Cartoons controversy spills over into UN

By Mark Turner 
February 9, 2006
The Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/344baeb6-9991-11da-a12a-0000779e2340.html

The international furore over cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Mohammed has spilled over into the creation of a new UN Human Rights Council, one of the flagship reforms demanded by world leaders last September.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference has called for the insertion of language requiring the new council to “prevent instances of intolerance, discrimination, incitement of hatred and violence” arising from “any actions against religions, Prophets and beliefs”.
The move came as negotiations on the strengthened human rights body entered their most delicate stage, with countries struggling to agree on its size, powers, how often it would meet, the rules for electing its members, and the standards expected of countries who won a seat.
Jan Eliasson, the UN General Assembly president, this week began a series of one-on-one talks to bridge gaps by the middle of this month, although the date might slip. The United States sees the creation of a new council, to replace the widely discredited Human Rights Commission in Geneva, as a priority.
The OIC move was being watched with some concern as advocates of a strong council questioned whether the issue might be exploited by countries looking to undermine it for other reasons. There were also concerns at any action that might undermine the right to free speech.
Abdullah Alsaidi, the ambassador of Yemen which chairs the OIC, insisted: “I don’t want to curtail the freedom of speech, but I want freedom of speech to be attended with responsibilities.”
“When you put the prophet of Islam in the guise of a terrorist, by implication you say all Muslims are terrorists. This is incitement.” Another OIC ambassador asserted: “we would not be in favour of any exploitation of this crisis to undermine the Council”.
Their proposal includes two preambular paragraphs, which would not have the force of law, and one operative paragraph, which would. One possible solution would be to include the preambular paragraphs but not the operative one.
Some diplomats fear an operative paragraph dealing with religion could open the door for the inclusion of other specific issues, making it more difficult to create the Council any time soon.
Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, on Thursday he could not understand why editors would print the cartoons at this time. He believed the OIC position was neither inflammatory nor “against blasphemy”, and did not “counter to the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or even freedom of the press.”
But he did say negotiations on the council had not moved as fast as he would have liked, and fell short of his earlier hopes. “It may not be everything we wanted,” he said, “but I would expect it to be better than what we have today.”