Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, head of the OIC
For decades the Organisation of the Islamic Conference has been trying to undermine international human rights via the UN’s Human Rights Council. The concept of “Islamic Human Rights”, as presented in the Cairo Declaration, has been continually pushed forward as being “complementary” to the International Declaration of Human Rights. But, in fact, it severely limits freedom of expression and equality by putting universal rights through the mincer of sharia law.
Now, sixty years on from the original Declaration, the UN Human Rights Council is meeting again in Geneva. The council has effectively been castrated by the OIC, to the extent that any discussion of religion (ie Islam) is now taboo.
But all is not yet lost. The Center for Inquiry has sent along Austin Dacey to report (PDF) on the state of affairs, and awareness of the danger is on the rise. You can read a summary over at Butterflies and Wheels.
The fact that the OIC thinks that Islamic humans require fewer rights than the universal declaration guarantees them is worrying. It is even more worrying that, after applying the sharia filter to universal human rights, non-Islamic humans end up with ever fewer. The OIC needs to drop the idea that there is a difference between Islamic and non-Islamic humans. There are only humans, and we all have equal rights.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Yes, this way of thinking proof that islam is not a religion. It is just a cult. Not more then that.
Thanks
September 24th, 2008 at 1:47 am
ALL religions are “just cults”.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Surely if Muslims (or other religionists) keep saying they’re ‘above’ or ‘exempt from’ the legislation they expect the rest of us to abide by then effectively they’re accepting they’re not human?
If so then the rest of us could carry on as normal without having to worry about religionists or affording them any human rights….
but of course they’re not going to put up with that either, are they?
September 25th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Surely they can see the advantage in giving rights more generous than those allowed by sharia laws?
Perhaps not. Truly, religions are blinders for the mind.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:05 am
You’re right, Stuart (as usual!) – if we could rely on the religious to simply leave the rest of us alone, there’s be no problem. But they insist on imposing their ‘values’ on the rest of us, by force if necessary. The world is too small, crowded and dangerous for their intolerance.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Why not just give everyone universal human rights, and let each individual muslim (or non-muslim, as the case may be) decide for themself, individually, which rights he or she chooses not to exercise on the grounds of their religion.
What you’d probrably find, is that no-one wants to give up any of them. People only want to get rid of the rights of other people. Such as their wives, or their religious followers, or their citizens.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Of course the muslims have the right to impose their (universal) values on the rest of humanity. They succeeded in turning their countries into paradises of tolerance, harmony, respect of human life, economic success, humane legislation. Their scientific achievements are unsurpassed; their technological feats are the envy of the miserable world of the kafirs. We the kafirs should try our utmost to emulate the wonders eand miracles of the Islamic world.
September 28th, 2008 at 5:32 am
NOBODY GIVES US RIGHTS!! We are born with rights. Governments including the UN take away, control, limit and repress rights. They do not give us rights we have rights and they (governments) take them away. Beware of defining what rights can’t be tolerated because they are offensive to some “group”. Eventually all “groups will be without rights.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Uh…Terminus, most of what you view “human rights” to be comes from the heritage passed down to us from the Christian worldview. This is the reason sharia law is so abhorrent to most westerners. And even though all religions to some degree have “blinders” (we’re only human after all)…atheists have historically had human rights “blinders” at an equally pathetic rate.