Democracy Doesn't Work When The Majority Are Demonstrably Wrong.

It has recently come to my attention that a large block of Muslim countries are having rather too much success in forcing changes to UN resolutions to try to outlaw ‘defamation of religion’, where ‘religion’ means ‘Islam’ and ‘defamation’ means ‘any kind of criticism at all’. The whole thing just serves to demonstrate a massive failure to see the point of free speech: the speech that most needs protecting is exactly that speech that will offend the majority of people. Anything else is protected more-or-less automatically, simply because nobody will want to stop it. Moreover, one of the key purposes of a body like the UN is to limit the powers of its member states: like the EU and the Federal Government of the USA, its rules and safeguards prevent a government from abusing its power and taking basic rights such as freedom of speech away from its citizens. If you allow them to abridge freedom of speech in cases of ‘defamation of religion’ then you’re handing them a free pass to censor more-or-less anyone they like, especially when the national religion is as closely tied with the government as it is in an Islamic state. It is precisely those states whose people most need an external, international organisation to protect their rights: there are countries where apostasy is a criminal offence. That is, you can be punished by the law for choosing not to be a Muslim. It’s exactly that kind of thing that freedom of speech as a protected right is supposed to prevent.

Mostly, though, it should  be clear from the title that this is a dumb idea. This is not something that human rights law should be addressing. ‘Defamation of religion’ protects religion, not humans. It should be obvious that you can’t enact a law to protect two contradictory ideas, but that’s exactly what this does. I can’t very well say that Jesus either was or was not the son of God without insulting Islam or Christianity, and since it’s my understanding that both Jesus and God are entirely made up, I’m liable to insult both if I voice my true opinions. Assuming, that is, that they consider calling their religion intrinsically false to be insulting it. Frankly I’m not sure how words slike ‘insult’ and ‘defamation’ apply to abstract concepts like ideas.

Their justification is the standard Victim Card:

Muslim countries say they are only trying to cut down of what they see as extensive bias against Islam in the West...

Let’s see how long that lasts before they start trying to censor legitimate and unimportant critics of Islam, shall we? Go:

Muslim countries say they are only trying to cut down of what they see as extensive bias against Islam in the West. In the lead-up to Monday's vote, many referred, for example, to the 2005 publication of Danish cartoons that satirized Muhammad, and which touched off riots through the Muslim world.

Zero seconds. Nice work there.

Of course, that article also points out one interesting fact: the legal definition of defamation requires that the statement be false. So I can say ‘it’s little wonder that there’s a bias against a bloodthirsty and backwards religion which subjugates women and tries to stifle all criticism of itself’ and there’s nothing the UN can do about it.