The European Union has offered to host the next meeting of the so-called Istanbul Process, an aggressive effort by Muslim countries to make it an international crime to criticize Islam.
The announcement comes less than one month after the United States hosted its own Istanbul Process conference in Washington, DC.
The Istanbul Process – its explicit aim is to enshrine in international law a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and/or Islamic Sharia law – is being spearheaded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 57 Muslim countries.
Based in Saudi Arabia, the OIC has long pressed the European Union and the United States to impose limits on free speech and expression about Islam.
But the OIC has now redoubled its efforts and is engaged in a determined diplomatic offensive to persuade Western democracies to implement United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 16/18, which calls on all countries to combat “intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of … religion and belief.” (Analysis of the OIC’s war on free speech can be found here and here.)
Resolution 16/18, which was adopted at HRC headquarters in Geneva in March 2011, is widely viewed as a significant step forward in OIC efforts to advance the international legal concept of defaming Islam.
via Doug
Years ago, although after 9-11-01, an Aussie who converted out of Islam and became a Christian minister was charged criminally for ”hate speech” when he sermonized in his own church based on what the Koran and Hadith says about how Christians and Jews and other non-Muslims ought to be treated by Muslims.
During his original court case he took the stand and simply tried to use a Koran to accurately exactly quote various verses.
The lawyers for the prosecution (including Muslim lawyers) ordered the judge to prevent his touching the Koran much less reading and translating out of it.
The judge buckled to the pressure and the minister was not allowed to show the court and jury what he knew was in the Koran and Hadith.
He was found guilty and sent to prison.
He appealed and was completely exonerated of ”hate crimes,” of any sort.
BUT, under these proposed laws, we would ALL be in danger of imprisonment for simply using the Koran to prove what Islam includes.
Remember (or, if you are not aware, LEARN) that TRUTH is beside the point when a non-Muslim insults a Muslim.
EVEN if it is the truth, such an insult is a ”crime” under Sharia.
Under Sharia, that minister was ”guilty” of hate crime, even though he told the truth.
I’m sure all the the Muslims want is, “If you won’t complain about my religion, I won’t complain about yours.” Let’s, “Give peace a chance.”
Wait a minute: Hasn’t that already been tried? Never mind.
“Resolution 16/18, which calls on all countries to combat “intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of … religion and belief.””
Would certainly be interesting in light of the Tebow bashing and atheist attacks on Christmas displays…
@Jay:
Or Egypt‘s forcing of females to ”cover,” or else.
Three Christian homes including the youth’s were burned to cries of “Allahu Akbar”
Or the Nigerian Muslims giving all Christians three days to convert or leave, then murdering them inside their churches.
Weeks before the Christmas Day church bombings, another jihadi attack, enabled by “local Muslims,” left five churches destroyed and several Christians killed: “The Muslims in this town were going round town pointing out church buildings and shops owned by Christians to members of Boko Haram, and they in turn bombed these churches and shops.”
In Turkey in November, 2011, the ancient Aghia Sophia churchwas turned into a mosque.
The church was first transformed into a mosque in 1331 by the jihadist Ottoman state.
As a sign of secularization, however, in 1920 it was turned into a museum.
Its transformation once again into a mosque is a reflection of Turkey’s re-Islamization.
In Norway last September, an Afghan convert to Christianity was scalded with boiling water and acid at a refugee processing center: “If you do not return to Islam, we will kill you,” his attackers told him.
Or Ethiopia: A video of some 500 Muslims burning down a church on November 29, 2011 while crying “Allahu Akbar!”
In Kenya seven Muslims of Somali descent beat a young Somali Christian unconscious, seriously injuring his eye, less than six weeks after a similar attack on his older brother, saying “we did not succeed in killing your brother, but today we are going to kill you.” His family was presumably Muslim when he was born, so the gang beat him as an “apostate” even though he was raised as a Christian.
In Saudi Arabia dozens of Ethiopian Christians were arrested for holding a prayer meeting, though under charges of “mixing with the opposite sex”: “the Saudi officials are accusing the Christians of committing the crime of mixing of sexes because if they charge them with meeting for practicing Christianity, they will come under pressure from the international human rights organizations as well as Western countries.”
In Pakistan Muslim police beat two Christian women with “batons and punches,” inflicting a serious wound to one of the women’s eyes after the women spoke up in defense of their land, and shot at Christians who came to help the women.
“In the last few years Muslims have made several attempts to seize the land from the Christians, usually succeeding because Christians are a marginalized minority.”
Likewise, under a “false charge of theft,” a Christian couple was arrested and severely beaten by police; the pregnant wife was “kicked and punched” even as her interrogators threatened “to kill her unborn fetus.”
A policeman offered to remove the theft charges if the husband would only “renounce Christianity and convert to Islam.”
But Sharia is nothing to worry about./
Being prevented from even saying anything against Islam out of fear of ”offending a Muslim,” Is DHIMMITUDE!
Criminalizing this form of free speech is DHIMMITUDE.
Pope Benedict XVI : “In many countries, Christians are deprived of fundamental rights and sidelined from public life; in other countries they endure violent attacks against their churches and their homes.”