The UN Human Rights Council has again voted in favour of a resolution calling on member states to combat the defamation of religion. The resolution runs together different things [pdf]. It...
12. Urges all States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general, and to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs;
13. Underscores the need to combat defamation of religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general, by strategizing and harmonizing actions at the local, national, regional and international levels through education and awareness building[.]
It is quite proper that governments should protect people from 'acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion', but that is because these are acts, and furthermore people should be protected from them whatever they result from, not only when this is 'defamation of religions'. Governments - or others - may like to encourage respect for religions, but if 'tak[ing] all possible measures to do so' is intended as including legislation to this end, then they should not take all possible measures. Nobody can be obliged to respect a belief or set of beliefs, and once they are so obliged their freedom of thought has been severely compromised and thereby one of their fundamental human rights. We must be free to criticize and, yes, lampoon, mock, ridicule, defame, religion or any other type of belief. The fact, consequently, that the Human Rights Council of the UN - supposed to be an international guardian of human rights - should support a resolution like this does not strengthen the cause of human rights but merely serves further to discredit that Council itself. There's some risk, indeed, that the very notion of a human right may come to be more easily dismissed by some when it is invoked to protect against mere criticism of beliefs.