{"id":1808,"date":"2009-04-05T08:06:17","date_gmt":"2009-04-05T16:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=1808"},"modified":"2009-04-05T08:06:17","modified_gmt":"2009-04-05T16:06:17","slug":"un-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/un-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"UN-free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

The resolution recently passed by the UN’s entertaingly mis-labeled Human Rights Council on the topic of “religious defamation” is, of course, nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. The Economist<\/em> does a good job here <\/a>\u00a0of explaining why, but one particular point cannot be emphasized enough:<\/p>\n

The [UN] resolution says \u201cdefamation of religions\u201d is a \u201cserious affront to human dignity\u201d which can \u201crestrict the freedom\u201d of those who are defamed, and may also lead to the incitement of violence. But there is an insidious blurring of categories here, which becomes plain when you compare this resolution with the more rigorous language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 in a spirit of revulsion over the evils of fascism. This asserts the right of human beings in ways that are now entrenched in the theory and (most of the time) the practice of liberal democracy. It upholds the right of people to live in freedom from persecution and arbitrary arrest; to hold any faith or none; to change religion; and to enjoy freedom of expression, which by any fair definition includes freedom to agree or disagree with the tenets of any religion. In other words, it protects individuals\u2014not religions, or any other set of beliefs. And this is a vital distinction. For it is not possible systematically to protect religions or their followers from offence without infringing the right of individuals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No it’s not. And nor should governments (let alone the ‘international community’) even try to do so.<\/p>\n

It’s certainly to be hoped that (at least when it is deserved) some degree of good manners be shown when discussing matters of religion, but the essence of good manners are that they are voluntary. The increasing effort by some groups (and Islamists are not the only ones to blame in this respect) to pressure governments to legislate in defense of\u00a0\u00a0those groups’\u00a0‘rights’ not to be ‘offended’ at affronts to their particular versions of the sacred is a cancer eating away at the principle of free speech, a cancer that is, quite clearly, metastasizing fast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The resolution recently passed by the UN’s entertaingly mis-labeled Human Rights Council on the topic of “religious defamation” is, of course, nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. The Economist does a good job here \u00a0of explaining why, but one particular … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1809,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions\/1809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}