Islamic
states have fired back at a United Nations- appointed special expert on freedom
of expression, who said that speech should not be restricted in order to protect
religion.
Restrictions should never be used to protect particular institutions or
abstract notions, concepts or beliefs, including religious ones, wrote UN
Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue in his report presented to the Human
Rights Council.
La Rue, a Guatemalan human rights jurist, said restrictions to prevent
intolerance should only be applied to advocacy of national, racial or
religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or
violence.
He also called on the council, and the UN General Assembly in New York, not to
adopt resolutions that support the idea of defamation of religion. At its
previous session in March the council adopted, in a blow to European nations, a
resolution condemning the so-called defamation of religion as a human rights
violation.
Addressing La Rue at the current session, Pakistan's ambassador to the UN in
Geneva, Zamir Akram, speaking on behalf of the 57 member- states of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), slammed La Rue for not reporting
on the abuses of this freedom. Pakistan's ambassador said the OIC would
monitor the expert and take an appropriate course of action if he
deviated again from the mandate they wanted him to implement.
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