Discrimination of all sorts and against so many have been for  a good many years (at least sixty) in the headlines of daily papers, on TV and certainly on the agendas of various international fora. It included declarations of illegality, measures for protection and sanctions for violations, and remedies for the victims.. However discrimination in its varied forms and fields, whether domestic or international, is rampant. Yet very rarely there are books, laws or regulations which explicitly or directly endorse, provide or stipulate for discrimination, and skillful legislative craftsmanship has not been readily available.

There have been a number of incidents in our world during this decade that witnessed acts of discrimination against Muslims or attacks against Islam as well as other faiths. Such attacks usually entail anti-religious speech and actions, contain racial and religious hatred. Practice has proven that many laws in many countries around the world have fallen short in addressing such discrimination and/or attacks.

These incidents violate international provisions in force. For instance Article 1(3) of the Charter of the United Nations stresses that one of the purposes of the United Nations is to achieve international cooperation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

Also the General Assembly of the United Nations has recognized with deep concern the overall rise in instances of intolerance and violence directed against members of many religious communities in various parts of the world, including cases motivated by Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and Christianophobia.” [1] The disregard and infringement of human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or whatever belief, have brought, directly or indirectly, wars and great suffering to mankind”[2]

After the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, the World has witnessed increased discriminatory acts against Muslims in particular in the Western countries that are coupled with malicious attacks against Islam as such. Such attacks against Muslim religion have undermined the dignity of that group of Muslim believers in those countries, and around the world and bring the group into disrepute.

An example of these attacks is the controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspaper cartoons. The violent reactions illustrated the increasing emergence of the Islamophobia currents in everyday life. In his statement on 9 February 2006 after reprinting the controversial cartoon, the United Nations Secretary General Koffi Annan said that: “Freedom of speech is not a license. It does entail exercising responsibility and judgment.” Following the broadcast of the film Fitna in the Netherlands, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "I condemn, in the strongest terms, the airing of Geert Wilders’ offensively anti-Islamic film.  There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence.  The right of free expression is not at stake here".

The American writer Stephen Schwartz has defined Islamophobia as the condemnation of the entirety of Islam and its history as extremist; denying the existence of a moderate Muslim majority; regarding Islam as a problem for the world; treating conflicts involving Muslims as necessarily their own fault; insisting that Muslims make changes to their religion; and inciting war against Islam as a whole 

However, the development of Islamophobia has witnessed a corresponding absence of necessary legislation against such racism. On the contrary some legislation in the Western countries allow for such discriminatory acts.

Although Europe has opened its arms to Muslims and largely allowed them to become citizens and settle down, several reports indicate that European politicians, the media and the public have not had similar success in opening their hearts and minds to accept Muslims and their culture.

Recognizing the seriousness of such incidents the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has called in its fight against terrorism all countries “[t]o continue to arrange under the auspices of the United Nations initiatives and programmes to promote dialogue, tolerance and understanding among civilizations, cultures, peoples and religions, and to promote mutual respect for and prevent the defamation of religions, religious values, beliefs and cultures. In this regard the launching by the Secretary-General of the initiative on the Alliance of Civilizations is very important to build on at all national, regional and international levels.

Added to this one, there were other similar initiatives that have been taken in other parts of the world.”[3]

More recently, the Commission on Human Rights in its resolution on Combating Defamation of Religions on 12 April 2005 has expressed its deep concern at negative stereotyping of religions and manifestations of intolerance and discrimination in matters of religion or belief still in evidence in some regions of the world; it strongly deplores physical attacks and assaults on businesses, cultural centres and places of worship of all religions as well as targeting of religious symbols.

Religious defamation and the frictions created by the different attitudes of the secular societies and religious societies are an excellent example for the need to establish a dialogue in order to ensure mutual understanding.

The intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions, and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim and other minorities, requires that States to adopt immediate and positive measures designed to eradicate all incitement to, or acts of, such discrimination and, to this end, with due regard to their principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rights expressly set forth in Article 5 of this Convention, inter alia: to amend their legislation or pass necessary acts to tackle incidents of discrimination against Islam, Muslims and any other faiths and to insure that all faiths are afforded the same protection.  and to and to ensure that all public authorities and public institutions, national and local, shall act in conformity with this obligation. This is based on the obligations laid down by international instruments. For example Article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), requires States Parties to pass necessary legislation to prohibit religious hatred. It provides that "    Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”[4]

It is also notable that Article 4 of the Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981) provides that:  

1. All States shall take effective measures to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief in the recognition, exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms in all fields of civil, economic, political, social and cultural life.

2. All States shall make all efforts to enact or rescind legislation where necessary to prohibit any such discrimination, and to take all appropriate measures to combat intolerance on the grounds of religion or other beliefs in this matter.”

At the national level, the constitutions of some countries contain provisions within their expressly forbidding the state from engaging in certain acts of religious intolerance or preference within its own borders; examples include The First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Other states, whilst not containing constitutional provisions directly related to religion, nonetheless contain provisions forbidding discrimination on religious grounds (see, for example, Article 1 of the French Constitution, article 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and article 40 of the Constitution of Egypt[5]).

The purpose of this project is to search for legislation that discriminate against Muslims and other faiths  and compile them for further actions, e.g., to cover the approach of relevant legislation in any country to incidents of discrimination against Muslims and all other faiths and to put forward solutions to reform or amend such legislation, with the aim to prevent further discrimination and attacks.

Consequently,  the project will aim at designing a number of surveys and studies with the view to discover or identify discriminatory laws, regulations and more importantly the so called soft laws. These surveys and studies would be of great importance to point out  any forms of discrimination. Such surveys and studies will focus on the identification of socio-politico-economic-history and academic research which are based on the context of every-day realities of discrimination in any societies.

These surveys and studies and its analysis will address itself to the representatives of the particular communities intended vis a vis those who are newcomers or have been members of these communities and are considered among its minorities. 

The conduct of such surveys and studies  must go hand in hand with substantive analysis of laws and regulations, soft laws and unwritten laws with a view to verify whether these or others  are discriminatory.

Such a research, initially identification and analysis, would possibly start in the critical areas or countries of apparent discrimination  as well as focusing on the comparison between the declared global freedom of movement of individuals across the borders as stipulated under the World Trade Organization Agreements and the International Declaration of Human Rights on the one hand and on the other the specific requirements of any items of these laws to be implemented in any country.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Para. 9, UN General Assembly Resolution 59/199. Elimination of all Forms of Religious Intolerance (1981).

[2] Para. 3 of the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of all forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion or Belief of (1981).

[3] Annexed Plan of Action to the UNGA resolution on “United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy” (8 September 2006).

[4] See also, Article 4 of the International Convention on the Eliminations of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1966).

[5] In Egypt, as well and other Arab countries, existing legislation prohibit defamation and attacks against religions. For example Article 98(f) of the Egyptian Penal Code provides that: "Detention for a period of not less than six months and not exceeding five years, or a fine of not less than five hundred pounds and not exceeding one thousand pounds shall be the penalty inflicted on whoever exploits and uses religion and advocates or propagates verbally or in writing, or by any other method, extremist thoughts with the aim of instigating sedition and division or defaming and contempt of a divine religion or the sects belonging thereto, or prejudicing national unity or social peace. The Egyptian legislation affords required protection to all religion; Article 160 of the Egyptian Penal Code provides that: "[a] penalty of detention and fine of not less than one hundred pounds and not exceeding five hundred pounds or either penalty shall be inflicted on the following:

1. Whoever perturbs the rituals of a creed or a related religious ceremony, or obstructs it with violence or threat.

2. Whoever ravages, breaks, destroys, or violates the sanctity of a place provided for holding religious ceremonies, symbols, or other objects of profound reverence and sanctity in relation to the members of a creed or group of people.

Imprisonment for a period not exceeding five year shall be the penalty if any of these crimes is committed to achieve a terrorist purpose".