No to an international blasphemy law
In Geneva, the UN's ad hoc committee is reviewing a proposal to criminalise 'insults to religion'. It must be stopped

by L Bennett Graham
The Guardian
March 25, 2010

http://www.legal-project.org/685/no-to-an-international-blasphemy-law

Excerpt:

In the 17th century, Galileo was imprisoned for asserting views on scientific and religious matters which were deemed heretical and offensive to the Roman Catholic church.

Four hundred years later, a rogue UN committee is working to resurrect the same ideology that landed Galileo in jail: the notion that the law is intended to protect ideas, instead of human beings.

That committee goes by the label of the "ad hoc committee on the elaboration of complementary standards" a lengthy and vague name, even by UN standards. Known to insiders simply as the "ad hoc committee", its mandate is as ambiguous as its name.

Established in the wake of a controversial 2001 UN conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa, the ad hoc committee was given the mandate to write a new treaty on racism – despite the fact that no legal experts have identified any substantive gaps in international law on racism.

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