Human rights become increasingly marginalised. Sharia deems itself on a higher level due to its ‘Godliness’. Universal human rights are, in a sense, no longer universal.

By Martin Janssen*

December 10th, 1948, can be viewed as a milestone in the history of humankind. On that day, the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was mainly a reaction to the total disdain for these rights during World War II.

Freedom

Article 1 of this declaration underlines its fundamental point: that all people are born free, and have equal rights and dignity. This equality is legally specified in article 7, saying that all people, without exception, have the right to equal protection from the law. It was the conviction of the UN that these principles of equal and permanent rights for all would form the basis for justice and peace in the world.

This declaration was independent of any religious or cultural context since human nature, despite religious and cultural differences, is seen as one. This inter-cultural consensus gave the declaration its universal value, and made it binding under international law.

Doubts

The universal value of human rights, however, has come increasingly under open scrutiny in the past few decades. In the post-war optimism of 1948 there was a conviction that the permanence of human rights worldwide could be implemented in order to lay the basis for a peaceful and just society.

In 2010, however, it is unfortunately increasingly clear that exactly the opposite has taken place, and that the principles of freedom and equality are gradually being torn down in the free world where they originated. Under the absurd motto that freedom and human rights are a bad match.

Since 1980, the attack on human rights has come from two sides: from the so-called non aligned countries, and from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which represents 57 Islamic countries. Especially the latter has been trying for years to weaken the declaration, or to fundamentally change it.

A bad match

This attack is based on challenging the universal validity of human rights, as specified in the declaration. This is interpreted as a western secular concept with Judeo-Christian origins, matching badly with Islamic tradition. The west thus supposedly takes advantage of its hegemony to force this concept upon other cultures. On this basis, a process has been ongoing to systematically revise the UDHR in the light of Islamic law, or the Sharia.

This process kicked off on September 19th, 1981, when the Islamic Council of Europe came out with a general declaration of human rights of Islam. This declaration started off by saying that “Islam codified human rights 14 centuries ago by law (sharia).” Thus, Islam in fact invented human rights. Then the 57 OIC countries further worked out this principle in 1990 in their “Declaration of Cairo on Human Rights in Islam.”

Sharia

The Cairo declaration made it clear that it was meant as a guide for the 57 Islamic member states to use the Sharia as their main, or only, source of legislation. The Cairo declaration states in its preamble that God created Moslem societies as the best among nations, led by God’s perfect law (Sharia), and that this perfection requires Islamic nations to lead the human race.

This perfection also means that no other culture can be included since these other cultures are, by definition, less than perfect. God’s perfection according to the Sharia cannot, of course, be compared to something like the UDHR, which is merely the work of mortals.

In the Cairo declaration, the UDHR is encapsulated within the Islamic concept of the subservience of man to the will of God, which is found in the Sharia. What this means, in practice, is made clear towards the end of the declaration which concludes that “all rights and freedom are subject to the Sharia’s regulations.”

It is impossible for the UDHR and the Islamic Sharia to be joined as they stand diametrically opposed to each other in their basic principles. The UDHR codifies the fundamental equality of all people, while the Sharia is based on the principle of inequality of man. The inequality between Moslems and non-Moslems, and the inequality between men and women, are markedly present throughout the Sharia’s legal sphere.

Half the right

According to the Sharia, the testimony of a non-Moslem in an Islamic court is only worth half of that of a Moslem. This makes it virtually impossible for non-Moslems to defend their legal rights. Similarly, the testimony of a woman is only worth half that of her male counterpart. The Sharia is an all-encompasing legal system which decides all aspects of life for both Moslems and non-Moslems, with the basic point being the inequality of the two.

Article 22A of the Cairo declaration also underlines that people have the right to free speech as long as it does not run counter to the Sharia. In other words: critical reflections on the Sharia are not allowed as the Sharia is God’s perfect law, which makes criticism of the Sharia in fact criticism of God’s perfection. This equals blasphemy, which in the Sharia is punishable by death.

Applying the Sharia would mean death to critics, adulterous women and homosexuals, with ‘godlike’ legitimacy. It is worrisome that the OIC in recent years has been highly successful in muting discussions in UN human rights commissions about the violations of human rights in the name of the Sharia.

Criticism

Discussion about this matter is often seen in the same light as insulting Islam, and any criticism of the Sharia is seen as a manifestation of Islam phobia. The West seems to be collectively suffering from this condition, and until now there is yet to be a counter campaign. By failing to defend the declaration, the protection of the rights of individuals is made subservient to the protection of a religion.

This was made painfully clear on November 16th, 2010. The third commission of the UN General Assembly accepted a resolution in relation to “illegal and arbitrary executions.” This list usually names groups which are particularly vulnerable such as ethnic minorities, human rights defenders and street children.

Homosexuals

In the past ten years, this UN resolution always explicitly pointed to executions due to “sexual orientation.” Due to heavy pressure, particularly from Mali and Morocco, this point was deleted in the resolution of November 16th, supported by all 57 OIC member states. By doing this, the UN is basically sending the message that as of November 16th it no longer deems protecting the lives of homosexuals as necessary.

*Martin Janssen lives and works in Damascus. He is an Arabist.