Addressing the Council of Foreign Ministers of his organization in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu declared that "Islamophobia" is "at the top of our priorities and preoccupations" and laid out the OIC's "large-scale world-wide effort to confront it" -- an effort that includes having "exhorted the officials in these countries to assume their inherent legal responsibilities in order to stem this illegal trend in conformity with international and domestic laws which prohibit discrimination based on incitement to hatred towards individuals or groups because of their religion, race, or other grounds."
Moreover, Ihsanoglu continued, "In confronting the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film 'Fitna', we sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed. As we speak, the official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked." (Emphases mine.)
The OIC chief laid out a four-point plan for dealing with "this scourge," as he called "Islamophobia," and noted that "We have established an OIC Group in Washington D.C., with the aim of playing a more active role in engaging American policy makers." The entire speech may be read here, and Baron Bodissey has a fine post on it at Gates of Vienna.
The only responsibility regarding "Islamophobia" that can legitimately be regarded as "inherent" is the responsibility of free people to resist that spurious concept's use to infringe their right to analyze, criticize and expose the likes of Ihsanoglu and his odious creed. As Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, affirmed in that deathless document, our right to liberty, of which the right to free expression is so fundamental a part, is unalienable, being an endowment of our Creator. The OIC's vile propaganda jihad against it must accordingly be fought with the utmost determination.
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