Foreign Minister Khurshid M. Kasuri has telephoned OIC Secretary General Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu to discuss the recent incidents of inflammatory caricatures, defamation and blasphemous utterances in some Western countries against Islam and its holy personalities, said an official statement. Kasuri, who is also current Chairman of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM), stressed the need for the OIC to work for the adoption of an additional protocol to an appropriate convention by the United Nations or a separate convention focusing on respect of all religions and faiths. The defamation of religions, the foreign minister said, negates the fundamental rights of the followers of the concerned religion. Kasuri felt that only a protocol at the UN level could establish governments responsibility to control and penalize such cases of incitement, which are sometimes justified in the name of the freedom of expression. He called upon the people of goodwill in the western world and elsewhere to condemn and raise their voices against this trend of defamation of all religions and faiths. The foreign minister cautioned against the consequences of rising Islamophobia in the West. He discussed with the OIC Secretary General ways and means of pursuing the objectives of working towards the adoption of an Additional Protocol at the United Nations. Kasuri said that unless the governments responsibility is established, such shameful incidents would continue to take place and the only way of persuading member governments to undertake action in this regard through an international legal instrument prohibiting this. Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu described the Foreign Minister s proposal as very timely. He agreed to initiate consultations among the concerned OIC Foreign Ministers regarding the adoption of a strategy to achieve the above objective. The Secretary General agreed with the Foreign Minister that there is a need for finalizing a Code of Conduct in order to ensure respect for all religions.
