TOM HENEGHAN, RELIGION EDITOR <\/p>\n
Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world's top diplomat said. <\/p>\n
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), said his 57-nation body would not try again for United Nations support to ban insults to religion, but appealed for states to apply hate-speech laws concerning Islam. <\/p>\n
\"We could not convince them,\" said the Turkish head of the 57-member organisation which had tried from 1998 until 2011 to get a United Nations-backed ban on blasphemy. <\/p>\n
\"The European countries don't vote with us, the United States doesn't vote with us.\" <\/p>\n
Western countries see the publication of such images and materials as a matter of free speech. <\/p>\n
The posting of an amateurish US-made video portraying the Prophet Mohammed as a foolish womaniser and the publication of caricatures of him in France last month led to violent protests and renewed calls from the Muslim world for a global law against blasphemy. <\/p>\n
The protests claimed some two dozen lives. <\/p>\n
Ihsanoglu told a conference in Istanbul at the weekend that the OIC had failed to win a ban at the United Nations and would not revive its long diplomatic campaign for one. <\/p>\n
Asked about recent media reports that the OIC wanted to resume the campaign for a blasphemy ban, he said: \"I never said this and I know this will never happen.\" <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Read more here: TOM HENEGHAN, RELIGION EDITOR Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world's top diplomat said. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), said his 57-nation body would not try again for United Nations support to ban insults to religion, but appealed for states to apply hate-speech laws concerning Islam. Continue reading
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