Failing to see the irony, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) is saying that taking the rise out of Islam can lead to a threat to world security.
According to a story on an American news website that aims to publicise stories normally underplayed by the mainstream media, the organisation is calling on America and Europe to take stronger measures to stamp out the evil that is criticism of Islam.
There’s been an “alarming” rise in insults, says the OIC in a report prepared for a summit of the group’s 57 members in Dakar today and tomorrow. The story goes on:
The report by a special OIC monitoring group said the organisation was struggling to get the West to understand that Islamophobia “has dangerous implications on global peace and security” and to convince western powers to do more.
Islamic leaders have long warned that perceptions linking Muslims to terrorism, especially since the September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, would make Muslims more radical.
What it seems to have in mind mainly is the Turbomb cartoon, which has “triggered” (if you believe most of the world’s media) protests, deaths, mayhem and trashing stuff by Muslims the world over.
OIC leaders have expressed renewed concern [the story continues] following events such as the publication in Denmark of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed and a plan by the Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders to release a film calling the Koran “fascist”.
Well, if the cap fits . . .
Meanwhile, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is kicking up a stink about this OIC malarkey. In a statement to the UN’s Human Rights Council, it says the 57 members of the OICÂ are aiming to undermine the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“The Islamic states see human rights exclusively in Islamic terms,” it says, “and by sheer weight of numbers this view is becoming dominant within the UN system. The implications for the universality of human rights are ominous.
And it becomes rather worrying:
The IHEU statement [. . .] came against the background of mounting success by the OIC, currently holding a summit in Dakar, in achieving passage of UN resolutions against “defamation of religions”.
Although several such resolutions have been adopted by the two-year-old Council and its predecessor since 1999, in December the UN’s General Assembly easily passed a similar one for the first time over mainly Western and Latin American opposition.
The OIC – backed by allies in Africa and by Russia and Cuba – has been pushing for stronger resolutions on “defamation” since a global controversy arose two years ago over cartoons in a Danish newspaper which Muslims say insult their religion.
Nice, though, that Reuters keep using scare quotes around the word defamation! And it really does make you wonder what they’d do if we in the West posed a real threat against Islam instead of drawing a few cartoons and taking the piss now and again, as we do out of all religions that display extreme twattishness.