Free expression - religion rumblings continue (so what else is new), names of UN candidates published

Further to the UN Human Rights Council amending the Mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression (the proceedings of which I posted a video of earlier), both the Council itself and Pakistan, which sponsored the mutilating amendment, have recently defended themselves against the criticism. The director of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry's human rights department said the abuse of free expression to defame religions, for example in the film Fitna, was seriously divisive to societies and needed to be checked. The chair of the Human Rights Council, Doru-Romulus Costea, reportedly called the criticism "premature". The Council appoints a new rapporteur June 18; the front runner is Frank William La Rue Levy, former Chair of the Guatemalan Presidential Committee on Human Rights. Other candidates are Alfred Maurice de Zayas and Judy McGregor.

In other news... Danish press report that the Jordanian prosecutor has summonsed the cartoonists and editor behind the recent republication of the Mohamed cartoons. The purpose of this: not necessarily getting them before a Jordanian court, but to keep going the discussion on the interplay between freedom of expression and (the claimed right to be free from insult on) religion. My two cents on that: the cartoons were and are a legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. While surely offensive they did not incite hatred against anyone, other than against the cartoonists and the country they were from but incitement of hatred against oneself is not the kind of incitement that is illegal under international law....