friends of Pakistan’.

People wondered what value was attached to bringing the Resolution on Defamation of Religion a number of times when a resolution was not a binding instrument and thus lacked any chance of implementation, especially at state level. First, countries like Pakistan and Sudan, where blasphemy is a criminal offence, could get away with criticism on the national laws if the defamation of religions was incorporated into the international human rights framework. This alibi would help ward off the kind of recommendation Mr Abdelfateh Amor made after his fact-finding visit to Pakistan in 1995 as UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance. He recommended amendments to the blasphemy laws with the following observations in UN document E/CN4/1996/95/Add1, Para 82: the punishments in blasphemy laws of Pakistan were proportionately higher than the offence, thus unacceptable. Moreover, the application of the blasphemy law on religious minorities was inappropriate and discriminatory.

Second, later events explained that repetitive motion of the resolution was a strategic choice of the movers, because they anticipated that the Western countries, which have their own reasons and a history in defending freedom of expression, might bring a parallel resolution defending and neutralising the effect of the Resolution on Defamation.

Third, the countries rallying behind the Defamation tried to use a back door entry, manipulating the procedure concerning the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). As a follow up of the Durban Conference held in 2001, an ad hoc committee was supposed to frame Elaborate Complementary Standards for the ICERD Treaty. The Pakistan Mission-headed lobby circle tried to incorporate Defamation of Religion (Islam) in racial discrimination, as a complementary standard or Optional Protocol that could be signed with the ICERD. Following a heated debate this March at the HRC, a decision is to be taken by the ad hoc committee in its meeting in December 2010.

(To be continued)

The writer is a Lahore-based human rights activist working with National Commission for Justice and Peace