UN approves religious hatred motion after Quran burning

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday approved a contentious motion on religious hatred after the burning of a Quran in Sweden.

The resolution was opposed by the United States and the European Union, who say it conflicts with their views on human rights and freedom of expression.

Twenty-eight countries voted in favour, 12 voted against and seven countries abstained.

In late June, an Iraqi activist outside a mosque in Sweden tore up pages of the Quran and set them alight after police in Stockholm granted a permit for the stunt.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk hosted a debate on Tuesday on the episode in Sweden and in others in other European countries to highlight the line between freedom of expression and respect for religious belief.

Speaking to the Human Rights Council, he called for respect of “all others”, including migrants and those who wear headscarves.

He said recent Quran burnings appeared to be manufactured shows of intolerance to "drive wedges" between people.

During the debate, some western countries condemned intolerance but affirmed the right to freedom of expression. Some predominantly Muslim countries want governments to do more to ban expressions of religious intolerance that could lead to violence.

“We’d like to stress that freedom of expression is an ethical value that should spread to peaceful coexistence rather than causing a clash of civilisations,” said Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister.

“We should spread values of tolerance."

Mr Turk said: “[The Quran burnings] appear to have been manufactured to express contempt and inflame anger, to drive wedges between people and to provoke transforming differences of perspective into hatred and perhaps violence.”

He said people must show respect to “all others” and insisted that “advocacy of hatred that constitutes incitement to violence, discrimination and hostility should be prohibited in every state”.

Mr Turk said hate speech of all kinds was on the rise, even when it is not always deemed to incite violence.

"Dehumanising women and denying their equality with men; verbally abusing Muslim women and girls who wear a headscarf; sneering at people with disabilities; making false claims that migrants or people of specific ethnicities are more likely to engage in crime, all such hate speech is similar in that it stems from the baseline notion that some people are less deserving of respect as human beings,” he said.

Pakistan and Palestine led the push for a council resolution that, among other things, called on countries to take steps to “prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred that constitute incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence”.

The US said it would not support the resolution over concerns that it could trample on a fundamental right to freedom of expression.

“We know from experience that attempting to ban such expression actually usually amplifies it further by bringing even more attention to it and often serves as a catalyst for further hatred," said Rashad Hussain, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, expressing US opposition to so-called blasphemy laws.

“Such laws also fail to address the underlying causes of bigotry,” he said, calling instead for efforts to "reinvigorate education and interfaith intercultural dialogue to confront hate speech”.