20 December 2011
CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY FOR PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS AS UNITED NATIONS SAYS "NO" TO DEFAMATION OF RELIGIONS RESOLUTION
Twelve months ago, over 400,000 people from more than 70 different countries signed a petition organised by Open Doors to say 'YES' to Freedom of Religion and 'NO' to the concept of defamation of religions. This year, all these people got what they called for: for the first time for many years there was a NO resolution on defamation of religions at the United Nations General Assembly. Open Doors celebrates this news from New York as a wonderful vindication of its 2010 Right to Believe campaign.
Stephen Rand, Head of Advocacy at Open Doors, said; "A year ago I went to New York to represent 428,000 people from over 70 countries who had said 'YES' to religious liberty and 'NO' to the Defamation of Religions Resolution. And this year the UN General Assembly has ended with a resounding 'NO' to the Defamation of Religions Resolution. What a wonderful Christmas present!"
On Monday 19 December, as the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly came to an end, it adopted two resolutions on the right to Freedom of Religion or Belief. Both the resolution for the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief and the resolution combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, stigmatisation, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons, based on religion or belief were adopted without a vote. The second resolution is perceived as replacing previous years' resolutions on Combating Defamation of Religions.
Open Doors, an international NGO serving persecuted Christians worldwide, strongly opposed these earlier resolutions underlining the need to combat defamation of religions, arguing that human rights are to protect individuals not religions. Religious minorities could easily become the victims of the attempt to protect a religion against any critical comments - as demonstrated by the abuse of the Blasphemy laws in Pakistan, which see Asia Bibi still languishing on death row.
A new resolution combating intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief, expresses concern about the rising numbers of incidents of religious intolerance, discrimination and related violence, as well as of negative stereotyping of individuals on the basis of religion or belief. Rather than categorically trying to protect religions against criticism, the new resolution recognises that the open public debate of ideas can be among the best protections against religious intolerance. The resolution further calls upon all states to foster religious freedom and pluralism by promoting the ability of members of all religious communities to manifest their religion, and to contribute openly and on an equal footing in society.
Stephen Rand concluded, "In 2012 we will be working hard to build on this and see even more positive steps towards genuine freedom of religion: every persecuted Christian - every Egyptian, every Pakistani, every North Korean, the list goes on - has the right to believe, without fear, violence or discrimination."
