The U.N. "Human Rights Council" Again Urges Speech Suppression:

From a March 20, 2008 resolution:

The Human Rights Council ...

8. Urges States to take actions to prohibit the dissemination, including through political institutions and organizations, of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement to racial and religious hatred, hostility or violence;

9. Also urges States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from the defamation of any religion, to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance;

10. Emphasizes that respect of religions and their protection from contempt is an essential element conducive for the exercise by all of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; ...

13. Reaffirms that general comment No. 15 of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in which the Committee stipulates that the prohibition of the dissemination of all ideas based upon racial superiority or hatred is compatible with the freedom of opinion and expression, is equally applicable to the question of incitement to religious hatred; ...

So prohibiting dissemination of ideas based upon religious superiority "is compatible with the freedom of opinion and expression"; I suppose that would include claims that Islam, Christianity, or whatever else is the one true religion that is correct while others are false. And states are supposed to "prohibit the dissemination ... of ... xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement to racial and religious ... hostility"; I suppose that would include, for instance, condemnation of Scientology as fraud, or of Catholicism as oppressive, or for that matter of all religion as folly. And here I thought that freedom of thought, conscience and religion included the freedom to think and comment about all ideologies, including religious ones.

Here, by the way, was the voting breakdown:

Those in favour [21] included: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Those against [10] included: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine and United Kingdom. A similar resolution has been passed since 2002. Abstentions (14): Bolivia, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Japan, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mexico, Peru, Republic of Korea, Uruguay and Zambia.