Human Rights
Oh dear, another ‘community’ has been attacked and defamed and had its human rights abused. Will this kind of thing never end? This time it was an art exhibition that attacked and defamed the Hindu community and abused its human rights. But the Hindu community didn’t take this attacking and abusing lying down – or at least, the group ‘Hindu Human Rights’ didn’t. Bless their hearts.
So we are fully aware of, respect and uphold British laws and traditions, which protect the rights of the Hindu community to protest when attacked and defamed.
That’s a sly one. Yes, of course, British laws and traditions protect the rights of anyone to protest when attacked and defamed, or any other time; British laws and traditions protect rights to protest in general. But the way that’s phrased makes it look (if you read hastily) as if British laws and traditions protect specifically the rights of ‘the Hindu community’ specifically to protest ‘when attacked and defamed’, which is more dubious; it also makes it look, perhaps even if you don’t read hastily, as if ‘the Hindu community’ had in fact been ‘attacked and defamed’, which is highly dubious. It is highly dubious to consider an exhibition of paintings that includes some paintings of naked Hindu deities an exercise in attacking and defaming ‘the Hindu community’. Highly dubious, but also highly popular and highly effective. If you’re religious, just announce that anything that gets up your nose is an attack on and defamation of your ‘community’ and everyone for miles around will turn pale and clammy with anguish, and put a stop to whatever nose-upgetting item is at issue.
We have campaigned for years for these values and freedoms to be granted to the Hindu communities which are persecuted in many parts of the world…As anyone can see from our website and publications, we exist to highlight the abuses of the human rights of Hindus going on in many parts of the world.
By…shutting down art exhibitions? By protesting naked deities in art exhibitions? Because…naked deities in art exhibitions are abuses of human rights? Well, yes; that probably is exactly what Ranbir Singh thinks; that is the way this line is going. Remember that cardinal last month who said exactly that? About the DaVinci Code? “This is one of the fundamental human rights – that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected,” said Cardinal Arinze.” A nice modest humble claim, that we all have to respect everyone else’s religious beliefs and (as if that weren’t enough) religious founders as well. Walls creeping ever closer.
Isn’t Hindu Human Rights a really bizarre name for an organisation? I thought the idea of human rights was that they were supposed to be universal, and apply to everyone who qualifies as a member of the ‘human’ species. Sticking a ‘Hindu’ on the front there seems to suggest that Hindus have their own personalised set of rights. It makes sense if they do, because they’d probably not be too bothered about including the fundamental human right to have their “founder Jesus Christ respected”.
A sly one? A blatant lie more like. The exhibitor gave in for ‘security reasons’. The HHR themselves acknowledge that explanation, i.e. that the exhibition was not cancelled as a result of them giving consideration to protest. What acheived the result was that the exhibitors were put in fear of violence towards themselves and their visitors. There is no law that protects such activities, indeed putting people in such fear is a criminal act in the UK.
“Isn’t Hindu Human Rights a really bizarre name for an organisation?”
Sure is. This seems to be a spreading tactic. Let’s keep a close eye on it, and dispute it whenever it appears.
“A sly one? A blatant lie more like.”
Yes, except within the confines of the sentence itself, it isn’t a lie – it’s just beside the point. That’s what’s sly about it. Saying ‘the gummint protects my right to protest if I’m attacked!’ is perfectly true, and perfectly irrelevant if I’ve just been threatening a shopping mall with violent riots because I’m offended by the colour scheme of the floor tiles. It’s necessary to be vigilant about the true but irrelevant claim as well as about the blatant lie.
Still, excellent point and quite right.
Couldn’t we report these loons under the Trade Descriptions Act, since they claim to support human rights, but in fact want to trample all over Article 10 (and by extension also Article 9) of the ECHR by supporting censorship?
“Bigots’ Rights” would be more apt.
Religious nutcases again. What more can you say? We need to remove all laws protecting religious rights, and crack down on those who seek to enforce their religious beliefs on the vast majority, i.e. you can do this, you can’t do this. It should be criminalised just like violent animal protesters. the trouble is, of course, it all comes down to votes in the end. Look at America. Invoking God gets you in power. It will therefore get worse…!
And when did any set of beliefs earn respect by merely being a set of beliefs? I may be talking bollocks, but I thought respect was something earned, therefore contingent on many things, some of them context-related, some a matter of opinion etc. Perhaps I’m going mad.
If they’re so bothered about the human rights of Hindu’s, why are they getting their knickers in a twist about something so arbitrary as an exhibition of art, when millions in India are denied basic rights because of the oppressive and pointless HINDU caste system.
Fucking hypocrites.
Only three things give you human rights- gender, race, sexuality. All else is choice.
No no, you misunderstand, being oppressed by the Hindu caste system is of course the human right of the people being oppressed. They have a human right to be oppressed. And (nicely) the people at the other end of the caste system of course have a human right to do the oppressing. Naturally none of them has a human right to refuse all that – that would never do! That’s not what human rights are for! What an idea.