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[BloodBird]

So I was in the middle of a rather long reply when I noticed Silver had locked the previous tread fro getting out of line. Maybe just as well, it was getting a little hot in the other tread, given the topic

After reviewing the rule-sets given for this section once more, I'm confident I can try again, this time by prefacing what I starter my reply post with.

The petition can again be found here.

Note: As far as I understand things, it's only going to impact UN member-nations, it's not a tool for bashing in the heads of any non-UN nations in the Middle East, Africa or wherever. If we keep this as our basic understanding of the topic, I had a question I dearly wanted answered.

So here it is, assuming anyone is still interested in answering:

Would you sign this petition as it is, and if you would/would not, please let us know why?

------------------------------------------------

For my part, I signed this a good while ago, for the simple personally-held principle belief that everyone deserve the same basic treatment no matter who they are. Blasphemy laws, as I see it, are a tool to legitimize institutional denial of freedom of speech, expression and other rights, rendering you bereft of those rights and freedoms. If they are to count for anything, they must count for everything.

If you can not speak your mind on a topic due to fear of punishment, for instance offer critics of [insert religion of choice], then you are not free. If you can be hurt or mistreated or even killed because of a religious doctrine, you are obviously not free.

For these basic reasons I've signed this. What exactly it will change I don't know for sure, I am hoping ofc some good will come of this. I imagine that some changes might take place across Europe, and less people find themselves pestered by authorities for speaking their minds of expressing their views on topics that are apparently sensitive to mean words. We will see in a few weeks/months.

-------------------------------------------------

Try, obviously, to keep it civil. I know that's a bit rich coming from me xD

[Louella Dougans]

In w.Europe and cultures derived from W.Europe, such as much of N and S.America, Australia and the like, there has been a separation of religious and secular law for centuries, with secular law taking precedence. Sometimes through absolute monarchs becoming angry at bishops telling them they can't do something. Anyway.

Secular law trumping religious law, and secular law having the monopoly of enforcement of law, are things that occur in W.Europe, and have done so for a long time. The ideas of human rights including that of freedom of speech, come out of this arrangement of things.

In other parts of the world, there is not this separation. There might not even be the idea of a difference between secular and religious laws. There hasn't been a history and culture of there being a difference.

So blasphemy laws, removing them, causes a problem, it becomes a matter of orthodoxy and heresy, and not a legal matter, not in a way most people in w.Europe can easily understand.

[orange]

Note: As far as I understand things, it's only going to impact UN member-nations, it's not a tool for bashing in the heads of any non-UN nations in the Middle East, Africa or wherever. If we keep this as our basic understanding of the topic, I had a question I dearly wanted answered.

So here it is, assuming anyone is still interested in answering:

Would you sign this petition as it is, and if you would/would not, please let us know why?

No.  Here is my analysis as to why not.

Non-UN nations are: Holy See (Vatican), Kosovo, Taiwan (Link)

Western Sahara and Palestine are not technically states yet, and thus not UN members

The primary aim of this limb of our petition ... is to bind member states that have refused to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976).

In this regard, our petition is in line with the proclamation made in 2011 by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which declared that “prohibitions of displays of lack of respect for a religion or other belief system, including blasphemy laws, are incompatible with the [ICCPR].”

ICCPR Wikipedia



Based on the petition, the goal is to force the treaty with regards to blasphemy laws on:

Antigua and Barbuda -  small islands state
Bhutan - Buddhist, ethnic conflict that runs directly counter to the treaty
Brunei - predominantly Islamic state
Myanmar - predominately Buddhist, currently under the control of a military regime considered "one of the world's most repressive and abusive regimes."
Fiji - small islands state
Kiribati - small islands state
Malaysia - predominantly Islamic state
Marshall Islands - small islands state
Federated States of Micronesia - small islands state
Oman - predominantly Islamic state
Qatar - predominantly Islamic state
Saint Kitts and Nevis - small islands state
Saudi Arabia - predominantly Islamic state
Singapore - city state, known for its strict laws*
Solomon Islands - small islands state
Tonga - small islands state
Tuvalu - small islands state
United Arab Emirates - predominantly Islamic state

North Korea (when it withdrawals from the treaty) - dear leader cares about religion?*

- 4 dictatorships/military governments
- 6 Islamic states
- 9 small island states

The writers of this petition apparently failed to look at a map or Wikipedia article.

Unless pacific island nations are caring about imposing religious dogma on their inhabitants (probably not anymore than parts of the US), the petition wants the UN to tell 4 dictatorships and 6 Islamic states that they must abide by a treaty they have not signed with regards to atheist and agnostics.

I am sorry, but this is tilting at windmills.

For those countries that have signed up to the treaty:

Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

While atheism and agnosticism are not religions, they are beliefs.  Atheist believe that deities or supernatural forces do not exist.  I think Article 18 has it well in hand.  The goal is to get it specifically added to the treaty, ok, so what?

Read through the ICCPR and tell me how well all those green countries are meeting its covenants?

Before we start worrying about forcing the treaty on those states which have not signed up for it, how in the world do you get those who have signed and ratified the ICCPR to meet those obligations?

And lastly, what happens when when those states ignore the UN and continue to maintain their existing laws and enforce them?  They get black marks from organizations they already do not care about.

[BloodBird]

Nicely written response Orange. So you feel that this will ultimately be an exercise in futility, all things considered?

[Nicoletta Mithra]

As I already wrote, rights clash with one another. This needs to be resolved. The right to free speech clashes with a lot of other human rights, e.g.:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights even expects that parts of it can and will come into conflict, thus expecting human rights to be restricted as is implied by:

1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

The right of free expression in speech in a way includes the right to slander and defamation. If exercised in such a way, it comes into conflict with the rights of being safe from attacks upon honour and reputation, which extends to religious and other beliefs and to manifest those in private and in public. Thus, by extension those manifestations are subject to a right of special protection here as well.

Modern 'blasphemy laws' serve the purpose of safeguarding the excercise of human rights according to article 19 and 18, in accord with article 29.

Slander and defamation against natural persons needs to be restricted to secure due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare.

Slander and defamation need to be restricted not only in regard to natural persons, but also in regard to religious and non religious beliefs and institutions to secure the right and freedom of others according to article 19.

Slander and defamation are also not needed to express ones own opinions freely, as one can express them in alternative, non-offensive ways, that don't come into conflict with human rights. So, curtailing the freedom of expression in speech in regard to slander and defamation is no undue restriction of freedom of speech and does not render you bereft of those rights and freedoms - all it does is that it restricts in which ways you can express yourself, that is expecting you to express yourself in a respectful manner.

If blasphemy laws fail to protect all world views equally, they need to be amended. Tearing away the protection of human rights through national laws is the wrong way to answer such unequal laws in my opinion.

[Desiderya]

It's difficult to imagine how you can insult an idea. I fail to see why we should issue laws that prevent the idea of taxation from being slandered, just because it might hurt the feelings of bureaucrats somewhere.

[orange]

Nicely written response Orange. So you feel that this will ultimately be an exercise in futility, all things considered?

I think it will be an exercise in futility, yes.  I do not see the 10 states of most concern* changing their laws and practices because the UN says so.

*The small island states confuse me a bit, but it maybe that they are still catching up on treaties from before they existed as independent entities.

[Aldrith Shutaq]

It's difficult to imagine how you can insult an idea. I fail to see why we should issue laws that prevent the idea of taxation from being slandered, just because it might hurt the feelings of bureaucrats somewhere.

Because bureaucrats don't start waging holy wars when their feelings are hurt. Religious defamation laws exist for practical reasons, not just the principle of religious protectivism.

So here it is, assuming anyone is still interested in answering:

Would you sign this petition as it is, and if you would/would not, please let us know why?

No, because as orange pointed out the petition is futile, and not only that, but it should be futile because niether the UN nor any other individual nation should have the power to infringe upon the national and cultural sovereignty of another nation. Different societies have different ways of doing things and it is as simple as that. If a change is desired from outside said society, the necessary ideas should be given to the people of the nation in question, not to various world leaders who probably have a political bias in their implementation.

Imagine for a moment the UN was dominated by religious state superpowers, and the petition being considered was one to impose blasphemy laws on all the world because they considered it a human right for people to not have their religions questioned. I don't think that would be the sort of world we'd want to live in, so why do we have to make religious people live in ours?

[Nicoletta Mithra]

It's difficult to imagine how you can insult an idea. I fail to see why we should issue laws that prevent the idea of taxation from being slandered, just because it might hurt the feelings of bureaucrats somewhere.

Put simply, because you insult the people through slandering their religion or secular world view and infringe on their right to freedom (from slander and defamation - amongst other things) of belief.

People have the right to adhere to the religion or belief of their choosing, and the freedom to, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest their religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance, whithout being slandered and defamed over it either directly or indirectly. By slandering and defaming a religion or world view like naturalism or atheism of another sort, you do insult everyone adhering to that belief and thus infringe on their right to excercise their freedom of religion and belief in recognition of and respect for their right to do so.

Also, the idea of taxation as held by bureaucrats isn't really a religion or belief in the sense of a world view. (That's basically what Aldrith said. The closer a belief is to the 'hearts' of the people, the more protection it deserves, naturally. It's not really that bureaucrats hold the idea of taxation close to their heart, but they might put you in jail anyway, if you don't pay up! Adherents to atheist worldviews in distinction to bureaucrats and their taxation ideas seem to be more ready to wage wars in the name of 'reason', though...)

Honestly, though, I don't see why you'd want to maintain a right to slander and defamation in whatever shape or form.

[Desiderya]

Not at all what I said.
As there's already protection by law against this base demeanor I just don't see the need for special treatment. Especially in such a deeply subjective territory. Blasphemy is also simple as god doesn't exist, your teaching is wrong or telling the wrong joke - all without being insulting, the sacrosanctity of religion gets violated, people can claim to be hurt, insulted or angry.
I think it is legit to challenge that. Maybe just grow up a little and don't get offended that easily. So someone said something mean, don't worry, he's a dick.

That, or we should enlargen the scope of blasphemy/sacrosanctity to encapsulate political views - they are not entirely objective, close to heart and everyone thinks they know the true way.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Of course it's legit to challange that, as long as you do so in a respectful manner.

Maybe just grow up and stop feeling you need to be allowed to resort to slander and defamation to challange religion. Also, grow up a little and don't get offended so easily if science gets challanged.

Also, yes, in Germany you can't run around and slander social democracy either. It's protected just as atheism and Christianity are.

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

It's not Slander or Defamation to say that God doesn't exist.  It is, however, blasphemy.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

True. But then, modern 'blasphemy laws' like the one in Germany don't legislate against the statement 'God does not exist.' though. If you will, they are called 'blasphemy laws' only due to their historic predecessors, but then I'd argue they still legislate - with reason - against certain types of blasphemy, that is those types that defame and slander a religion and thus acts that conflict with the right to freedom of belief.

I'm not aware of any case in Europe where someone would have been convicted because of making such a statement, either. If people got convicted, then because of statements (in speech or other media) that mischaracterized the content of a religion, like the 'Pig Messiah' painting in Finland (the painter had to pay a fine) or the guy who sold toilet paper with "Qur'an, the holy Qur'an" printed onto it (and got fined with 300 hours of social work), not by expressing their own belief.

[BloodBird]

Nicely written response Orange. So you feel that this will ultimately be an exercise in futility, all things considered?

I think it will be an exercise in futility, yes.  I do not see the 10 states of most concern* changing their laws and practices because the UN says so.

*The small island states confuse me a bit, but it maybe that they are still catching up on treaties from before they existed as independent entities.

Well to be fair there are only 4 possible ways this can go, as I see it.

1) The petition don't come through - seems unlikely at this point.
2) It fails to have any noticeable effect - status quo at usual.
3) It has an effect that is overall negative - unfortunate, but we won't know until we see it in action.
4) It has an effect that is overall positive - what I'm hoping for of course, but again, we will see how this develops.

Way I see it, it either don't have any effect and those who passed it has lost nothing but a bit of time, or it has a noticeable effect that is hopefully positive, I don't see how it can make things much worse. After all it's true as you say that those who give no fucks will keep on giving none in spite of what the UN may or may not say.

Imagine for a moment the UN was dominated by religious state superpowers, and the petition being considered was one to impose blasphemy laws on all the world because they considered it a human right for people to not have their religions questioned. I don't think that would be the sort of world we'd want to live in, so why do we have to make religious people live in ours?

I don't have to imagine to much Aldrith, as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, having 56 out of 57 member-states in the UN, desire to have their Cairo Declarations of Human Rights in Islam, based 100% on Islamic Sharia law, become adopted by the UN, this contradicts the UDHR and has ofc met much resistance and criticism. If the OIC get their will across some day - and they are a powerful block in the UN, this may one day happen - we will in effect have Sharia all over the UN.

As I see it, asking that the UN sticks to it's ideals and founding principles by reinforcing a focus on human rights over human beliefs is nothing compared to asking the UN to abandon those same ideals in favor of what is effectively enforced blasphemy laws. It's effectively a case of "our ideals VS their ideals" and I don't see the harm in sticking to ours when they stick to theirs.

That's me though, there are obviously others who feel otherwise inclined. I am however confident that, given that at least one of the founding members if the UN has declared atheists to be terrorists and this petition ask for atheists and secularists to have the same rights as theists etc. it will spark some reactions. Interesting days ahead I think, seeing how this develops.

I'd also like to thank everyone for keeping it civil so far and providing interesting viewpoints, I'm enjoying this topic more than I probably should X3

[Kala]

People have the right to adhere to the religion or belief of their choosing, and the freedom to, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest their religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance, whithout being slandered and defamed over it either directly or indirectly. By slandering and defaming a religion or world view like naturalism or atheism of another sort, you do insult everyone adhering to that belief and thus infringe on their right to excercise their freedom of religion and belief in recognition of and respect for their right to do so.

Hm.  Not so sure on this one.

Yes, I'd agree that people have the right to adhere to the religion or belief of their choosing, and the freedom to, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest their religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.  Less sure on the slandering or defaming bit (as it doesn't necessarily have to be a false statement to be blasphemous, but slandering and defamation would need to be by definition?), but they should be free to do so without harassment, hate or mockery.

I'm not sure how you can slander or defame a religion.  To say "this isn't true" is just stating contrary belief, so is not a false statement. I'd agree with Desiderya re: insulting ideas.  You can't insult ideas - you can insult people.  Sometimes criticising ideas that others hold dear causes people to feel insulted - but that's not the same.  You could make a specific allegation about a religious organisation or individual that turns out to be untrue, of course, which would be defamation and slander, but less the ideology.

Could you give an example of what would constitute slandering and defaming a religion or world view?
(Apologies if you already have, haven't been following the thread too closely).