Free speech, hate and hypocrisy

The recent burning of the Holy Quran in Sweden and other such acts of desecration have been “justified” in the West as expressions of free speech. In reality, these are acts of hate and discrimination. Moreover, international human rights law establishes limits on free speech which are ignored by western societies even as they themselves hypocritically violate free speech for their national interests.

The targeting of Islam and Muslims in contemporary times has proliferated — including such outrages as The Satanic Verses, the Danish cartoons, the defamatory attacks by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, calls for burnings of the Quran by American Pastor Terry Jones, the Charlie Hebdo incident, among a host of others — all justified on the basis of free speech. The result has been the growing denigration, defamation and demonisation of Islam and Muslims in the West particularly but also now in Modi’s India.

Consequently, Muslim minorities around the world have been subjected to discrimination, intolerance and violence. Even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Western countries had started racial profiling against Muslims and projected Islam as an ideology of hate that sanctioned terrorist violence, mainly led by Western Jewish and Christian Zionist groups. After 9/11 such victimisation intensified with official endorsement. Security checks of Muslims became routine; mosques and worshippers came under continuous surveillance; people with beards or hijabs were denied employment; construction of mosques was banned as was the azan; random attacks on Muslims increased exponentially and, of course, so did the desecration of the Quran and the defamation of Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Indeed, the targeting of Islam and Muslims has now become the almost exclusive preserve to exercise so-called free speech.

The roots of such western paranoid discrimination can be traced to the encounter between Euro-centric Christianity and Islam, beginning with Muslim rule in Spain and Constantinople, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and eventually Western colonialism from Morocco to Indonesia. European cultures, informed by works such as Dante’s Inferno, and propelled by the Renaissance, projected Muslims as the “anti-Christ”, even though Muslim enlightenment during Europe’s “Dark Ages” enabled the Renaissance itself. Fear, hatred and prejudice against Muslims based on ignorance has, therefore, become deeply embedded in the Western psyche which has still not been overcome. Accordingly, attacks on Islam, now masquerading as free speech, continue to be driven by such hate, fear and loathing, even among secular people in the West.

Since the desecration of the Al-Asqa mosque, Pakistan has been in the forefront of the OIC’s campaign against the targeting of Islam and Muslims, especially in the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. At first, OIC resolutions on defamation of religions were adopted by consensus but by the ’90s Western opposition required voting. By 2010 American pressure on African and Latin American supporters reduced the support margin by 3 votes in the Human Rights Council. However, the US and its allies realised that since their best efforts to defeat the resolution had failed, they sought the OIC’s cooperation to work out a consensus text. As Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, I led these negotiations with support from Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The result was resolution 16/18 of 2011 which, for the first time, committed Western countries to a roadmap to end the denigration and stigmatisation of Islam and Muslims. A key requirement of this compromise is article 5(f) which calls for “adopting measures to criminalize incitement to imminent violence based on religion or belief”. While this resolution has been adopted by consensus every year since then, Western countries have not fully implemented this agreed roadmap so far.

Last July, after the Quran burning incident in Sweden, Pakistan enforced convening of a Special Session of the Human Rights Council which adopted a resolution by majority vote, despite Western opposition, condemning the incident and calling for “prevention and prosecution of acts of religious hatred”.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1976 is the fundamental basis for the freedom of speech among other freedoms, which has been used by Western countries to justify attacks on Islam. However, its article 19 maintains that right to freedom of speech is subject to certain restrictions including for “the protection of national security or of public order or of public health or morals”; while article 20(2) states that “Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.” Accordingly, attacks on Islam constitute violations of both articles 19 and 20. Moreover, in order to criminalise such acts that lead to incitement of violence, as required under resolution 16/18, there should be a clear distinction between free speech and hate speech leading to violence.

Yet, there is blatant hypocrisy. European nations have themselves undermined freedom of speech by adopting laws to criminalise anti-Semitic acts or speech or deny the Holocaust. The same protection should also be extended to Islam and Muslims. The US has also clearly stifled free speech, for instance, by punishing Julian Assange for his WIKILEAKS disclosures and Edward Snowden for leaking classified documents on charges of sabotage and violating national security.

Indeed, the US and its allies only allow controlled free speech when it involves their national interests, encouraging “group think” advocacy of policies such as on Israel, the Ukraine War, confrontation with Russia and the competition with China among others. Discordant views, even by leading academics like Noam Chomsky, John Mearsheimer, Chas Freeman and Andrew Bacevich are kept out of the mainstream discourse. Frequently such hypocrisy can be petty and camouflaged.

I write this with personal experience as my recently published book, The Security Imperative, giving Pakistan’s narrative of its nuclear programme, was at first inexplicably withheld permission for publication by Oxford University Press and then after publication by Paramount publishers, blocked by Amazon. Other works from Pakistan and elsewhere, arguing a contrary narrative, have been similarly denied and blocked, demonstrating that free speech in the West is highly subjective and entirely selective.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 15^th, 2023.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.