Posted on 10/17/2012 7:30:18 AM PDT by bayouranger
This is fine news indeed, especially since he says he is giving up in the face of immovable opposition from the U.S. and Europe. But with so many recent calls for the imposition of Islamic blasphemy laws in the West under the guise of "hate speech" laws, and with many of them coming from Western journalists, we're not quite out of the woods yet in regard to Islamic supremacist assaults upon the freedom of speech.
"West's free speech stand bars blasphemy ban - OIC," by Tom Heneghan for Reuters, October 15 (thanks to David):
(Reuters) - Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world's top diplomat said.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said his 57-nation body would not try again for United Nations support to ban insults to religion, but appealed for states to apply hate-speech laws concerning Islam.
"We could not convince them," said the Turkish head of the 57-member organisation which had tried from 1998 until 2011 to get a United Nations-backed ban on blasphemy.
"The European countries don't vote with us, the United States doesn't vote with us."
Western countries see the publication of such images and materials as a matter of free speech....
Ihsanoglu told a conference in Istanbul at the weekend that the OIC had failed to win a ban at the United Nations and would not revive its long diplomatic campaign for one.
Asked about recent media reports that the OIC wanted to resume the campaign for a blasphemy ban, he said: "I never said this and I know this will never happen."...
Ihsanoglu's statement clarified the OIC stand at a time when Muslim religious leaders have stepped up demands for an international blasphemy law and politicians have accused Western states of spreading anti-Muslim hatred under the protection of their free-speech laws.
Starting in 1998, the 57-nation OIC won majorities in U.N. rights bodies and at the U.N. General Assembly every year for non-binding resolutions on "combating defamation of religions" that Western states opposed as potential threats to free speech.
But support for these texts steadily fell to just over 50 percent by 2010, because of strong Western and growing Latin American opposition, and the OIC opted for a weaker resolution against intolerance towards all religions last year.
That more general resolution, drawn up with the United States and the European Union, passed unanimously.
The long dispute highlighted differing views of free speech in Western and Muslim countries. Ihsanoglu said Western states had a "strange understanding" of free speech if it could be abused to hurt and insult others....
Muslim politicians have stepped up their denunciations of Western free speech policies following the video and cartoons lampooning Prophet Mohammad. Muslims consider any criticism of him as highly offensive and beyond free speech protection.
"We cannot accept insults to Islam under the guise of freedom of thought," Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told the Istanbul conference.
"We Muslims want the same respect shown to Jewish culture, which we support," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
But while editorialists and religious leaders have renewed calls for a worldwide blasphemy ban, few national leaders have actually ended their rhetorical reactions with that demand.
One who did at the United Nations last month was President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, whose own national blasphemy law has come under increasing criticism at home and abroad as open to widespread abuse against minority Christians.
Ihsanoglu, speaking at the conference on a panel with Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan, encouraged countries with blasphemy laws to apply against insults to Islam, and then quickly added: "not particularly the one in Pakistan".
Don’t believe it. They will just call it something else and try to pass it by stealth. We’ve seen this movie before.
Of course that promise is a lie, intended to gain a temporary truce with the West, to lull the West into thinking that their view has prevailed, which type of lie is permissible in Islam when dealing with infidels - they are going to regroup and use some other Mohammed-approved methods to advance their agenda (blackmail, hostage taking, more lies, bribes, mass murder, etc.), then they will try it again.
Look what’s coming out of the other side of the Janus face of the filthy koranimals over at the oic only 2 days later:
Top Islamic diplomat urges new blasphemy laws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2r-00j1jMU&list=UU56WwNsqpbjme7r-URpl3OA&index=5&feature=plcp
Published on Oct 17, 2012 by JewishNewsOne
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, is appealing to nation states to take on the baton from the United Nations and impose strict hate speech rules which are favorable to the Islamic community.
The OIC has sought to secure a UN backed ban on blasphemy since 1998, but has been thwarted by liberal European and North American countries keen to promote freedom of speech. Latin American support for free speech has also been increasing in recent years.
The comments from the OIC secretary general are part of an ongoing battle between Western countries, who believe that intolerant comments should be met with dialogue rather than violence or jail terms, and Islamic countries seeking greater protection for their centuries old beliefs.
The OIC would like to see films such as the recent YouTube video which lampooned Prophet Mohammed made illegal, along with disrespectful cartoons, writings, pictures and indeed any public disregard for a religious deity or holy person or site.
~~Shocking!
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