DEMARCHE RESPONSE: "DEFAMATION OF RELIGIONS"

UNCLAS PRETORIA 002603 SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM SF SUBJECT: DEMARCHE RESPONSE: "DEFAMATION OF RELIGIONS" FORWARD THINKING REF: A. STATE 128320 ¶B. PRETORIA 488 ¶C. PRETORIA 561 ¶D. PRETORIA 1860 ¶E. PRETORIA 2038 ¶F. PRETORIA 2168 ¶G. PRETORIA 2207 ¶H. PRETORIA 2493 ¶1. (SBU) Embassy Pretoria believes that success in reversing South Africa's support for the Defamation of Religion (DoR) resolution (reftel) will be highly improbable, and the effort may be counterproductive. Post is open to elevating our dialogue on DoR to a higher level, such as a request for Ambassador Gips to meet with the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Nkoana-Mashabane, if the Department feels this would be useful. Such a meeting would be positioned as an occasion for the Ambassador to sound out the Minister on DoR, and to emphasize the priority placed on the issue by Secretary Clinton, without an expectation of changing the SAG's vote. Given we have already approached them before on this issue we do not believe such a meeting will be productive. ¶2. (SBU) Post appreciates the Department's redoubled efforts on DoR, but we reiterate that South Africa remains unwavering in its support of such resolutions. The SAG was host -- geographically and ideologically -- to the 2001 Durban Conference Against Racism giving rise to the DoR motions, which the SAG continues to champion. The SAG was offended by U.S. walkouts at Durban and in later rounds. It has appealed to the U.S. to recognize its use of its good offices to excise from the DoR draft elements the USG and EU found most objectionable. ¶3. (SBU) The SAG feels there is now nothing in the DoR text with which member states should take issue. The SAG's take on the role of language and hate speech is fundamentally different from ours: prohibitions against discrimination go back as far as the liberation struggle's seminal Freedom Charter of 1955, and discrimination is a punishable crime in the South African Constitution. It sees as hypothetical the U.S. claim that repressive states could distort DoR as grounds to deny free speech, saying the DoR as written does not lead to such an interpretation. Per prior reporting (refs B-H),the SAG sees its stance as a deeply principled one, fighting racial and religious intolerance and harmful stereotyping. It feels the U.S. and EU occupy an extreme liberal end of the spectrum on standards of free speech, whereas its own domestic context and apartheid history require the SAG to exercise more vigilant state oversight. ¶4. (SBU) Specific responses to Department points: the SAG tries to align itself with other African countries whenever possible. Bilateral leverage, in the form of a phone call by Secretary Clinton to Minister Nkoana-Mashabane, was used to positive effect to suspend a late SAG intervention on Freedom of Expression, but indirect feedback from the SAG suggests that this channel should not be overused. The decision on DoR rests with DIRCO, but it has the endorsement of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). Both DIRCO and the SAHRC have explained their positions on DoR to IO/DRL visitors. Post is not aware of any pushback from local rights NGOs, for whom in the South African context the DoR resolution would likely be seen as combating the everpresent and real threats of racism and xenophobia rather than posing any distant and more abstract threat to free speech. GIPS