UN human rights body adopts religious hatred motion, in boost to hardline countries

The United Nations’ top human rights body on Wednesday approved a Pakistani-led resolution on religious hatred despite opposition from major western countries as well as human rights NGOs, who warned the vote’s outcome risked legitimising religiously repressive countries.

The adoption of the resolution by the UN's Human Rights Council – the only global body scrutinising human rights violations worldwide – sparked concern among rights advocates as it gives a boost to countries with a hardline approach to religion and those who continue to have blasphemy laws, which are deemed incompatible with international human rights conventions.

The vote concluded a dense, lengthy and divisive HRC debate called after a man burned a Quran, Islam’s holy book, near a mosque in Sweden during a major Muslim holiday, sparking fury and indignation among Muslim-majority countries as well as members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Tabled by Pakistan on behalf of the OIC, the resolution was adopted with 28 in favour,12 against, and with seven abstentions, including from OIC members.

The adoption of the resolution dealt a major blow to the European Union and the United States, who voted against the text over concerns that it was too unbalanced and bulldozed over human rights safeguards – namely by wiping away judicial protections for anyone accused of an act of religious intolerance or hatred.

Speaking on behalf of the EU, Belgium’s envoy said the text was an attempt to “fundamentally alter international human rights law … by doing away with the strict conditions that apply whenever states want to impose restrictions on the right to freedom of expression,” adding: “These conditions remain highly relevant in today’s world”.

Human rights NGOs also expressed concern over the results of the vote, which was delayed due to the extensive talks on Tuesday evening, and warned they risked further fuelling divisions and hurting religious minorities.

“Today’s vote is hugely disappointing,” Anna Oosterlinck, head of the UN united of Article 19, an organisation defending freedom of speech and information, said in an emailed statement, adding that the outcome of the vote “puts more than a decade of progress in jeopardy”.

Read more: Volker Türk: Quran burning incident ‘manufactured’ to divide and incite hatred

“Although there is no doubt that the burning of holy books can be considered offensive by many, prohibitions on defamation of religions are not the answer … Instead, they risk fuelling divisions and intolerance, shutting down interfaith dialogue and can be instrumentalised to legitimise repression of religious minorities,” she added.

“Although desecration of any holy book of any religion is despicable, we should be more concerned about religious hatred acts that destroy human lives,” Christophe Foltzenlogel, advocacy officer for the European Centre for Law and Justice, told Geneva Solutions.

The abuse of blasphemy laws, he added, should be of “grave concern” to the HRC. “The ECLJ agrees with the EU when it stated … that human rights protections are for people not things.”

“The resolution adopted yesterday that calls for member states to enact laws to primarily protect one religion’s holy book essentially strengthens blasphemy laws that are abused with impunity –the very laws that the UN bodies believe are contrary to the freedom of expression under ICCPR and UDHR,” he added, referring to two UN conventions on political and universal human rights, respectively.

Another ECLJ official, Cece Noland-Heil, addressed the Council on Tuesday evening and said that, in Pakistan, blasphemy laws “are used against Christians out of hatred to destroy lives.” She cited the plight of a Christian teenager in Pakistan, whose case the ECLJ is following closely on the ground, and whom they said has been “languishing in prison” for five years and has been sentenced to death after he was “falsely” accused of blasphemy.

Noland-Heil said that, even though the teenager was a 16-year-old minor at the time of the events, he was “tried as an adult” and also faced intimidation from the public and threats that he would be “killed” if released.

Pakistan’s mission to the UN in Geneva did not reply to a request for comment before publication. Foltzenlogel said that the Pakistani mission had “given us time to discuss the case with them” but declined to provide further details on their exchange.

West disengaged

The outcome of the vote signals a further weakening of western nations’ sway on the global stage and beefs up the dominance of rising global powers, such as Gulf and Asian countries.

During the debate, Pakistan’s envoy accused the west of failing to put words into action when it came to combatting religious hatred.

While the EU and the US, and several NGOs, argued ahead of the vote that a separate HRC resolution, adopted in 2011 after lengthy negotiations already covered acts of religious intolerance or hatred, many countries in those regions, but also in Latin America, still voted in favour of the resolution.

That text, called resolution 1618, paved the way for a raft of UN plans of action, declarations and processes aiming to combat discrimination and stereotyping on religious grounds.

But Marc Limon, executive director of the Universal Rights Group (URG), said Wednesday’s vote came on the back of years of disengagement from the US and the EU on the Istanbul process – one of the outcomes of resolution 1618, in which the US and Pakistan led negotiations.

The URG acts as a secretariat for the Istanbul process, and Limon said that overall, it had been “very, very difficult” to get western nations on board to set anything in motion on the issue.

“Some countries, like the Netherlands, for example, did show leadership by coming forward [some] years ago and hosting a big meeting,” he said. “But too many other countries, especially those that led on this back in 2011 … for example, have been too disengaged – and the EU has been far too disengaged.”

“They were completely complacent and now they were just destroyed in the votes,” he added.

The EU’s mission to the UN did not reply to a request for comment before publication.

“A lot will depend now on whether the West recommits itself to resolution 1618, because otherwise [it] will die and the Istanbul process will die, which would be disastrous for the HRC and for freedom of expression and of religion,” Limon said.

“The broader kind of narrative is that, [religions], rather than individuals, have rights and that [religion] should be beyond criticism or beyond scrutiny – that’s very dangerous, because the moment you start to say [that] any politician, any political party or any religion is beyond parody and beyond scrutiny and criticism… that's very dangerous.”

“I don't think anybody will be talking about the return of blasphemy laws because these laws are still in place in many countries, including in Pakistan. But it does strengthen the position of keeping those laws on the books.”