Human Rights Council condemns the burning of the Quran as a religious hate act | Hacker News Reader

Human Rights Council condemns the burning of the Quran as a religious hate act

unric.org

6 pointscubefox12 comments

In favour (28): Algeria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cameroon, China, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Against (12): Belgium, Costa Rica, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Romania, United Kingdom and United States.

Abstentions (7): Benin, Chile, Georgia, Honduras, Mexico, Nepal and Paraguay.

This is very telling.

It is certainly noticeable how many of the countries oh-so-concerned with protecting a book happen to have atrocious records on actual human rights.

In countries that have freedom of expression I don't know if this could ever actually be outlawed. Similar laws on preventing flag burning have been removed[1], and even if you disagree with the act it is someones right to burn property they own.

[1]:https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1109/flag-desec...

Your own link underscores exactly how easily this sort of behavior can be outlawed; as recently as 1989 a flagrantly unconstitutional bill was passed banning flag burning and as recently as 2006 the house supported a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. And that's without covering the various states that have passed laws banning flag burning, or the nearly 60 year period during which supreme court precedent allowed for laws against flag burning.

What my link is meant to show is that even if such a law is introduced, chances are it'll be overturned. Since the initial decision, the court has only expanded speech in terms of burning or other physical destruction.

Plus, at least in the US, people are a lot more easy to rile up over American Flags that Qurans. It'd be a lot harder for any bill to pass about protecting Muslim holy books than the flag. I'm not saying that as a good thing, just as a point of fact.

> What my link is meant to show is that even if such a law is introduced, chances are it'll be overturned.

And my point is that that is a quite recent phenomenon in historical terms and should not be viewed as anything resembling a permanent or even long-term norm. If you burned an American flag in the wrong part of America 60 years ago you would most likely have faced legal repercussions (unless you had the resources and the "perfect case" to take to the supreme court).

Edit: I feel like I should clarify here that I 100% agree that flag burning should be legal, I merely want to point out that we should not take that for granted.

I remember hearing about the case (in Afghanistan?) where US prison guards found that inmates were writing in Qurans to pass messages. They burned the involved books, which caused outrage in the community. I've wondered how they could have dealt with it in a generally acceptable way. I would think that the primary desecration was writing in the Qurans to begin with.

They probably could have started by spending 5 minutes to consult an Imam.

OK, and what would the Imam advise?

Well, I'm not an Imam (nor a Muslim, for that matter), so all I can do is parrot what they'd (and you'd) find by spending even less time on a simple Google search. But I suppose if you're demanding an answer from me, I'd recommend wrapping them in cloth and burying them somewhere off the beaten path.[0]

[0]: https://muslimvillage.com/2017/05/16/123888/properly-dispose...

For cultural context to this from the American side, as I recall, in the US military, if an American flag has become desecrated by allowing it to touch the ground, tradition was for it to be disposed of by burning. If this rule is still followed, I would expect burning would seem the obvious way to respectfully dispose of any desecrated sacred item.

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