IRFN (March 27-April 2): UN Human Rights Council Adopts Resolution on Religious Defamation

 

Feature: The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has issued its Session in Review report for the 7th Session of the UN Human Rights Counsel, which took place on March 3-28 in Geneva.  Included in this issue of the report are analyses of a new religious defamation resolution, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on racism, the Durban Review Conference, and country specific mandates.  Read the report here.

 

 

AMPANG - Hundreds of Burmese migrants, including 200 Rohingya Muslims, were rounded up in Malaysia by RELA, a civil volunteer corps created by the Malaysian government the Irrawaddy reported on March 22. Though the Rohingya Muslims are recognized as refugees by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, RELA volunteers dismissed their UNHCR cards. Rohingya Muslims have encountered discrimination and mistreatment in their native Burma since the junta took power in 1978, and the majority have been denied Burmese citizenship. Bangkit.net, a site maintained by Malaysian NGOs, contains some of the details of the locations of the raids and their severity, while Amnesty International has a detailed report of the hardships that Rohingya Muslims have encountered in Burma.

 

 

SAUDI ARABIA - The nation's consultative assembly, the Shura Council, rejected an international recommendation for a law which would have promoted respect for non-Muslim religions, by a vote of 77 to 33, Arab News reported on March 27. Several members of the Council expressed concern that the terms "religions and religious figures" contained in the text were too vague, and could possibly lead to the recognition and promotion of "pagan religions" within the Kingdom. Arab News carries an English version of the story, which originally ran in the Arabic-language Al-Watan.

 

 

NAGORNO-KARABAKH - The Supreme Court of Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally unrecognized entity located in the southern Caucasus between Azerbaijan and Armenia, has ruled that a prisoner of conscience must remain in jail in order to undergo "re-education" conducted by the prison's leadership. The prisoner, Areg Hovhanesyan, is a Jehovah's Witness who refuses to take part in Nagorno-Karabakh's compulsory military service on religious grounds. Hovhanesyan's appeal for early release was rejected on March 24, when the court ruled that he must remain in jail for the duration of his four-year sentence. 

 

 

GENEVA - The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on religious defamation by a vote of 21-10, the Associated Press reported on March 27. The resolution, which was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), is intended to protect all religions from defamation, though the resolution specifically makes reference only to Islam "and other divine religions" which go unnamed. Several EU countries voted against the resolution, explaining that they were concerned that religious defamation laws would be used to limit freedom of speech. The full text of the resolution can be found on website of the office of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights.

 

 

KARASAI - Religious persecution continues for Baptists and Hare Krishna in Kazakhstan, with one Hare Krishna temple threatened with demolition and several Baptists fined for peaceful religious activity and threatened with jail time Forum 18 reported on March 28. The Hare Krishna community near Almaty has been given a week to vacate the premises of their temple, while several Baptist congregations have been targeted for closure, according to Kazakh officials. In addition, members of Kazakhstan's Justice Department have warned members of the threatened communities not to try to appeal to the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), saying that neither organization would be of any help. 

 

 

ISTANBUL - Turkey's Constitutional Court decided that it would hear a case for the dissolution of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP (Justice and Development Party) on the grounds that the party poses a threat to Turkey's secular principles the Associated Press reported on March 31. The Chief Prosecutor of the High Court of Appeals has accused the AKP of encouraging "anti-secular activities", citing, among other things, the party's efforts to lift a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities and to ease restrictions on religious education within the country. The Associated Press carries details of the story, while the New Anatolian provides excerpts from the case itself.

 

 

SCOPJE - Critics of Macedonia's new Religion Law fear that the legislation will perpetuate discrimination against certain religious groups in the country, including the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Bektashi Muslim community Forum 18 reported on March 31.  The wording of the document is so vague that it is unclear whether or not smaller religious communities will have religious freedom, an especially worrying point as the Law will give the state-supported Macedonian Orthodox Church potential veto power over the rights of smaller religious groups. The Law, which was adopted in September 2007, will enter into force on May 1 of this year.