Durban II revives the hateful rhetoric of the 2001 Tehran Declaration Print E-mail
Written by UN Watch   
Tuesday, 04 November 2008
According to a detailed report released today by UN Watch--Shattering the Red Lines--the dominant thesis of the 88-page Durban II draft declaration is that the U.S., Western Europe, Israel, and other liberal democracies — their principles, institutions, policies, respective histories and national identities — are singularly racist, and, in addition, discriminatory against Islam.

Free speech, wealth, globalization, security measures to combat anti-Western terrorism — all of these are attacked as causes of racism, discrimination, and the “defamation of Islam.” The aggressive campaign to impose a new regime of global censorship, dictated by Islamic sensitivities, makes the Durban II language even worse than that of the original conference in 2001.

Ignoring racism and intolerance around the world, the draft — compiled by a committee that includes Libya as chair, and Iran, Pakistan, and Cuba as vice-chairs — focuses only on one specific country, Israel, which it portrays as the enemy of humanity, using language lifted verbatim from the notorious 2001 Tehran Declaration.

The UN Watch report highlights a selection of the draft's 646 provisions that breach the European Union’s red lines. As set forth by France on behalf of the EU, in a 19 September 2008 statement to the UN Human Rights Council, the EU red lines reject (1) singling out one region of the world in particular; (2) reopening the 2001 Durban declaration by inserting a prohibition against “defamation of religion,” designed to restrict free speech and impose the censorship of Islamic anti-blasphemy laws; (3) drawing up an order of priority among victims; and (4) politicizing or polarizing the discussion.

Earlier this year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged — “without ambiguity” — to withdraw the EU from the Durban II process if the 2001 excesses repeated themselves and the EU’s concerns were ignored. Sarkozy also set forth a timeline in which France would act on its pledge, saying the decision would be made while France chaired the EU “in the final months preceding the review conference.” That deadline for action expires on December 31, 2008.