USA to assist Muslim efforts in UN to criminalize "defamation of religion"

Rashad Hussain, Obama's special envoy to the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC), told the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Wednesday that the USA will work with the OIC in the United Nations on defamation of religion. This is terrible. The OIC has been pursuing an effort to have the UN ban the defamation of religion.

Hussain has now divulged that the U.S. will support the OIC in the latter’s United Nations effort to criminalize “defamation of religion” – widely perceived as a measure to suppress criticism of Muslim practices that violate human rights. "The OIC and the Obama administration will work together in the UN on the issue of defamation of religion, especially in Europe," said Hussain. He had previously said, at the above-mentioned April “post-Cairo” conference, that the U.S. would work with the OIC to defend the Muslim head-scarf against prohibitions on its display in schools and governmental offices – a measure common to secular France and now Islamist-ruled, but still legally-secular Turkey, as well as Muslim-majority Tunisia and Kosovo.

I don't think he should be conflating the headscarf issue with the "defamation of religion". A strong argument can be made for allowing headscarves as a freedom of expression issue, just as criticism of religion is an issue of freedom of expression. Prohibiting defamation of religion goes against the USA 1st Amendment protecting free speech.

Just this March, the USA was taking a firm stand against "defamation of religion" legislation in the UN :

Eileen Donahoe, U.S. ambassador to the UN, also slammed the resolution as an "ineffective way to address" concerns about discrimination.

"We cannot agree that prohibiting speech is the way to promote tolerance, because we continue to see the 'defamation of religions' concept used to justify censorship, criminalisation, and in some cases violent assaults and deaths of political, racial, and religious minorities around the world," she said.

"Contrary to the intentions of most member states, governments are likely to abuse the rights of individuals in the name of this resolution, and in the name of the Human Rights Council," added the U.S. envoy.