In December 2011 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to combat intolerance, discrimination and violence on the grounds of religion or belief, declaring these actions a violation of human rights. The resolution was prepared by the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which had won majority approval in UN rights bodies in Geneva and at the UN General Assembly for annual resolutions on “combating defamation of religions” since 1998. Many people might think that sounds like a good resolution, but when you understand true agenda of the OIC you realise it is not just about combating intolerance. In fact the OIC really wants Muslims to be exempt from criticism.

The OIC is the largest head of state organization in the world after the United Nations (UN) itself and comprises 56 Muslim countries plus the Palestinians. It claims to be the “collective voice of the Muslim world.” In 1990, the OIC membership adopted the “Cairo Declaration,” which officially exempted all Muslim countries from compliance with the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights and replaced it with Islamic law (shariah).

 One of the fundamental laws of Islam deals with “slander ,” which is defined in shariah as saying “anything concerning a person [a Muslim] that he would dislike.”

At the OIC’s Third Extraordinary Session, held in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in December 2005, the organization adopted a “Ten-Year Programme of Action to Meet the Challenges Facing the Muslim Ummah in the 21st Century.” 

A key agenda item of that meeting was “the need to counter Islamophobia” by seeking to have the UN “…adopt an international resolution to counter Islamophobia, and call upon all States to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments.”