Agora

UPDATE: I have been informed by Nils of regionen that the report is indeed available online, but only in French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian. Its designation is E/CN.4/2006/17, published on February 13th and you can see it for yourself here.
UPDATE: I have now translated parts of the report directly from the French. Available here.

Saturday, March 18th Jyllands-Posten broke the story about an attack by UN special rapporteur Doudou Diéne on Denmark. The report has yet to be released to the public in full, but it was leaked by the UN to press sources in Denmark. The reasons for this are obscure. This blog thinks it is because the Human Rights Committee has been dissolved. This means that the new Human Rights Council won’t be able to meet until sometime this summer. Therefore Mr. Diéne probably leaked the report to the press in Denmark to ensure that it could become part of the debate before it would be seen as old news.

On to the report. The report has yet to be released to the general public, but Politiken and Jyllands-Posten have copies of it and have posted excerpts of it. The best overview is gained by using Politiken’s excerpts, but Jyllands-Posten have included some nice tidbits as well. All of it is heavy reading, done in Diplomatese, a new language which critters of Mr. Diéne’s ilk has made just for themselves.

Politiken’s exerpts:

“Finally, the Danish government’s first reaction - rejecting to take an official position on the nature and publication of the cartoons while referring to Freedom of Speech as well as rejecting to meet with the ambassadors from the Moslem countries - is symptomatic not only for the political trivialisation of Islamophobia but also, due to its consequences, to the central role those politically responsible have for the national extent and the international consequences in the shape of demonstrations and expressions of Islamophobia.”

“Judicially, the Danish government ought therefore, especially considering its international obligations, to have, respecting Freedom of Speech, taken a position not only on the consequnces of the caricatures for its community of 200.000 Moslems but also for the protection of peace and order.”

“The author of this report can’t omit asking himself what the political and ideological national context the publication of the caricatures is a part of, and what the position of the Danish government is. This context is primarily colored by an agreement reached on December 8th, 2005 between the government and the Danish People’s Party, an extremist right-wing party, to tighten the conditions for achieving citizenship in a country whose immigration policies are considered among Europe’s most restrictive, a country where the Danish People’s Party has 13 percent of the votes and where a spokesman of the party, Søren Espersen, describes “Moslem immigration as a means to overrun Europe, the same as they’ve been doing the last 1.400 years.”

“At the end of this report, the author has especially been concerned with the development of the position of both the newspaper in question and the government. The editor-in-chief of the newspaper on Monday, January 30th submitted his “apology” not for the publication of the caricatures, which he still considered “sober”, but for having “offended” the Moslems. But the publication that followed by several European newspapers, in spite of the strength of the feelings these cartoons have aroused in the Arab world, exceeds the legitimate defense of Freedom of Speech and seems to confirm Samuel Huntington’s thesis of a clash of civilisations.”

“Finally the author of this report the violent reactions which followed the publication of said caricatures and especially the threats and the attacks on persons in no way related to the publication, made targets exclusively due to their nationality, also the the threaths against diplomatic representations are to be regretted.”

Jyllands-Posten’s Excerpts(not available online):

“Their uncompromising defense of a Freedom of Speech without limits or restrictions is not in accordance with the international rules which are based on a necessary balance between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion, especially to combat calls for racial and religious hatred, and which all the member countries of UN have decided are the basic rules for Human Rights. This attitude shows an alarming lack of sensitivity and understanding of the religious conviction and deep emotions of the groups of society in question. Thus the newspapers strengthen the connection between Islam and Terrorism which arose after September 11th and which is the most important reason for Islamophobia being on the rise in the world at large and in their own countries.”

From Jyllands-Posten’s article on the case, we learn that the government is accused of breaking its international obligations by not conforming with the following three articles in the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

Article 18, paragraph three:
Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

Article 19, paragraph three:
The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
1. For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
2. For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.
Which limits certain rights in paragraph two:
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

Article 20, paragraph two:
Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.

The responses were generally critical, though a few quislings were heard, so let’s take them first:
Expert on Human Rights and International Relations, assistant professor Sten Schaumburg-Müller of Aarhus University:

“I think it’s fair to criticise the government for not fully assuming its responsibility in regards to Article 20. It’s as if the government stopped reading at Article 19. And that is a misinterpretation of current law.”

This blog reminds the dear professor of Article 77 of the Danish Constitution:

Any person shall be at liberty to publish his ideas in print, in writing, and in speech, subject to his being held responsible in a court of law. Censorship and other preventive measures shall never again be introduced.

So the government is therefore not free to limit the speech of Danish citizens. In fact, the constitution states that the government has no business poking around in what you or I say. Only after a thing has been said may a person be held responsible, and then only in a court of law. To get to a court of law, you have to go through the public prosecutor. And he said recently:

“My decision is that there is no violation of the said rules of the Danish Criminal Code.”

In other words, there was no case.
Anyway, another quisling, Marianne Jelved of the Social Liberals. Jyllands-Posten, March 18th (not available online):

“We must enforce the UN Covenant and all other conventions to which we are signatories. We must accept that the conclusions are not always the way we want them to be - if we want an international rule of law. The UN criticism helps our international reputation. It hangs in tatters as it is.”

Now, a special treat: a hypocrite. Villy Søvndal of the Socialist People’s Party is all befuddled and scared of the big bad UN coming to bite him. From Jyllands-Posten March 18th (not available online):

“The government could have answered the UN that we have Freedom of Speech in Denmark and added that they regret the cartoons. The Prime Minister defends Freedom of Speech but says nothing of the cartoons. It’s an absurd deselection of the right to speak freely”

The reason I call him a hypocrite is this quote from a letter to the editor he published in Jyllands-Posten in December, quoted in Politiken:

“Let us all announce that what you call holy, we call profane - and then you’ll have to learn to live with it. In a modern Democracy all speech is allowed, subject only to the courts and the secular laws.”

Now, on to the righteous criticisms of this report, starting with Jens Rohde, Political Spokesman for the ruling Liberal party from Politiken, March 18:

“I don’t give a hoot about religious feelings. It’s not my concern. It’s not the Danish People’s concern”

“It has nothing to do with [a clash of civilisations]. What it has to with, is that we in Denmark are allowed to criticise religions - as we are allowed to criticise politics. And if I feel like being against Islam, then I should be permitted to be against Islam, and I should be permitted to criticise Islam and I should be permitted to discuss anything I like about Islam, Mission Within [ED: Indre Mission, fundamentalist Christians], Scientology, Nordic Mythology or any other religion.”

To top it all of, a nice little *badabing*:
“A Senegalese sitting in an office of racial discrimination is not going to mandate that we exercise mind control.”

Righteous criticism number 2, Danish People’s Party’s Leader Pia Kjærsgaard in Politiken Saturday March 18:

“The UN Rapporteur has likely never been to Denmark. We have for several years worked seriously with integration in Denmark, and along comes someone like that, who knows nothing of the conditions here, with a very sharp critique. That’s not serious.”

And Pia Kjærsgaard again, now in Jyllands-Posten, Saturday March 18th(not available online):

“This is so damning to [Doudou Diéne] and the whole UN system that he ought to be fired. He has no clue, none at all. Denmark is a tolerant and friendly nation.”

Finally, the luke-warm response. Helle Thorning-Schmidt in Jyllands-Posten, Saturday March 18th(not available online):

“I don’t see Denmark as a xenophobic or racist country and I do not recognise the picture Doudou Diéne paints in his report. We do occasionally talk too roughly here and the government ought to have taken the meeting with the ambassadors. But I don’t see the Muhammed cartoons as solely the responsibility of the government. The Arab countries and the Imams from Denmark are also responsible for that.”

Whoops! That wasn’t the last. This letter to the editor was published today, March 21st in Jyllands-Posten:

The Hopeless United Nations

By Mogens Camre, Member of the European Parliament for the Danish People’s Party

Once upon a time, the world put its trust in the United Nations. It was were just people would meet and negotiate solutions to the world’s conflicts. Here the developed countries would jointly make decisions about combating war, ignorance and poverty. Here battles would be fought to spead Human Rights to people in undeveloped dictatorships.

As time went by, the UN became an enormous bureaucracy with an enormous amount of people, paid with enormous tax-free salaries, which with limited effects were using money which some - but far from all - member countries paid into the system.

During the Kofi Annan’s tenure as General Secretary, we have witnessed the genocides in the areas of the Great Lakes where the UN didn’t react as it ought to. After that followed the extensive corruption in connection with the Oil for Food programme in Iraq and today we are witnessing the lacking response to the murder of Christians in Sudan by terrorist Moslems.

The scandal of nepotism sorrounding the son of Kofi Annan strictly adheres to African and Islamic leaders’ tradition of primarily helping their own families.

The 56 Moslem members of the UN are busy making the UN their vehicle for Islamic conquest of the world. That is of course not the official explanation. It’s called the rights of minorities to special treatment and special rights in countries to which they have migrated or fled.

The UN is trying to force an interpretation of the Human Rights which will mean that national constitutions and cultures must be bent to favor the cultures of losers which through religious extremism, uncontrollable population growth and the poverty that goes with it, are on a rampage of conquest in the Western world.

We must be pressured
It’s in that light we must view the judicially baseless attack by the UN Special Rapporteur, Senegalese Doudou Diéne.

It’s clear to anyone who has read the report that Diéne doesn’t know the meaning of Democracy and that what he wants is a dictatorship where religious guardians decide what the People are allowed to think and how they must live. The purpose of the attack is of course to pressure us and other Westerners to conform to Moslem standards. We must be pressured into silence and inaction so Islam can freely spread across the world and force unto others the culture which has made the Islamic countries the world’s poorest, most underdeveloped, most ignorant and the largest violators of Human Rights.

Islam is not only ancient religious perceptions of the the world and Men. Islam is a political ideology which claims sole power to rule the world and oppress and destroy other People. Forces within the UN are eager to help Islam do that, but their demands are served by Kofi Annan when he tells the world with a mild voice that we must show respect to superstition and not tell the truth. Even as he says that, Islamofascism is spreading across the world.

Islam, as described in the Koran, spites Human Rights and is a threat to development and progress. For that reason alone, it should be granted no place in the West. It’s time to tell that to the UN.