The UN Human Rights Council on Religious Freedom

On March 26th the United Nations Council on Human Rights put forth a proposal urging the passage of laws world wide to protect religion from criticism. This proposal seems out of place considering the country that proposed it, Pakistan. It has drawn a lot of attention, and criticism, mostly from the Western Republics and the media at large. At first blush I can understand why. It does seem to inhibit free speech, as the populace sees it; the right to say what ever to whomever and whenever and for whatever reason you want. Also, because the ONLY religion stated in the proposal is Islam, it seems that all Pakistani lawmakers were seeking to do is effectively say “Stop picking on the Muslims!” while allowing the Islamic extremists that they purportedly protect continue to practice their favored pastime; religious persecution.
Some see the proposal coming from Pakistan as another way to shield Muslim extremists like al-Qaida while maintaining peace with insurgent forces. In February the Awami National Party opened negotiations with a known Taliban leader and eventually gave in and imposed Islamic law in a vast region of the Swat valley in order to broker a cease fire with the militants. A bad move to say the least, now the Taliban leader has more political power than before and can enforce it with his personal army.
Others see the proposal as Pakistan trying desperately to assimilate into the democratic world while maintaining their true religion. They want to be a democratic country and reap all the benefits of democracy; greater personal freedom. Not to mention continued friendship with the United States, England, and Peoples Republic of China. However, let’s face it; Islam has gotten a black eye from its extremist-run-amok. Islam leaders have done precious little to rein them in, and it’s not helping how the religion as a whole is accepted and viewed by the rest of the world. Particularly those people who are being targeted by the extremists. With little power to stop them, and the situation for Islamic believers around the world becoming dicey, some believe that Pakistan is attempting to stem the free speech in order to create some good PR.
Sooooo, what is the real meaning? Only the Pakistani government knows. Let’s look at this from a logical standpoint.

Pakistan is a Muslim country; its full name is The Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It’s relatively short history has been pocked with a few moments in which true Democracy could have bloomed and a lot of military governments, dictators, and all around bullies.
While Pakistan does enjoy a close tie to the United States, we restructured their debt, ended trade sanctions against them, promised hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and sold them fighter planes; they do not in any way share ideology. Persecution in general is rampant. It seems that the only answer that any party has to any kind of disagreement is to blow something up, kidnap and torture someone, or assassinate someone to put their favorite in power.
Personal freedom is limited compared to other countries. You can go where you want to. Just like in any country, it has self segregated and there are certain areas that a person does not go unless they are looking for a fight. The personal freedom ends with the dissemination of free speech, free religion, and free thought. Islamic governments take it very seriously if you do not go along with their ideas and voicing your opinion could cause you to break out in a case of the deads.
In the war on terrorism one has to deal with Pakistan. It is the neighbor of Afghanistan. The truth of the matter is Pakistan is an Islamic nation, with Islamic law. They will ALWAYS have a tie to the Taliban because it is impossible for them not to. The Taliban are the true power in the Middle East, and; right, wrong, or indifferent, always will be.
The Taliban control people and governments through two of the greatest forces on earth; fear and religion. They use terrorism, torture, rape, genocide, and propaganda to strike fear into the government and its people. Let’s face it, most of us will do whatever the person who is pointing the gun at us, or our family, says do. The Taliban also control the Islamic religion to an alarming degree. Although the majority of common people under Taliban control are peaceable Islamic people, the ones a body has to worry about are the uncommon ones. They are the hard line, extremist, radical Islamic Imams and Mufti who are more that likely more concerned with a personal or political agenda that an religious one.

United Nations and the Council on Human Rights

The United Nations is a body of over 190 countries. As a member of the UN a country signs a treaty that lays out the rules from international relations. While the UN does not make laws and is not a governing body in that sense, there are repercussions for breaking the treaty. The main job of the UN is humanitarian in nature through resolving conflicts between countries and providing a means to create policies that do affect all people.
The Human Rights Council was created by the General Assembly in March of 2006 and consists of 47 nations. It replaced the Human Rights Commission consisting of 53 nations. Many nations, including the US and Israel were opposed to the new commission based on the fact that the majority of countries that sit on the council have been accused of gross human rights violations. However, the United Nations website claims that members were elected by secret ballot of the absolute majority of the General Assembly and have a commitment to human rights efforts. We will see.

Now we have a little information on the two major players for the stage. How does Pakistan stand when it comes to human rights it is own country? Not very well, but better than it has been in the past. As a matter of fact, its own Constitution is so vague on religious freedom that the same UN Council has reprimanded them and called for the Pakistani government to change its policy for religious freedom. The excuse that Pakistan gives:
We are “…in a grip by religious extremism and Talibanization of society. This phenomenon is averse to notions of tolerance, respect for diversity, multiculturalism and universality of human rights. This is a consequence of decades of misrule and misdirection.” -Joint NGO report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) for the examination of the 15th-20th periodic reports of Pakistan at the 74th CERD session in February 2009, page 10.


The truth of the matter is that Pakistan, and it’s not the only country, does not practice what it is preaching.
That leaves us with the why. Why, if Pakistan is in the grip of a religious extremist group, did they along with several other Islamic countries put forward this proposal? I have a best case and worst case scenario. I do not and can not know the true reasons for this proposal. All I can do is what everyone else is doing, speculate.
Worst Case: Pakistan is trying to clear the way to begin the systematic removal of a) Muslim groups that do not fall in line with Taliban ideology, b) other religious groups that do not fall in line with Taliban ideology, and c) anyone else that does not fall in line with Taliban ideology.
If Pakistan is being controlled by the Taliban and extremist Muslims then the proposal would seem to be giving them a universal “get out of jail free” card. All they would have to do is target the person/group that they want to remove and wait. At some point the target will mess up and do something that they can say is trouncing on the sanctity of their religion. At that point they could enact either the Shar’iah Law if they are dealing with a Muslim or Civil Law for non-Muslims.
Shar’iah Law comes in several forms and one of the most serious crimes in Shar’iah Law is a Hadd crime, particularly Apostasy from Islam. The decision that someone is making war against Allah and his messengers would, I expect, be based on the point of view of the Qazi, or judge. If the judge is a radical then, well you get the picture. Hadd crimes are the only crimes in Shar’iah Law that have a pre-determined punishment. There is no separation of church and state in Islamic countries and the punishments for Hadd crimes are based on the Quran. Guess what the punishment for making war against Allah is.
Are you still with me? Now let’s look at Civil Law. This is a set of laws and courts that are somewhat like ours, only in a simpler format. You have a judge, witnesses, etc. There is no appeals process and trial and punishment often happen within days of one another. If the Taliban is the controlling governmental body, what do you think the common law with do to ‘dissenters’?
Here is where the UN Human Rights Council and the proposal come in. If the UN has passes a resolution that makes it unlawful for a country/person/group to criticize Islam, the home country of the person/group would be punishable for the offense unless they punished offender or allowed the offended to do so. Do you follow my line of thinking? If say, for example an American or Sovereign Citizen was to make war on Allah or his messengers by fighting a war in against the Taliban. The country of that citizens origin would have to punish them by their own laws or allow the Islamic country to do so by its. The country that makes war on the offended Islamic country would have to stand up before the UN General Assembly and either end said war or face sanctions.
In other words, it gets US out of THERE and makes US leave the Taliban alone. They do this by hitting where it hurts, the pocket book. Our pocket book is hurt pretty badly as it is. Our new President is not real keen on continuing the war on terrorism in Iraq or Afghanistan. You do the math.
Best Case: Pakistan is trying to clean up their act. This is the one I am really, really pulling for. There is a new government in Pakistan. It’s actually less that a year old, and claims to be committed to cleaning up its act and making up for its past. The proposal could be the new government’s way of using the backing of the UN to force the religious right Islam back in line by using their own laws against them. Remember that the Shar’iah Law is open to the interpretation of the people with the power. Right now, the people with the power are playing nice with the UN and with the Allied forces in the war on terrorism. They don’t seem to be in bed with the Taliban or looking to get there any time soon.
Little History lesson on the old Pakistani government
The old government, under Pervez Musharraf was one that we were used to dealing with. Musharraf appointed himself President in 2001, the US pretty much put him there. In 2002 voters overwhelmingly approved to extend his presidency for 5 years. Many people said that the US campaigned heavily for him. He also helped the Allied Forces in fighting Al-Qaeda by arresting a top aid to Bin Laden.
Then things went south. The Pakistani father of the nuclear weapon was found to have sold out to the North Koreans and Libya. He was pardoned. In 2004 Musharraf declared that he would not give up his position as head of the army. Although he claimed to be helping in the war against terrorist and the Taliban, Pakistan remained a breeding ground for terrorist. In 2006 he signed a peace agreement with seven militant groups that called themselves Pakistani Taliban. This handed the Taliban a secure base of operations and was the first real indication that something might be amiss in Musharraf’s government.
In August 2006 the Pakistan Supreme Court ruled that exiled ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif could return to Pakistan from exile in Saudi Arabia. Then it was released that Musharraf and Ex-Prime Minister Bhutto had made a deal. Musharraf would step down as head of the army and actually run for office. Bhutto would go into self imposed exile for eight years, come back, and run for Prime Minister. Sound like a lot of dealing on a maybe. Sounds a lot like ballot rigging in the making too. At any rate Sharif was arrest and deported before he had spent 24 hours in Pakistan.
Musharraf was re-elected by a vote of national and provincial assemblies which was boycotted by the opposition so no one voted against him and, surprise, Bhutto returned 2 months later, not 8 years. Someone tried to kill her, and in October Musharraf instated martial law, canceled the constitution, fired the Judges and had hundred of people arrested for opposition.
The new Supreme Court, full of new judges, ruled that Musharraf was within his rights to fire all those judges, and that it was perfectly ok for him to be elected president while he controlled the army. There is nothing wrong here, you are just imagining things. They went on to allow him to issue several executive orders and amendments that basically precluded him from legal challenges for his actions while acting as head of military during the martial law. His get out of jail free card in had, he stepped down as head of the army, reinstated the constitution and accepted his re-election. Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack on December 27th. Musharraf blamed al-Qaeda, because everyone else would, but Bhutto supporters claim he did it because he had no intentions of sharing power. Musharraf used the ensuing uprising to suspend parliamentary elections. This end-ith the lesson on absolute power corrupting absolute.
Once elections resumed he was in for a surprise. His party suffered a glorious defeat and the parliament was taken over by the Pakistani Peoples Party and the Pakistani Muslim League-N. Then Musharraf messed up, allowed the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul and was caught giving secrets about US operations against radical militants to, you guessed it, radical militants. The US withdrew its backing of Musharraf and basically threw him to the wolves. He was set to be impeached when he resigned his office. The coalition of parties that got rid of him immediately began to bicker over the power vacuum ending with the Pakistani Muslim League withdrawing from Parliament.
In September Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistani Peoples Party was elected President. Well go figure. That brings us to the new government and what it wants to do. Its so new it had barely had time to do much of anything so it seems to have a clean slate as far as governments go.
The Middle East has been a hot bed for thousands of years, and will probably continue to be for thousands more. Good relations between the countries of the Middle East and the rest of the world, even themselves, will have to grow before anything can change there. There are literally thousand of years of differences in culture that will have to be dealt with first. We don’t trust their way of governing, their motives, or even their religion. Quite frankly, I think the feeling is mutual and probably well deserved. This proposal falls under suspicion because of past dealings with Islamic countries. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. For one, if something like the worst case scenario proves true, they would only get by with it once. Albeit, a lot of people would probably loose their lives and I for one do not want to see it happen. It would probably irreparably damage the relationship that these countries have with the Western world. I could go on with the fatalistic rhetoric and predict World War III and the Apocalypse. I will leave that to the Far Christian Right, and your opinion to you. This is only mine.