The United Nations Human Rights Council recently voted to stifle free speech. A resolution recently passed by a majority of the Council states that “to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms for all” we must suppress unpopular speech about religions. The resolution reads:
The Human Rights Council,
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8. Urges States to take actions to prohibit the dissemination, including through political institutions and organizations, of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement to racial and religious hatred, hostility or violence;9. Also urges States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from the defamation of any religion, to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance;
10. Emphasizes that respect of religions and their protection from contempt is an essential element conducive for the exercise by all of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
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13. Reaffirms that general comment No. 15 of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in which the Committee stipulates that the prohibition of the dissemination of all ideas based upon racial superiority or hatred is compatible with the freedom of opinion and expression, is equally applicable to the question of incitement to religious hatred;
This is very strange. In order “to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms for all,” we can’t say things that “constitute incitement” to “religious hostility,” defame a religion, express contempt for a religion, and governments should suppress all ideas based on religious superiority.
Freedom of speech is the freedom to criticize. That’s pretty much the point of establishing a freedom of speech. This resolution would prohibit criticizing of Islam, or Scientology, or Catholicism, or whatever religion (or lack of religion) because that could lead to hatred or intolerance.
It’s pretty Orwellian that to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms of all” we can’t exercise our freedom of speech to state our beliefs on which religion (or lack of religion) is superior.
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