Nineteen Is The Number To Watch As UN Committee Prepares To Vote On Religious ‘Defamation’

As a U.N. General Assembly committee prepares to vote on a controversial religious “defamation” resolution – possibly as early as Friday – critics will be keen to see how successful their lobbying against the Islamic-led initiative has been.

Nineteen will be the number to better. That was the margin of difference between countries voting for and against the resolution in 2009. The result then was 80-61 in favor of the resolution, with 42 abstentions.

Any margin smaller than 19 this year will be welcome by opponents, although an outright defeat of the measure is the ultimate goal.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)-sponsored text has passed at the General Assembly every year since 2005 (and at the U.N.’s human rights body in Geneva every year since 1999.)

The past three years have seen waning support, however: The 2006 and 2007 resolutions passed by a margin of 57 votes, but that dropped to 33 in 2008 and then to 19 last year. Anything below that number this year will indicate that the opposition – from a wide range of interests including Western governments, religious freedom and free speech advocacy groups – is continuing to make an impact.

The OIC, a bloc of 56 countries, argues that Islam and its teachings, symbols and prophetic figures are being denigrated by non-Muslims as a result of ignorance, prejudice or fear, especially over the period since 9/11.

It includes in these acts of “Islamophobia” incidents such as the publication of newspaper cartoons satirizing Mohammed, security “profiling,” threats to burn copies of the Qur’an, or claims that Islam’s revered text promotes violence against non-Muslims.         
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