In 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was intended to confer upon the citizens of all member states the same rights that were customarily observed in the Western democracies.

Needless to say, the UDHR has not been honored even in the breach. Only within the existing liberal democracies, and those which have since joined their ranks, has there been any observance or enforcement of these declared universal human rights.

Islamic countries, as represented by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), have proposed as an alternative to the UDHR a document known as the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, which they deem appropriate to the tenets and traditions of the Islamic religion. At the UN the OIC has, with partial success, repeatedly called for implementation of the Cairo Declaration, and aims to have the United Nations codify the CDHR as an official and parallel alternative to the UDHR, recognized internationally instead of the UDHR as valid within Islamic countries.

Since the OIC now commands a majority in the UN General Assembly, the eventual full official recognition of the Cairo Declaration is all but inevitable.

However, even a cursory glance at the two documents shows that they are neither equivalent to nor compatible with one another. Take, for example, these two articles from the UN declaration:

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

And compare them with these sections of the Cairo Declaration:

Article 10

Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism.

Article 22

(a)		Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.
(b)		Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari’ah.
(c)		Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.
(d)		It is not permitted to arouse nationalistic or doctrinal hatred or to do anything that may be an incitement to any form of racial discrimination.

A European reader named Lexington emailed us this morning in response to Dymphna’s post about the decision of the German and Polish presidents not to sign the Lisbon Treaty. He points out that the EU and the Mediterranean Union are the likely vehicles for the application of the Cairo Declaration to Europe as the Islamization of the continent proceeds:
– – – – – – – – –

Dear Baron,

No dancing on table tops yet over European countries’ resistance to the Lisbon Treaty.

Sarkozy is due to meet on 13 July with 40 leaders of EU countries and Moslem countries (Syria, Morocco, et al) with the stated intention of discussing the formation of a ‘Mediterranean Union’ which is intended to facilitate ‘emigration’ from North Africa (predominantly African Moslems) and the Middle East into Europe. I am certain that any such Mediterranean Union would have a mutually-agreed set of terms (constitution? treaty?) and, cynic that I am, I see this as the means by which the frustrated totalitarians of the EU will seek to implement their presently in-limbo Lisbon Treaty, which amounts to a surrender document of the sovereignties of all countries participating in the EU.

Any MU would also be the means by which Sharia Law would be acknowledged as a parallel jurisprudence in the EU. Moslem countries (54 of them) signed the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam in 1990; in 1997 the UN accepted the CDHR as a ‘regional variation’ or ‘complementary’ to the UN-sponsored Declaration of Universal Human Rights.

The two documents are entirely antithetical: the CDHR states that Sharia is the only basis for determining both crimes and punishment and that Sharia is superior to all other jurisprudence; the International Humanist and Ethical Union and Faith Freedom have extensively contrasted the Cairo Declaration and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Note especially, in the Cairo Declaration, Articles 19, 24 and 25. They are the core:

Article 19 (d):		There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Shari’ah.
Article 24:		All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.
Article 25:		The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.

Once there is a ‘Mediterranean Union’ in place, it will prove the conduit for this Cairo Declaration to eventually dominate in Europe due, in no small part, to the fact that a Mediterranean Union, by increasing Moslem populations into Europe, will turn Europe into that very ‘region’ in which the Cairo Declaration is the only statement of ‘human rights’.

It, and not the Lisbon Treaty, is the ultimate danger and is, in fact, the dream of Eurabia exposed by Bat Ye’or.

So what do you think? Are we being alarmists when we assert that the Mediterranean Union and the Cairo Declaration will be the vehicle for the suppression of freedom in Europe?

Will these monstrosities manage to undo the fundamental values that have held sway in West since the Enlightenment?