US, Europe Mount Opposition To Defamation of Religion Call At UN

Today's Washington Times reports that the U.S., European governments and religious rights organizations are making a new push to prevent the United Nations General Assembly this fall from adopting a renewal of the "Combating Defamation of Religion" resolution that is sponsored each year by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. In June, the European Centre for Law and Justice submitted an analysis of the Resolution to the U.N. The 16-page document (full text) criticizes the resolution, saying that it "replaces the existing objective criterion of limitations on speech where there is an intent to incite hatred or violence against religious believers with a subjective criterion that considers whether the religion or its believers feel offended by the speech." (See prior related posting.)