The British Humanist Association (BHA) has called for the repeal of blasphemy laws to an audience of United Nations member states, as part of the 28th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
The BHA website reports …
The BHA, which is a partner organisation in the International Coalition Against Blasphemy Laws, has said that these laws have leant credibility to extrajudicial acts of violence, such as the mass riots in Pakistan which followed an alleged desecration of a Koran, resulting in six deaths, and the assassinations of officials Rashid Rehman, Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti.
Prediction: Nothing of any substance will happen
So how can I possibly make a prediction with any degree of certainty that this will all be ignored?
Well let me explain.
There are 13 nations that exist on the planet today that punish apostasy or blasphemy with the death penalty (‘apostasy’ is a religious word that means simply becoming an ex-Muslim) … yes seriously, if you simply stop being Muslim and are open about that, or dare to deploy criticism of some truly daft religious beliefs that don’t have a jot of evidence, then the official legal statute on their law books is “death”.
Well, since that is all clearly a gross violation of the very basic human rights that are all enshrined within the UK charter, namely freedom of thought and freedom of expression, you would think that the UN Human Rights Council would have no problem at all in condemning those 13 nations for retaining such barbaric laws.
One slight problem, four of those 13 nations sit on the UN’s Human Rights Council.
That creates a huge conflict of interest, and because of this gross hypocrisy in permitting these nations to be members of the UNHRC, it is utterly ineffective and a complete sham.