Maclean's has reported on what it says is a push by some Islamic countries to control negative talk about Islam and Muslims.
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. ...
In March, the Islamic nations were successful in introducing a change to the mandate of the UN's special rapporteur on freedom of expression — an official who travels the world investigating and reporting on censorship and violations of free speech — to now "report on instances where the abuse of the right of freedom of expression constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination." The issue is expected to be a focal point of the UN World Conference Against Racism next year in Geneva (a gathering Canada plans to boycott after the 2001 meeting in Durban devolved into acrimonious exchanges over Israel). ...
The trend has rights advocates worried for numerous reasons, beginning with the language used. If the notion of "defaming" a religion sounds a little unfamiliar, that's because it is a major departure from the traditional understanding of what defamation means. Defamation laws traditionally protect individual people from being materially harmed by the dissemination of falsehoods. But "defamation of religions" is not about protecting individual believers from damage to their reputations caused by false statements — but rather about protecting a religion, or some interpretation of it, or the feelings of the followers. While a traditional defence in a defamation lawsuit is that the accused was merely telling the truth, religions by definition present competing claims on the truth, and one person's religious truth is easily another's apostasy. "Truth" is no defence in such cases. The subjective perception of insult is what matters, and what puts the whole approach on a collision course with the human rights regime — especially in countries with an official state religion.
The article noted the hardline Muslim countries have had some minor success so far.
During a discussion at the UN Human Rights Council in June, two non-governmental organizations were scheduled to give a joint three-minute speech describing the widespread violence against women in Muslim countries, including "honour killings" and female genital mutilation. In his planned remarks, the NGO speaker wanted to mention the failure of Islamic religious leaders to clearly condemn the practices, and linked Islamic law, called sharia, to the stoning of adulteresses and child marriages.
Egypt, backed by Iran and Pakistan, managed to get the discussion shut down.
"It is very concerning in a council which should be . . . the guardian of freedom of expression, to see constraints or taboos, or subjects that become taboo for discussion," (former UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour) said at a news conference.
The story raises some disquieting issues, but it suffers from the absence of actual Islamist voices. The stuff about the UN HRC meeting appears to be drawn almost exclusively from a Reuters report. The meeting was in June and this story was in July. Couldn't Luisa Ch.-Savage have done some original reporting in the meantime and -- horrors! -- talked to the other side? If they had room in the story for Ezra Levant, surely they had room for someone with a counter-view.
Are there any Muslim countries that take a more moderate view of the "anti-defamation" issue?
What's going on in Canada?
As an aside, here's an excerpt from a July 6 Toronto Star commentary by Osgoode Hall doctoral candidate Jeremy Patrick calling for blasphemous libel to be removed from Canada's Criminal Code:
Although the last known government prosecution was in the 1930s, the law was invoked in private prosecutions at least as late as 1979.
Why should we worry about a law that hasn't been used in decades? Dusty old laws can often be perfectly innocuous and even humorous – like the purported Kentucky law that says you have to remove your hat if you come across a cow on the road.
However, obscure, little-known statutes like the blasphemy offence can also serve as a dangerous extension of police or prosecutorial discretion, creating a greater opportunity for threats of enforcement that lead to self-censorship by cautious publishers.
And unfortunately, dead laws don't always stay dead when prosecutors are desperate: a statute prohibiting the spreading of "false news" was inserted into the first Criminal Code in 1892, used once in 1907, again 63 years later in 1970, and for the third and final reported time in a high profile conviction (overturned on appeal) of Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel in the late 1980s.
The Charter, of course, provides strong guarantees of freedom of expression and religion. If the blasphemy law were to be invoked again, it's likely a court would strike it down.
Even this should be of limited consolation. The cost and time to mount an effective Charter defence is not insignificant, nor is it perfectly clear that an enterprising Crown attorney couldn't analogize the crime of blasphemous libel to constitutionally valid laws prohibiting anti-religious hate speech.
Of more practical concern, however, is that the existence of the crime of blasphemy in Canadian law could make it harder for the Canadian government to criticize repressive blasphemy prosecutions in countries where free speech is given short shrift.
To have an active law that prevented "defamation" of religions would push this country very hard in the direction of theocracy. In the wake of the 2006 cartoon scandal, some Canadian Islamic groups called for a law that would make offensive depictions of religious figures a crime. See this posting for details.
Rather than restrict freedom of expression here to protect religion, Islamic countries would be wise to move towards more tolerance there. Free societies, generally speaking, move forward over the arc of history. Rigid, intolerant, fundamentalist societies are at much greater risk of stultification. For example, how long have "honour killings" gone on for in some Muslim countries?
This March 11, 2006 post, while not perfectly on point, captures some of the debate going on within the Islamic world. You might also find this May 20, 2005 excerpt of a Thomas L. Friedman NYT column to be useful.
And this Feb. 17, 2006 post on the religion-cartoons controversy has some useful stuff in it.