U.S. Praises Sharia Censorship

By Deborah Weiss
FrontPage Magazine
May 24, 2013


The United States is silent as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) passes its most recent UN Resolution that unravels global consensus to support freedom of speech.

From 1999-2010, the OIC succeeded in passing its defamations of religions resolutions, which ostensibly would protect Islam from all criticism, including true statements of fact. Though the name of the resolutions indicated that it would pertain to all religions equally, in the OIC’s interpretation, it applied to Islam only.

Realizing the clash that this concept holds with that of free expression, the US State Department urged the OIC to produce an alternative resolution which would address the OIC’s concerns about Islamophobia and still protect free speech.

Accordingly, in March 2011, the OIC introduced the now infamous Resolution 16/18 to combat intolerance based on religion or belief, purportedly proposed as a replacement for the defamation of religions resolution. It garnered wide-spread support and Western states touted it as a victory for free speech. They believed that its focus marked a landmark shift from suppression of speech critical of religions to combating discrimination and violence against individuals based on their religious beliefs.

Over time it became clear that the OIC retained its long term goal to protect Islam from defamation and indeed to criminalize all speech that shed a negative light on Islam or Muslims. Resolution 16/18 turned out to be a tactical move by the OIC to bring the West one step closer toward realizing its goal of achieving global blasphemy laws, by using language more palatable to the West, and open to interpretation.

Against this backdrop the US held the first conference to implement Resolution 16/18, the process now known as the Istanbul Process.

Unfortunately, America’s concern for the protection of free speech seems to have gotten lost as its focus moved closer to the OIC’s positions, and an emphasis was placed on protecting Muslims in the West from Islamophobia.

Some circles including free speech advocates, national security experts, and those concerned about the Persecuted Church, have beaten the drum against Resolution 16/18 and the continuation of the Istanbul Process. Their efforts have been to no avail as the Istanbul Process continues.

However, while awareness of the perils of Resolution 16/18 is on the increase, news on Resolution A/HRC/22/L.40 has gone virtually unreported. It retains the same title as Resolution 16/18, but has glaringly dangerous amendments.

To focus on just one, it asserts that terrorism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group. This is obviously problematic. The lumping together of these categories implies a false equation of immutable characteristics such as nationality and ethnicity with those that are subject to choice such as religion or belief.



Religions and belief systems come in all stripes. To preclude the possibility that any of them might be ideologically associated with terrorism leads to a position based on an unexplored assumption rather than a conclusion based on fact. Indeed, the assertion condemns the mere exploration of the facts a priori, a notion which is not only illogical but dangerous.

After 9/11 and the multitude of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Islam, one ought to be able to raise legitimate questions about Jihadi ideology without being labeled a bigot. Government has an obligation to determine the motivational ideology of terrorism even if even if it turns out to be an interpretation of a religion.

The government should not get into the business of ascertaining what is or is not proper theological interpretations of any religion. But a distinction has to be made between those who are truly practicing a religion as the word is understood in the West, versus those who are implementing a subversive political ideology cloaked in the language of religion.

Anyone who has conducted a good faith investigation knows that there is such a phenomenon as Islamic terrorism. Only those in denial can claim otherwise. Truth should never constitute prohibited speech, no matter how ugly reality might be.

The condemnation of honest discussion on this important matter, along with other disturbing speech restrictive clauses in Resolution L.40, demonstrates the unraveling of the consensus by nation states to promote freedom of expression. Those who follow the OIC closely know that its allegiance to this concept was folly from the onset. One need only take a cursory glance at the OIC countries to determine the disingenuousness of this portention, as many OIC countries fine, jail and even execute the exercise of speech deemed blasphemous to Islam. For those less informed, nothing more than the language embodied in Resolution L.40 is needed to realize that the OIC’s commitment to free speech is a sham.

Subsequent to passage of Resolution L.40, the EU representative to the UN expressed unabashed concern over the erosion of international consensus to support free speech. He insisted that the EU will continue to uphold the ideas pertaining to the protection of minorities, but will oppose any efforts to undermine the right to free expression, including discussion of Islamic terrorism.

The US representative stated no such concern. She failed to make a principled statement on America’s position regarding freedom of speech. Instead, she lavished praise on the OIC for maintaining a consensus on Resolution 16/18 for three consecutive years.

The Obama Administration has erroneously characterized the Fort Hood attack as mere workplace violence; has cleansed from its national security and counterterrorism lexicon any reference to Islamic terrorism, has blamed the Benghazi attacks on the an anti-Islam video and has taken a lead role in the Istanbul Process, promising to use "peer pressure and shaming" against American citizens who speak out on these issues in a way that the Administration finds disagreeable.

Therefore, it should have come as no surprise when after the Boston bombings, during a time of trial, tribulation and grief, the President’s address emphasized that people should prioritize America’s value of diversity. No doubt that this diversity of ideas includes the motivational ideology of Islamic terrorism, even though acknowledgment of its existence is now verboten.

This article was commissioned by the Legal Project, an activity of the Middle East Forum.

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Deborah Weiss is a lawyer and a freelance writer. She is a co-author of "Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamist Terrorist Network" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). A partial listing of her work can be found at www.vigilancenow.org

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OIC Ramps Up ‘Islamophobia’ Campaign

By Deborah Weiss
FrontPage Magazine
February 28, 2013


The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has long been on the forefront of the Islamist mission to establish the equivalent of Islamic blasphemy laws in the West. Now, during its 12th Islamic Summit held in Cairo February 7-8, 2013, the OIC set forth new and creative ways to silence, and ultimately criminalize criticism of Islam.

The OIC is a 57-member state organization that claims to represent 1.5 billion Muslims around the globe. As the second largest international organization in the world, behind only the UN, and as the largest Islamic organization in the world, it is obviously quite powerful. Though it is arguably the largest voting block in the UN, most people have never heard of it.


One of the OIC’s primary aims for at least the last fourteen years has been the international criminalization of speech that is critical of any Islam-related topic, including Islamic terrorism, Islamic persecution of religious minorities and human rights violations committed in the name of Islam.

Since 1999, the OIC has set forth UN resolutions that would “combat defamation of religions.” These resolutions condemned criticism of religion, but in the OIC’s interpretation, it applied only to Islam. True statements of fact constituted no exception.

Support for the resolutions declined once the United States and other Western countries caught wind of the true meaning of “defamation of religions” and its inevitable chilling effect on freedom of expression.

In 2011, at the State Department’s request, the OIC drafted an alternative resolution that was intended to retain freedom of expression and still address the OIC’s concerns about alleged Islamophobia. The result was Resolution 16/18 to Combat Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief.

The US State Department and numerous Christian organizations were elated, believing that the OIC had abandoned its mission to protect Islam from so-called “defamation,” and instead replaced it with the goal of protecting persecuted religious minorities from discrimination and violence. In other words, many assumed a paradigm shift away from providing legal protections to a religion and toward legal protections for people.

But the OIC had some very creative interpretations of the language embodied in the new resolution. By its manipulation of words such as intolerance and incitement, giving new meanings to what many thought was plain English, the OIC made it clear that it had not dropped its ultimate goal of protecting Islam from “defamation.”

Almost immediately upon its passage and the passage of a similar resolution in the General Assembly, the OIC set out on the unconventional task of “implementing” Resolution 16/18, contrary to the norm of leaving UN resolutions in the realm of the theoretical.

Unfortunately, the U.S. State Department acted as a willing accomplice in this effort, holding the second “Istanbul Conference” in December of 2011. But, in its implementation phase, rather than moving toward the preservation of free expression, the OIC successfully moved the process in the opposite direction: toward speech restrictive policies.


Though the U.S., thus far, has not pushed for the enactment of “hate speech” laws, it has “advocated for other measures to achieve the same result.” Indeed, at this Administration’s behest, all national security training materials and policies “de-link” any interpretation of Islam from Islamic terrorism. Many U.S. government agencies have now made it verboten to mention Islamic terrorism or assert anything negative about Islam.

The OIC’s task is easier in the EU countries, most of which already have some sort of hate speech restrictions. They vary from country to country. Some are cast as laws against the “denigration of religions”; some are “hate speech” laws; some are “public order” laws and some are “incitement to religious hatred” laws. Additionally, the penalties can range from civil fines to jail time depending on the country. The U.S. is the last hold out on retaining true freedom when it comes to matters of speech.

This past February, the OIC held an Islamic Summit, a high-level meeting held every three years. It is the OIC’s largest meeting. Heads of State and high ranking officials from member states attend. The purpose of the meeting is to provide guidance pertinent to the realization of the objectives provided for in the OIC Charter and to consider other issues of importance to member states and the Islamic Ummah. This year’s theme for the agenda was “The Muslim World: New Challenges and Expanding Opportunities.”

Though the summit focused largely on Syria, Mali, and the “Palestinian issue,” the OIC also made it clear that it would ramp up its efforts to defeat “Islamophobia.”

The OIC is fastidiously working on the creation of legal instruments to address and combat “Islamophobia.” Renewing its commitment to mobilize the West to comply with Islamic blasphemy laws, the OIC vowed to push for nation states to enact laws that will criminalize the “denigration of religions” during in its next Istanbul conference, anticipated to take place this June.

Further, it is requesting that the UN start an international mechanism that could serve as an “early warning system” against instances of discrimination and intolerance on religious grounds. Specifically, the OIC is proposing the creation of an observatory at the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, presumably analogous to the Observatory on Islamophobia that the OIC already maintains. The difference would be that the new observatory would be overseen by an internationally sanctioned entity (the UN) and would expand to all religions.

It is fair to say that since Islamist organizations have coordinated campaigns across the world that encourage and solicit reports of either real, feigned, staged or imagined incidents of “Islamophobia,” the new “empirical data” that such an observatory would collect, would still be drastically skewed. No other religion has a worldwide campaign instructing its members to report unpleasant truths as “bigotry” or to complain about slights as minor as “hostile looks.”

Additionally, the OIC is continuing to use the language embodied in pre-existing legal instruments in order to make it harder for Western countries to object. For example, Resolution 16/18 mirrors some of the language in the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). ICCPR, Article 20 states “the advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.” The U.S. rightly signed a reservation to this clause, effectively opting out, insisting that Americans retain the right to exercise their First Amendment freedom of speech.

Further, though Article 20 makes such speech illegal, it leaves the definition of these terms open to interpretation and does not specify that the illegality must be criminal in nature. Despite this, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, spokesman for the OIC Secretary General, insists that pursuant to Article 20 the “denigration of symbols or persons sacred to any religion is a criminal offense.”

Such claims are indicative of the legal and linguistic gymnastics that the OIC will use to achieve its goal to “combat defamation of Islam” and to export Islamic blasphemy laws, labeling them as something aesthetically easier to swallow.

At the Summit, OIC members also unanimously elected Iyad Madani to the post of OIC Secretary General. His term is to commence in 2014 when current Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu’s term expires. This is the first time that the OIC will be headed by a Saudi.

Though the current OIC regime is comprised of sticklers for Islamic blasphemy laws and staunch advocates for the obliteration of Israel, it is likely that the OIC will become even more extreme under Madani. Compared to the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia, Ihsanoglu and gang can be considered reformers pushing “Islam lite.” The election of a former Saudi Minister to head the largest Islamic organization in the world and lead the UN’s most powerful voting bloc is a bad omen of what’s to come. Indeed, it would come as no surprise if under its new leadership, the OIC’s old leadership would be labeled “Islamophobic.”

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Deborah Weiss is a lawyer and a freelance writer. She is a co-author of “Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamist Terrorist Network” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). A partial listing of her work can be found at

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Islamist Org Working to Prohibit Criticism of Islam

Posted by Deboarh Weiss: An article written by Ryan Mauro of RadicalIslam.org

Expert: Islamist Org Working to Prohibit Criticism of Islam
January 15, 2013


Deborah Weiss, Esq. is an expert on the defamation of religions U.N. resolutions set forth by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. She writes for several online news sites and is co-author of the book, Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Terrorist Network: America and the West's Fatal Embrace."

The following is RadicalIslam.org National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro’s interview with Deborah Weiss.

Ryan Mauro: What is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and what is its end goal?

Deborah Weiss: The OIC is the largest Islamic organization in the world, claiming to represent 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. It’s comprised of 56 UN Member States plus the Palestinian Authority. They tend to vote together as a block in the UN and are arguably the most powerful voting block in the UN as a whole. They are certainly the most powerful voting bloc in the UN’s Human Rights Council.

Though the OIC holds itself out as a “moderate” organization, it is clear from its own documents and its concepts that it is anything but moderate. Its long term goal is the worldwide implementation of Sharia law and the supremacy of an Islamic State.

In its immediate activities, it is working to solidify the relationships among Muslim majority countries, to unify the Muslim voice, to support the so-called “Palestinian struggle” and to restrict all speech that is critical of anything related to Muslims or Islam including Islamic terrorism and Islamic persecution of religious minorities.

Mauro: Tell us about the OIC’s concept of “Combating Defamation of Religions” and its impact.

Deborah Weiss: “Combating Defamation of Religions” is a concept which gives an idea or religion, in this case Islam, protection from criticism, as opposed to what we have in the American legal system which only gives defamation protections to people.

Additionally, the OIC’s definition of defamation includes anything that sheds a negative light on Islam or Muslims, even if it’s true and even if it’s opinion. In fact, it goes even further and condemns any free expression that would violate Islamic blasphemy laws even when, and perhaps especially when, expressed by non-Muslims. So it’s the OIC’s attempt to pressure non-Muslims to comply with Islamic blasphemy codes. Its target is the West and failure to comply with its demands is deemed “Islamophobic” even when no actual bigotry or prejudice is present.

The impact of putting the concept of combating defamation of religions into effect has numerous consequences and implications.

First, though it’s called “combating defamation of religions,” the OIC interprets and applies it to Islam only without any reciprocity for other religions. In fact, the concept of protecting Islam from “defamation” is used in many OIC countries to persecute religious minorities. The concept gives credence to Islamic blasphemy laws, which not only operate to suppress freedom of religion, but also violate human rights. For example, in Pakistan, Ahmadiyya Muslims believe in a prophet after Mohammad. They generally have a peaceful, egalitarian interpretation of Islam. Yet, they are considered heretics, and it is not only illegal for them to practice their faith, but it is criminal. Merely sending out a wedding invitation with an accurate quote from the Koran can land an Ahmadiyya Muslim in jail.

Last, but not least, the implementation of the concept of combating defamation of religions has serious consequences for freedom of speech. This is the main concern from a Western, and specifically American perspective. The OIC as well as other Islamist organizations continue to work hard to stifle free speech. They are constantly placing pressure on Western governments and societies to refrain from saying or dong anything that violates Islamic blasphemy codes, even though they don’t word it this way.

For example, the OIC encourages “hate-speech” laws in Europe that make it illegal to speak negatively about Islam. And in America, though the government has thus far declined to make such speech illegal, it is enacting policies that discourage such speech even when it’s critical in protecting US national security.

Though not necessarily a direct result of the OIC’s UN resolutions, the implementation of the concept of combating defamation of religions has resulted in America’s recent cleansing of all national security training material for the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the National Counterterrorism Training Center. National security and intelligence professionals will still learn about terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, but will be deprived of teachings regarding the underlying[Islamist] ideology, disconnecting the motivation from the terrorist behavior. This ties one hand behind America’s back in fighting the War on Terror and is very dangerous.

Mauro: In March 2011, Secretary of State Clinton urged the OIC to “move beyond a decade-long debate over whether insults to religion should be banned or criminalized.” At the United Nations in September 2012, President Obama spoke against banning anti-Islam speech in the wake of the violence following the publicity surrounding the Innocence of Muslims YouTube video. What is your criticism of the U.S. government’s relationship to the OIC then?

Weiss: While President Obama might have spoken out against the legal ban of anti-Islam speech, his administration has worked to implement policy bans on such speech in a way that is both unprecedented and has grave national security implications. Whereas the National Security Strategy Memo, the guiding document for all American national security policies, previously proclaimed that radical Islam is the most dangerous ideological threat to American freedom in the 21st century, now all mention of it has been deleted.

Government agencies discourage use of the words “jihad”, “Islamist”, “caliphate” and others. Any connection of Islamism or radical Islam to terrorism is verboten, even when the terrorists identify themselves as Islamic. Terrorism is merely a symptom of a deeper problem, and the refusal to address the underlying ideology that motivates it makes it more difficult to identify terrorism in its early stages and more difficult to defeat it.

The OIC has a strong anti-freedom and anti-Israel agenda. Despite this, the Obama administration works with the OIC on numerous fronts, sometimes excluding Israel from participation.

You might be interested to know, Ryan, that although Obama said we shouldn’t ban anti-Islam speech after the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video, he also asked Google, the parent company of YouTube to check its terms and conditions to determine if the video violated them, and to remove the video if it did. Fortunately, YouTube insisted on keeping the video posted.

As to Hillary Clinton’s comment urging the OIC to move beyond the banning or criminalization of religious insults, all I can say is that she has no authority to effectuate this in the Muslim world. The OIC must have been laughing all the way home as they exited the December 2011 State Department Istanbul Conference where Secretary Clinton promised to use the “peer pressure and shaming” to silence the speech of Americans critical of anything Islam-related. The result of that conference brought the OIC one step closer to making their goal of criminalizing such speech a reality.

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Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org's National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.

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Deborah Weiss is a lawyer and a freelance writer. She is a co-author of “Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamist Terrorist Network” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). A partial listing of her work can be found at

Read more ...