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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Judson Berger</title>
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		<title>Free Speech Concerns Ahead of Meeting With Muslim Nations on Religious Tolerance</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/judson-berger/free-speech-concerns-ahead-of-meeting-with-muslim-nations-on-religious-tolerance/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=free-speech-concerns-ahead-of-meeting-with-muslim-nations-on-religious-tolerance</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/judson-berger/free-speech-concerns-ahead-of-meeting-with-muslim-nations-on-religious-tolerance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:57:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Judson Berger]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religious freedom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state department]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=112241</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is the U.S. playing into the push by Islamists to create new laws to stifle religious criticism and debate?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/clinton.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-112242" title="clinton" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/clinton.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Reprinted from <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/index.html">Fox News</a>.</strong></p>
<p>A looming meeting with Islamic leaders  hosted by the State Department has religious scholars and advocacy  groups warning that the United States may &#8220;play into&#8221; the push by some  Islamic nations to create new laws to stifle religious criticism and  debate.</p>
<p>The meeting on religious tolerance, which is  scheduled for mid-December, would involve representatives of the  Organization of Islamic Cooperation &#8212; a coalition of 56 nations which  more or less represents the Muslim world.</p>
<p>Critics describe the get-together &#8212; the  first in a series &#8212; as a Trojan horse for the long-running OIC push for  restrictions on speech. They note the track record of nations that want  the dialogue, including Egypt, where recent military action against  Coptic Christians raised grave concerns about intolerance against  religious minorities.</p>
<p>Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  originally announced the meeting this past July in Turkey, where she  co-chaired a talk on religious tolerance with the OIC. The event was  billed as a way to foster &#8220;respect and empathy and tolerance&#8221; among  nations. Delegates from up to 30 countries, as well as groups like the  European Union, are also invited.</p>
<p>A State Department official told FoxNews.com  this week that the meeting is meant to combat intolerance while being  &#8220;fully consistent with freedom of expression.&#8221;</p>
<p>A key worry is that the meeting could become  a platform for Islamic governments to push for hate-speech laws which,  in their most virulent and fundamentalist form, criminalize what they  perceive as blasphemy.</p>
<p>While Clinton has drawn a line in the sand,  saying nations should not &#8220;criminalize speech,&#8221; the upcoming meeting is  seen by some as a misstep on a very sensitive issue.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just an astonishingly bad decision,&#8221;  said Nina Shea, who sits on the U.S. Commission on International  Religious Freedom and serves as director of the Hudson Institute&#8217;s  Center for Religious Freedom.</p>
<p>Shea, who joined a group of scholars  specializing in religious defamation for an event last week on Capitol  Hill hosted by The Federalist Society, warned that the United States is  virtually alone among western nations in not having hate-speech laws.  She said the Obama administration doesn’t need to delve deeper into  religious speech issues with OIC nations, considering their history.</p>
<p>Shea said she doesn’t yet fear the  possibility that hate-speech laws are coming to the U.S. any time soon,  “but I am concerned the culture is changing on this.”</p>
<p>Jacob Mchangama, director of legal affairs  for Denmark&#8217;s Center for Political Studies, noted that the U.S. has  resisted following Europe with hate-speech laws, but the Obama  administration may be willing to &#8220;relax&#8221; its approach. He noted the  administration co-sponsored a resolution with Egypt in 2009 that  expressed concern about &#8220;negative racial and religious stereotyping,&#8221;  and said the upcoming December conference lends credibility to the OIC  agenda.</p>
<p>The push by Islamic nations, especially  Pakistan, for global religious sensitivity on its surface sounds  innocuous. But the debate often pits their cause against free speech,  and western officials have long complained the nations spearheading the  push are keen on shielding Islam specifically from criticism.</p>
<p>In some countries, perceived protections  against religious insult are used as license to threaten, bully and  attack those who offend, intentionally or not. Most recently, the office  of a French satirical newspaper was attacked after it published a  Muhammad cartoon. That follows widespread 2006 protests over the  publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in a Danish  newspaper.</p>
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