Jihad against free speech at United Nations human rights body

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has been further brought into disrepute by the behaviour of human-rights abusing Islamic states.

On Monday the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), to which the NSS is affiliated, tried to make a brief statement about honour killings, female genital mutilation and stoning. IHEU and the Association of World Education had three minutes to put their case.

But as they tried to make the statement, they were constantly interrupted by the representative of Egypt who accused the NGOs of trying to “crucify Islam”. They insisted that sharia law must not be mentioned at the UNHRC, let alone criticised. A Pakistan delegate — whose country speaks for the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the rights body — said the grouping had “strong objections” to any direct or indirect discussion of sharia. Joining Egypt in asking the president, Romania's Daru Romulus Costea, to bar any debate that took this path, he said that if allowed it would “amount to spreading of hatred against certain members of this Council”.

Costea suspended the council and is reported to have asked the NGOs not to mention sharia.

On Wednesday Mr Costea told a press conference that he had ruled that only Muslim scholars can be permitted to talk about Islam in the Council. He said that religions deserve special protection because any debate about faith is bound to be “very complex, very sensitive and very intense”. The ruling will not affect findings by the Council’s experts, just its chamber debates, although in a later ruling it was decided that independent experts could be sacked after three years. “Good mandate holders who do their job right upset governments,” a spokesman for Amnesty International said.

"Any government which feels upset can now complicate the reappointment of an expert. This is going to have a stifling effect, potentially a serious one," he said.

A spokesman for human rights group Amnesty International said the move was consistent with attempts by some governments to create no-go zones in the council. “If Pakistan can come and say that the murder of women for some perverse sense of honour has nothing to do with universally recognised human rights, we’re in trouble,” Peter Splinter told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said she was concerned that any subject should be “taboo” at the council. “It is very concerning in a Council which should be... the guardian of freedom of expression, to see constraints or taboos, or subjects that become taboo for discussion," the former Canadian High Court judge told a news conference.

See Monday’s disgraceful display
Read Roy Brown’s, (former president of IHEU) more detailed account of events

20 June 2008