Christopher Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and a Roger S. Mertz media fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif., writes about how Moslems are demanding passage of a
UN resolution which would criminalize opinions that differ with the Islamic faith:
The Organization of the Islamic Conference... are now demanding through the agency of the United Nations that Islam not only be allowed to make absolutist claims but that it also be officially shielded from any criticism of itself.
Though it is written tongue-in-cheek in the language of human rights and of opposition to discrimination, the non-binding U.N. Resolution 62/154, on "Combating defamation of religions," actually seeks to extend protection not to humans but to opinions and to ideas, granting only the latter immunity from being "offended."
Paragraph 5 "expresses its deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism," while Paragraph 6 "notes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001."
Paragraph 10 of the resolution says, in effect, watch what you say, because our declared intention is to criminalize opinions that differ with the one true faith. Let nobody say that they have not been warned.
