Right Side News

OSCE – What Is A ‘Message Crime’?

Written by Henrik Ræder Clausen, ICLA Denmark

Saturday, 10 October 2009 09:16

EuropeNews.dk

Report from OSCE 2009 Human Dimension Implemention Meeting.

Related ICLA papers:
ICLA Contribution on Tolerance and Non-discrimination
Freedom of Expression: New challenges, new responses

I didn’t expect that I’d start out my report from this conference by
picking up a lead from COJEP, but so be it. They introduced the
concept of a ‘Message crime’, in order to convey the real significance
of the much-debated hate crimes. This term cuts through a ton of
confusion and is worth adopting. For details, read on.

There are many kinds of crime, and many kinds of motivation for
crime. Most crimes are committed for personal reasons, like undue
material gain, jealousy, sexual reasons, to exact revenge to eliminate
critics, opponents and enemies. Some crimes, however, have a target
much more important than their immediate victim(s).

These are message crimes. There are, of course, intermediate forms. A
ruthless political leader or a mafia boss will eliminate his opponents
for both reasons, both to get rid of a troublesome person and to deter
others from causing him similar problems in the future. What is
interesting here is the message aspect of crime, not the personal.

Message crimes are reported frequently in the media, with varying
degrees of clarity. The so-called ‘honour killings’ (which really
should be called ‘family executions’) are message crimes. The families
of these unfortunate women make a conscious decision to eliminate one
of their kin in order to "protect the honour of the family", which is
really an euphemism for "keeping our women under control".

The motivations for these deeply tragic murders state this openly:
"She dated an infidel", "We didn’t want her to see that man", "She had
become too ‘Western’". Those are the messages these murders are
intended to convey: The women have to, under the threat of capital
punishment, obey the choices made by their f
lamic tradition. However, other examples do exist, like this Kurdish
girl of the Yezidi religion who was stoned to death in 2007, here from
KurdNet.

These message crimes have as their main purpose to protect the honour
of the killing families, preserving their prestige in society. The
killing of one of their women is a means to that end, killings that an
entire family can decide, plan and execute in mutual agreement and
understanding. One particular well exposed case of this took place in
2005 Slagelse, Denmark, where the 18-year old Ghazala Khan was shot
dead for the offence of marrying an Afghan man, covered in detail by
Brussels Journal.

In this particular case, the entire plot was uncovered through police
investigation, and all members collaborating in the crime were
convicted, for a total of 120 years of prison time for the
family. Significantly, the head of family, who ordered the murder, was
given a heavier sentence than the brother who eventually pulled the
trigger. This is the kind of legal action we need in order to protect
and extend the freedom of women in immigrant circles.

Back to the OSCE conference. Frequent references were made to the
stabbing in Dresden of an Egypt woman, a case which is said to be
typical of growing Islamophobia in the West, as reported in The
Guardian.

However, not much in this dramatic murder distinguishes it from an
ordinary criminal incident. The killer, Alex W., is of Russian, not
German, origin. His message to her at the moment of killing was "You
don’t deserve to live". In spite of the problem not being obvious –
the acts of a mentally troubled Russian acting alone does not say
anything major about racist sentiment in Germany – the case was
extensively publicized in Egypt and pressure applied on the German
government to condemn the killing as a hate crime, eventually
extracting a conditional condemnation, here in Der Spiegel.

One might wonder why a non-obvious case like this is used as a poster
example. First and foremost, it indicates that no clear-cut obvious
case d have been used instead. Further, there is internal Egyptian
politics to the case. The Muslim Brotherhood has been pressing the
case in the parliament, and the government of Egypt was under pressure
to act on the case, showing itself as the protector of Egyptians and
Muslims abroad.

The conference in general, however, concentrated on using the better
known yet vaguely defined concept of ‘hate crime’, with a wide variety
of issues being debated under this heading. Criticism of Islam took
some blame for radicalising Muslim youth. That would have to do with
the frequent mention in the press of being a distinct group,
unintegrated and even potentially a fifth column undermining Western
democracy and freedom. Unsurprisingly, the speakers mentioning these
subjects showed no interest in addressing the criticism against
Islamic immigrants, preferring to blame the criticism itself for
causing problems.

A recurring theme was the problem of registering hate crimes. One of
the introductory speakers noted that practically no hate crimes are on
record in the southern states of the USA, claiming that this, in view
of the history of the US South, was so completely not credible that
the registration process for hate crimes must be flawed. The obvious
remedy for this is re-education of the police force, in order to
significantly increase the number of registered hate crimes. Educating
the police and other law enforcement institutions to report a greater
number of hate crimes was touched upon on quite a few occasions.

Many speakers mentioned the problems of anti-Semitism and
‘Christianophobia’, which are also on the rise. Calls for boycott of
Jewish businesses in the wake of the Gaza conflict conjures up
sinister memories. And here the ‘message crime’ comes up again:
Desecration of Jewish/Christian symbols constitute message crimes.

The physical damage may be limited, no persons are hurt, but the
message from those desecrating the religious symbols is clear: "We do
not respect your religion". The 2004 pogroms in Kosovo, where
ies and even graveyards were severely damaged, constitute an extreme
example of this. However, there is a tendency to downplay the threats
and actions against Christians.

The representative from Canada said that they would participate
actively in identifying hate crimes, and urged that hate speech on the
Internet be monitored and punished.

A representative from the Turkish organisation Embargoed! launched a
particular vicious attack on Cyprus, accusing it of all kinds of
unjust treatment, apartheid and racism against the Turkish-occupied
north. Embargoed!, however, did not mention that the separation of the
island is self-imposed by the Turkish-oriented minority and the
ongoing military occupation, nor did they – for obvious reasons –
mention the extensive damage to the Cypriot cultural heritage in the
north. Due to time constraints, Cyprus could be permitted only a
60-second rebuttal.

The message from Embargoed! seems clear: If the government of Cyprus
does not give in to Turkish demands, they will be subject to the
stigmatizing charge of ‘racism’, leading to the international
community siding with the Turkish side against Cyprus.

The representative of the Holy See noted with regret that some regimes
enforce a single religion on their citizens.

An US-based group, Redeemed Lives () explained
how anti-discrimination laws are causing them severe trouble in one of
their focus areas, that of self-emancipation from undesired same-sex
attraction. In particular, the rights awarded to lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transsexual groups (LBGT in short) had been used to push
their books – titles like "Coming out of Homosexuality" off the
market, as they were deemed ‘offensive’ to these groups.

At this point, I got the opportunity to take the floor. Time was
limited to 2 minutes, and I used them to say the following:

Distinguished Delegates,

The International Civil Liberties Alliance notes with concern that
hate crime and anti-discrimination laws are worded much too broadly
and often enforced
becoming in effect tools for repression rather than vehicles for
freedom.
Further, exaggerating the problems and exploiting singular cases
to create draconian legislation would be counterproductive to the OSCE
goals and intentions.

In order to properly further the OSCE goals, we need to ensure that
legislation is well-defined. Ideally, the problems addressed here
should be handled through ordinary criminal laws, as hate crimes
usually constitute libel and implied threats against certain
groups. The classical target is the Jewish community, the recent
‘organ harvesting’ article in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet being a
case in point.

Additionally, blasphemy laws and the like, that still are on the books
in Denmark and elsewhere, only serve to cover up the problems, not to
solve them. These laws need to be repealed, also in order that
political extremism disguised as religion can be freely criticized.

Thank you.

Redeemed Lives had a further elaboration on their problems.

Then came the Swiss-Turkish Union of Lawyers (I’m not certain of the
exact name), who lamented the fact that it had been permitted to hold
referendums concerning the construction of minarets along with
mosques. This could severely annoy other Islamic countries. They
recommended that the Swiss government take measures to prevent any
similar referendums to take place in the future.

Armenia noted that ‘hate crime’ has been a priority for the OSCE since
2003, but noted that there is no firm legal definition of ‘hate’. And
that in spite of this being a priority, anti-Armenian propaganda in
Azerbaijan continues unabated, not least on the Internet.

Austria, who had been criticized for raising obstacles against
construction of mosques in Corinthia and Voralburg, noted that any
religion is permitted to erect houses of worship. However,
construction regulations exist and must be adhered to. These rules are
democratic and apply equally well to Islamic organisations.

Cyprus got the last word, noting that the so-called isolation of the n
he island is due to the Turkish occupation there. And that the closing
of ports, Famagusta in particular, is due to the inability of the
government of Cyprus to exercise its authority in that part of the
country.

Speakers unable to present their views in full due to time constraints
were encouraged to submit a more extensive statement to the OSCE
Document Distribution desk, who would post them online.

_________________ End of Working Session 10___________

Side event 1:
Preventing and Responding to anti-Muslim Hate Crimes

COJEP hosted a side event entitled "Preventing and Responding to
anti-Muslim Hate Crimes". The event was chaired by Bashy Quraishy
(who, as he phrased it, "lives in Denmark") and featured: Mr. Veysel
Filiz, Vice President of COJEP, Mr. Tankut Taskin Soykan, Adviser on
Combating Intolerance an Discrimination Against Muslims (OSCE),
Mrs. Liz Fekete (Institute of Race Relations, UK), Mr. Paul Legendre
(Human Rights First) and Mr. Ömür Orhun (Adviser and Special Envoy of
the OIC).

The session focused on getting more reports on hate crimes filed, that
NGO’s would be better able to combat them. COJEP introduced the
interesting interpretation that hate crimes are really ‘message
crimes’, sending out messages to all immigrants and/or all Muslims. It
was the desire of the panel that the States should take measures to
prevent these from happening, making it clear to society at large that
this kind of messages cannot be tolerated.

The low number of reported hate crimes might, according to the panel,
be due to Muslims not having faith in the police in the European
states. More information needs to be collected regarding hate crimes
against Muslims.

When the floor was opened for debate, I inquired why only hate crimes
against Muslims would be recorded? Following the news gives a vivid
impression that hate crimes committed by Muslims against non-Muslims
are numerous, and that the ‘message crime’ aspect of these crimes are
frequently surprisingly clear.

A case in point was the demonstration January 10th, Denmark, where a
counter-demonstration to a pro-Israel rally indulged in praise of
Hitler, calls for killing Jews and (of particular note) a reference to
Muhammad conquering and plundering the Jewish settlement of Khaybar in
628 A.D.

The chant used in that demonstration was (in Arabic): "Khaybar Khaybar
ya Yahud, jaysh Muhammad saufa ya’ud", which translates into English:
"Khaybar, Khaybar o Jews, the army of Muhammad will return." The
message here, as had also been made explicit, is a threat to Jews,
merely due to their ethnic origin. The racist and ‘message crime’
nature of this demonstration should be obvious.

Should one dive into the life story of Muhammad, various ‘message
crimes’ can be identified, including the assassination of poets Uqba
bin Abu Muayt, Asma bint Marwan, Abu Afak and others. These old tales
still seem to have clear messages to Salman Rushdie, Kurt Westergaard
and other artistic critics of Islam.

History aside, the panel had some trouble giving a clear response to
my question, deliberating the idea in various ways. After the session,
Bashy Quraishy gave a clear answer: It would not be acceptable, for
doing so would constitute racism. No further comments seem neccesary.

Side event 2:
Challenging Intolerance against Muslims

This event started as late at 18:00, with Kareem Shora of American
Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) being the most interesting
speaker. He related how the ADC works diligently to stop profiling of
Muslims and Arabs on grounds of anti-terrorism laws, how their Law
Enforcement Outreach Program (LEOP) is in place to teach the US law
enforcement authorities to avoid stereotypes and respect religious
sensitivities, and how these authorities should act and perform their
work in order to gain the trust of the Arab/Muslim communities and
avoid backlashes, as well as how to crack down efficiently on ‘hate
crimes’.

Kareem Shora, who joined ADC in 2000, has recently been appointed by
US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano as
a member of th securiry Council (HSAC); the official advisory body for
the DHS Secretary on homeland security matters.

The Obama administration received high praise for showing great
sensitivity to Islamic and Muslim points of view, expressed not least
in Obama’s Cairo Speech, which has been somewhat controversial from
other’s points of view, but by Kareem and the ADC is seen as a
significant step forwards towards the attitudes they desire from the
US government.

This is a stark contrast to the attitude taken by George W. Bush after
September 11th 2001, and Kareem expressed his particular pleasure that
the US government is now taking great efforts to avoid associating
Islam with terrorism, a linkage that has been seen as offensive to
Muslims for years.

Bashy Quraishy, who had chaired the previous side event with COJEP and
OIC, had a question on this matter. While he appreciated that it had
become a lot easier to influence the US government, he found the
situation in Europe utterly frustrating. While the US has just a
single government to influence, Europe has dozens of countries, each
with its own independent government, and each with various ‘extremist’
right-wing parties. In particular these political parties, who show no
signs of giving in to Islamic views, are causing much trouble for his
work to increase Islamic influence in Europe, making his efforts seem
futile and being the cause of much frustration.

Kareem responded that Europe always follows the US. Just as Europe
followed the US in going against the Islamic world after 9/11, he
fully expected Europe to follow the lead of Obama, and move away from
the current confrontational stance towards avoiding controversy,
seeking instead to find a workable compromise with Islamic interests.

One may wonder what exactly Quraishy, Kareem etc. are aiming to
achieve. Could it have something to do with The Project? I don’t
expect we’d get a clear answer to a question like that.

Closing remarks

The OSCE conference is a large and sometimes confusing place, with
many people to meet and s in order to ensure a smooth
conference. Documents by the hundreds are submitted for online
distribution, making it easy for a contribution to get lost in the
flow. But all things considered, things run smoothly.

Also in the city of Warsaw outside, one thing is clear: Poland has
come a long way since Communism. This is to a great extent due to the
work of OSCE (and the precursor CSCE), which contributed significantly
to delegitimizing the totalitarian communist regimes in East Europe.

A similar delegitimization of totalitarian Islam can take place, if we
have the courage and make the effort to uphold our civil liberties,
and in turn use them to criticize religious fanatics with too great a
lust for power.