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Religion and Human Rights

Rule of Law Resource Center Staff
6/23/2008 3:33:31 PM

Should One’s Faith or Culture Be Allowed to Protect Mutilation or Murder?

The President of the UN Council on Human Rights has recently issued a “presidential ruling” banning discussion of matters of faith and religion because any such debate is bound to be "very complex, very sensitive and very intense," council President Doru-Romulus Costea is reported to have said.

The ban applies to all religions, but was prompted by Muslim countries objecting to practices supported by belief in Islam.

Egypt, Pakistan and Iran had angrily protested attempts by a human rights group to link Islam to human rights abuses such as female genital mutilation and so-called honor killings of women or to allow discussion of Islamic law or shari’a which is the source and basis for justification for such actions.

As Amnesty International spokesperson Peter Splinter recently told the Associated Press: "If Pakistan can come and say that the murder of women for some perverse sense of honor has nothing to do with universally recognized human rights, we're in trouble,"

Should one’s religious belief be allowed to be raised as a shield to exempt one from respecting the fundamental human rights of another human being? Should one’s claim of sensitivity to one’s own religious belief be allowed to close discussion and debate on actions that that belief allows/supports and that are physically harmful to other human beings?

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