Commentary and Newsletters

Anne Bayefsky

Indonesia Analogizes Holocaust Denial to the Danish Cartoons

Saturday, October 4, 2008

The three-part Islamic offensive now in full swing:

  • manufacture Muslim victims of "Islamophobia"
  • minimize discrimination against Jews
  • undermine democratic freedoms in the name of "freedom" of religion (a freedom unknown in Islamic states).

DATE: 3 October 2008

PLACE: Geneva, Switzerland

UN MEETING: "Expert seminar on the links between articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): Freedom of expression and advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence"

Representative of Indonesia:

"I would also like also to stress that currently being Muslim is rather difficult particularly after 9/11... There is a...double standard and abuse in...freedom of expression. For example, in the case of the cartoons... I think this is the abuse of freedom of expression...However, when the President of a developing country questions the existence of the Holocaust there was an uproar from western countries. So we ask where is the consistency of freedom of expression in this case?"

The clash of civilizations? Analogizing the genocidal intentions of Iranian President Ahmadinejad - on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons - to the publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper.