ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of some of the actors involved–the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) itself, state players, the UN, and NGOs in general–and their positions vis-a-vis the OIC campaign in the period 1999 to 2011. In 1999, Pakistan, acting on behalf of the OIC, brought before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights a draft resolution calling for the prohibition of the defamation of Islam. From the point of view of language, in the Joint Statement and in other publications and declarations, religious NGOs were unambiguous in their rejection of the defamation of religions resolutions and in their criticism of the OIC for its alleged export of blasphemy laws to the international sphere. Between 1999 and 2011, the OIC continued its campaign to get the ban on the defamation of religions established as a new norm in the context of the UN human-rights regime.
