GENEVA:(INTERNATIONAL DESK)
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Tuesday that the desecration of the Holy Quran amounted to incitement of religious hatred and called upon the world to stand united against intolerance and promote mutual respect, understanding, and tolerance.
Addressing the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) via a video link, Bilawal stressed the hate speech and free speech must be segregated as free speech was “indispensable” and hate speech was “indefensible”.
UNHRC went into an urgent session to debate “public acts of incitement to religious hatred in European and other countries”. The debate came on Pakistan’s request in the wake of Islamophobic act in Sweden last month.
“We must see this clearly for what it is: incitement to religious hatred, discrimination and attempts to provoke violence,” Bilawal told the Geneva-based council, saying that such acts occurred under “government sanction and with the sense of impunity”.
The motion, brought by Pakistan seeks a report from the UN rights chief on the topic and calls on states to review their laws and plug gaps that might “impede the prevention and prosecution of acts and advocacy of religious hatred”.
