The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors.


The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it "Western", Robert Mugabe calls it "colonialist", and Dick Cheney calls it "outdated". The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now.

Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to "respect" the "unique sensitivities" of the religious, they decided – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within "the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community".

In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists.

Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he can seek out and condemn "abuses of free expression" including "defamation of religions and prophets". The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself.

Anything which can be deemed "religious" is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN – and almost everything is deemed religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to announce discussion of shariah "will not happen" and "Islam will not be crucified in this council" – and Brown was ordered to be silent. Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims.
Here is a random smattering of events that have taken place in the past week in countries that demanded this change. In Nigeria, divorced women are routinely thrown out of their homes and left destitute, unable to see their children, so a large group of them wanted to stage a protest – but the Shariah police declared it was "un-Islamic" and the marchers would be beaten and whipped. In Saudi Arabia, the country's most senior government-approved cleric said it was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry 10-year-old girls, and those who disagree should be silenced. In Egypt, a 27-year-old Muslim blogger Abdel Rahman was seized, jailed and tortured for arguing for a reformed Islam that does not enforce shariah.

To the people who demand respect for Muslim culture, I ask: which Muslim culture? Those women's, those children's, this blogger's – or their oppressors'?

As the secular campaigner Austin Darcy puts it: "The ultimate aim of this effort is not to protect the feelings of Muslims, but to protect illiberal Islamic states from charges of human rights abuse, and to silence the voices of internal dissidents calling for more secular government and freedom."

Those of us who passionately support the UN should be the most outraged by this.

Underpinning these "reforms" is a notion seeping even into democratic societies – that atheism and doubt are akin to racism. Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately claim they are the victims of "prejudice" – and their outrage is increasingly being backed by laws.

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don't respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead. I don't respect the idea that we should follow a "Prophet" who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him.

I don't respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don't respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of "prejudice" or "ignorance", but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.

When you demand "respect", you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade.

But why are religious sensitivities so much more likely to provoke demands for censorship than, say, political sensitivities? The answer lies in the nature of faith. If my views are challenged I can, in the end, check them against reality. If you deregulate markets, will they collapse? If you increase carbon dioxide emissions, does the climate become destabilised? If my views are wrong, I can correct them; if they are right, I am soothed.

But when the religious are challenged, there is no evidence for them to consult. By definition, if you have faith, you are choosing to believe in the absence of evidence. Nobody has "faith" that fire hurts, or Australia exists; they know it, based on proof. But it is psychologically painful to be confronted with the fact that your core beliefs are based on thin air, or on the empty shells of revelation or contorted parodies of reason. It's easier to demand the source of the pesky doubt be silenced.

But a free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence.

Yet this idea – at the heart of the Universal Declaration – is being lost. To the right, it thwacks into apologists for religious censorship; to the left, it dissolves in multiculturalism. The hijacking of the UN Special Rapporteur by religious fanatics should jolt us into rescuing the simple, battered idea disintegrating in the middle: the equal, indivisible human right to speak freely.

dienekes96 wrote:UN folds.

I fixed the subject line for you, red

reds8n wrote:Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he can seek out and condemn "abuses of free expression" including "defamation of religions and prophets". The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself.

reds8n wrote: But there's a difference between denigration and discussion no ?

Chimera_Calvin wrote:I think the point is that the Pakistani delegate called for the change because he believes that there is such a thing as 'abuse of free speech' - specifically in this case that no-one has the right to criticise Islam.

Either we have free speech or not - it doesn't have limits or it isn't free.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:I think the point is that the Pakistani delegate called for the change because he believes that there is such a thing as 'abuse of free speech' - specifically in this case that no-one has the right to criticise Islam.

Either we have free speech or not - it doesn't have limits or it isn't free.

Grignard wrote:

Its fine if you don't believe in God, i don't particularly. But the discussion this person is speaking of, as evidenced by the tone of his arguments, is public humiliation and ridicule. I don't understand why people need to go about criticizing people's faith and equating faith with evidence based knowledge. What harm in believing in something that makes people feel better. Fine, you're an athiest, what gives you the right to drag people into "reality" as you see it??

reds8n wrote: But there's a difference between denigration and discussion no ?

Grignard wrote:I don't understand why people need to go about criticizing people's faith and equating faith with evidence based knowledge. What harm in believing in something that makes people feel better. Fine, you're an athiest, what gives you the right to drag people into "reality" as you see it??

reds8n wrote:link

fox article prior to vote

link

I'm not going to claim that original article or these are 100% guaranteed accurate, but they're all pushing in the same direction.

That said Hari ( article author) does indeed have a bit of a bugbear about "atheists getting it tough."

The Green Git wrote:Of course there is... until it's YOUR religion that's being discussed. Then it becomes denigration.

You've hit the nail right on the head, of course. No one wants their particular brand of religion talked about in a negative manner. If it's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth then how could you even find fault?!? That's blasphemy! Islam in general does not tolerate questioning of Islam. If you speak against the prophet then you must die. That's what's being taught. How do I know? Because I see Islamic yoofs taking to the streets with signs chanting "Death to America" and heard them calling for Rushdie's head and my President's head for years.

Grignard wrote:I'm sorry, I don't see what the problem is to expect to have one's beliefs respected publicly, regardless of how you may feel about them. Do I believe the way, I don't know, Hindus do? No, i do not. Would I denigrate their religion. No.

reds8n wrote: To clarify Mr. Green Git : it's not taught like that everywhere, it's more the rise of a/some very strict and hard line sects/denominations. sadly the more militant ones-- the ones who chase women/girls back into burning buildings as they're dressed improperly-- are backed by many of the existing very rich regimes who do very well out of maintaining the status quo.

sebster wrote:
Yeah, but they're all from reactionary sites. I gave the original story a little more leeway because I think the author is reasonably well regarded (I don't read him, just going off of memory). The other sites don't substantiate anything really, there's a reference to a bill banning the defamation of religion (not the same thing as banning criticism of religious practice) and then long rants about stuff that isn't at all related.

I'm not saying there isn't a story here, but I'm still waiting to see it, if you know what I mean.

to claim the majority of muslims are like that is simply wrong.

reds8n wrote: And......it's not often that Hari agrees with Fox if you follow me.

s.j.mccartney wrote:Free speech is all good, but what about when its speaking against other peoples freedoms?

Would Free speech allow the Natzi's to hold rally's in Nurmberg today? Its their right to speak. Its our right to protect the oppressed.

I get confused about this issue.

The Green Git wrote:You've hit the nail right on the head, of course. No one wants their particular brand of religion talked about in a negative manner. If it's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth then how could you even find fault?!? That's blasphemy! Islam in general does not tolerate questioning of Islam. If you speak against the prophet then you must die. That's what's being taught. How do I know? Because I see Islamic yoofs taking to the streets with signs chanting "Death to America" and heard them calling for Rushdie's head and my President's head for years.

Grignard wrote:I don't understand why people need to go about criticizing people's faith and equating faith with evidence based knowledge. What harm in believing in something that makes people feel better. Fine, you're an athiest, what gives you the right to drag people into "reality" as you see it??

Well, when your belief system includes killing your wife or children if they bring Islam shame or sawing the heads off those you see as opposing "The Truth" then I'd say that constitutes harm.