Meanwhile, the European Union has offered to host the next meeting of the so-called Istanbul Process, an aggressive effort by Muslim countries to make it an international crime to criticize Islam.
The Istanbul Process — which is explicitly aimed at enshrining a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and/or Islamic Sharia law in international law — is being spearheaded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 57 Muslim countries.
Based in Saudi Arabia, the OIC has long pressed the European Union and the United States to impose limits on free speech and expression about Islam.
But the OIC has now redoubled its efforts and is engaged in a determined diplomatic offensive to persuade Western democracies to implement United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 16/18, which calls on all countries to combat “intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of … religion and belief.”
Resolution 16/18, which was adopted at HRC headquarters in Geneva in March 2011, and was recently backed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the most recent Istanbul Process Conference in Washington in December, is widely viewed as a significant step forward in OIC efforts to advance the international legal concept of defaming Islam.
Originally published by Stonegate Institute www.stonegateinstitute.org
