Iyad bin Amin Madani, center, secretary-general of the OIC, visits the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem last week.
"The OIC, whose member states range from moderate U.S. allies such as Jordan to adversaries such as Iran, describes itself as the world's largest international body after the United Nations. For more than a decade, "the collective voice of the Muslim world" has spread the belief that any insult directed against the Muslim faith or its prophet demands absolute suppression. Quashing "defamation of Islam" is enshrined as a chief objective in the organization's charter. "With countless internal resolutions, relentless lobbying of the international community and block voting on resolutions advocating a prohibition on defamation of religion at the U.N., the OIC continuously pushes to silence criticism of Islam. "Translated into practice inside Islamic nations and increasingly elsewhere, this toxic vision breeds contempt for freedom of religion and expression, justifies the killing of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and casts a pall of self-censorship over academia and the arts. "By building the expectation that dissent or insult merits suppression, groups such as the OIC and the Arab League have emboldened extremists to take protection of Islam to the next level. With the most authoritative Muslim voices prepared to denounce violence but not to combat the idea that Islam should be immune from criticism, a meaningful response to counteract the resulting violence continues to be glaringly absent..."