Turkey and the EU and UN

June 30, 8:57 AMNY Israel Conflict ExaminerRichard Shulman

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TURKEY & THE EU & UN         16713 – Shulman

Anders Rasmussen was Prime Minister of Denmark when a private Danish newspaper published cartoons of Muhammad.  The Prime Minister defended the rights of a free press.  In any case, it was beyond his power to censor.

Nevertheless, when most NATO members supported Mr. Rasmussen’s nomination to head NATO, Turkey objected.  It acceded only when given: an EU concession in negotiations on Turkey’s membership application, the appointment of two Turks to senior NATO posts, and an apology by Rasmussen.  This was a step away from freedom of the press, because the government accepted a penalty imposed by Turkey.   [Muslims often defame non-believers but bridle at non-believer criticism of themselves, whether the criticism be valid or not.]

For 20 years, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) systematically used accusations of “Islamophobia” and of “insults to Islam” to cow critics.  It is getting the UN to abandon human rights and freedoms.  The US resists some of the UN resolutions against freedom of speech and religion, but does not make “a vigorous counterattack in defense of freedom.”  [Therefore, the resolutions keep coming.  We should be trying to defeat their radical ideology.]

In 1990, the OIC issued the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.  They patterned it after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but subordinated rights to undefined Islamic law.  It subordinated freedom of speech to their laws against blasphemy.  The UN didn’t adopt it but nevertheless cites it.

The OIC attacked human rights reporting.  In 1994, the UN special rapporteur on Sudan reported that Sudan’s capital punishment for anyone older than seven and convicted of apostasy or adultery violated Sudan’s commitment to human rights agreements.  Sudan called the report blasphemy, because it criticized Sudan’s Islamic law.  Sudan warned him he might be condemned to death.

In 1997, OIC members Egypt, Bangladesh, Algeria, Pakistan, and [reputedly moderate] Indonesia, etc., condemned the UN special rapporteur on racism of blasphemy for reporting antisemitism in Muslim states.  The next report exempted the Muslim world from that scrutiny.  In 2002, the OIC bloc got the UN Human Rights Commission to end special reporting on human rights in Iran.

That year, in response to the Danish cartoons, the OIC got the special rapporteur on freedom of expression to include instances when freedom of expression is racially or religiously discriminatory  (Paul Marshall, Jewish Political Chronicle, spring 2009, p.10 from the Weekly Standard, 4/16/09).

Making concessions to Islamists curbs our own freedom to prevent their conquering us. The OIC represents 57 Muslim governments.  Its position is against freedom.  How can they claim Islam is consistent with democracy?