For Immediate Release: March 23, 2012

Human Rights First’s Joelle Fisse, senior associate for the Fighting Discrimination Program, spoke at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva praising the member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for adopting the resolution text on fighting religious intolerance. This new language omits reference to the controversial notion of “defamation of religions”—a global blasphemy code used to justify violent persecutions of religious and political minorities (among others) in many countries.

Fisse stressed the importance of keeping this momentum going, as new blasphemy cases continue to arise in many parts of the world.