Tag: Hillary Clinton

Free Speech Concerns Ahead of Meeting With Muslim Nations on Religious Tolerance
By Judson Berger
Department of State
July 15, 2011: Shown here are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu at a meeting in Istanbul.

A looming meeting with Islamic leaders hosted by the State Department has religious scholars and advocacy groups warning that the United States may “play into” the push by some Islamic nations to create new laws to stifle religious criticism and debate.

The meeting on religious tolerance, which is scheduled for mid-December, would involve representatives of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — a coalition of 56 nations which more or less represents the Muslim world.

Critics describe the get-together — the first in a series — as a Trojan horse for the long-running OIC push for restrictions on speech. They note the track record of nations that want the dialogue, including Egypt, where recent military action against Coptic Christians raised grave concerns about intolerance against religious minorities.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton originally announced the meeting this past July in Turkey, where she co-chaired a talk on religious tolerance with the OIC. The event was billed as a way to foster “respect and empathy and tolerance” among nations. Delegates from up to 30 countries, as well as groups like the European Union, are also invited.

A State Department official told FoxNews.com this week that the meeting is meant to combat intolerance while being “fully consistent with freedom of expression.”

A key worry is that the meeting could become a platform for Islamic governments to push for hate-speech laws which, in their most virulent and fundamentalist form, criminalize what they perceive as blasphemy.

While Clinton has drawn a line in the sand, saying nations should not “criminalize speech,” the upcoming meeting is seen by some as a misstep on a very sensitive issue.

“It’s just an astonishingly bad decision,” said Nina Shea, who sits on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and serves as director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.

Shea, who joined a group of scholars specializing in religious defamation for an event last week on Capitol Hill hosted by The Federalist Society, warned that the United States is virtually alone among western nations in not having hate-speech laws. She said the Obama administration doesn’t need to delve deeper into religious speech issues with OIC nations, considering their history.

Shea said she doesn’t yet fear the possibility that hate-speech laws are coming to the U.S. any time soon, “but I am concerned the culture is changing on this.”

Jacob Mchangama, director of legal affairs for Denmark’s Center for Political Studies, noted that the U.S. has resisted following Europe with hate-speech laws, but the Obama administration may be willing to “relax” its approach. He noted the administration co-sponsored a resolution with Egypt in 2009 that expressed concern about “negative racial and religious stereotyping,” and said the upcoming December conference lends credibility to the OIC agenda.

The push by Islamic nations, especially Pakistan, for global religious sensitivity on its surface sounds innocuous. But the debate often pits their cause against free speech, and western officials have long complained the nations spearheading the push are keen on shielding Islam specifically from criticism.

In some countries, perceived protections against religious insult are used as license to threaten, bully and attack those who offend, intentionally or not. Most recently, the office of a French satirical newspaper was attacked after it published a Muhammad cartoon. That follows widespread 2006 protests over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.

And in Pakistan, whose blasphemy laws are internationally renowned for their broadness and severity, the legal protections on religious insult are used most often to protect Islam. Being charged with a blasphemy offense — or criticizing the laws themselves — can open the door to intimidation, or worse. Earlier this year, two Pakistani officials who had been critical of the laws were assassinated.

The OIC, looking for international cooperation on the issue of religious tolerance, has pushed for so-called “defamation” resolutions before the United Nations for over a decade. Those resolutions were Islam-focused and called on governments to take action to stop religious defamation.

Though the OIC took a pass on the resolution this year, the U.N. Human Rights Council in March approved a watered-down version that expresses concerns about religious “intolerance, discrimination and related violence.” The adoption was generally seen as a successful move by the U.S. to replace the far-tougher resolutions the OIC has pushed over the past decade.

But the upcoming meeting has been hailed by some OIC officials as a way to craft a tougher approach to curbing religious criticism.

An August article from the International Islamic News Agency cited OIC “informed sources” saying the meetings were meant to develop a “legal basis” for the March resolution.

The State Department official noted that the Human Rights Council’s resolution does not call for limits on free speech or provide support for defamation or blasphemy laws.

“Instead, the text notes the positive role that the free exchange of ideas and interfaith dialogue can have in countering religious intolerance,” the official said. “We believe that implementing the specific, appropriate steps called for in the resolution will help to undercut support for such restrictions on expression and religious freedom.”

But Shea questioned why Clinton was moving to implement the non-binding measure.

“It validates the OIC on speech,” she said. “It plays into their agenda.”

The meeting has been set for Dec. 12-14, and is expected to be hosted by Suzan Johnson Cook, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. It’s unclear whether Clinton will attend. The meeting was announced around the same time as the Norway terror attacks, carried out by an individual said to harbor anti-Muslim views.

December’s meeting is the first in a series — focusing on engaging religious minorities and training officials on religious awareness, as well as “enforcing laws that protect against” religious discrimination, according to the State Department.

Lindsay Vessey, advocacy director with Open Doors USA, said her group is “cautiously optimistic” about the meetings. Vessey, whose organization advocates for persecuted Christians and has criticized the “defamation” resolutions in the past, said her organization remains hopeful the upcoming conference will turn out to be a “good thing.”

The conservative Traditional Values Coalition last month sent a letter to Clinton asking that the group be included as part of the discussion. President Andrea Lafferty told FoxNews.com her organization is “very concerned” the administration is becoming “cozy” with the OIC, which she claimed wants to “silence” voices critical of Islam.
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November 12, 2011
Hillary Clinton’s mother dies at 92

Family: Hillary Clinton’s mother dies at 92

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press – 16 hours ago

FILE – In a July 14, 1992 file photo, Hillary Clinton, right, and her mother Dorothy Rodham are shown in their New York hotel room. Dorothy Rodham died shortly after midnight on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011 in Washington, D.C. She was 92. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dorothy Rodham, mother of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton’s mother-in-law, died Tuesday at age 92 after an illness.

The family said Rodham died shortly after midnight, surrounded by her family at a Washington hospital. The secretary of state had cancelled a planned trip to London and Istanbul to be at her mother’s side.

In a statement, the Clinton family hailed Rodham as a woman who “overcame abandonment and hardship as a young girl to become the remarkable woman she was — a warm, generous and strong woman; an intellectual; a woman who told a great joke and always got the joke; an extraordinary friend and, most of all, a loving wife, mother and grandmother.”

President Barack Obama praised Rodham as a “remarkable person” who also was “strong, determined and gifted.”

“For her to have been able to live the life that she did and to see her daughter succeed at the pinnacle of public service in this country I’m sure was deeply satisfying to her,” Obama said after signing an executive order in the Oval Office. “My thoughts, Michelle’s thoughts, the entire White House’s thoughts go out to the entire Clinton family. I know that she will be remembered as somebody who helped make a difference in this country and this world.”

Dorothy Rodham was a witness to her daughter’s political victories and defeats. She avoided the spotlight and rarely gave interviews about herself or her daughter and son-in-law, the former president.

A notable exception was her daughter’s 2008 bid for the Democratic nomination for president. She appeared with her daughter in primary states, particularly at events focusing on women’s issues.

Clinton cited her mother in at least one ad during the campaign, saying that her mother had taught her to stand up for herself and to stand up for those who needed help.

As Clinton battled Barack Obama for the nomination in April 2008, Rodham joined her daughter and granddaughter at a campaign event at Haverford College, Pa. Then 88, Rodham didn’t speak at the event, but Hillary Clinton noted that her mother lived with her and “always has a lot of great ideas about what we need to be doing,” drawing chuckles from the audience.

When Clinton ended her campaign during a speech in June 2008 at Washington’s National Building Museum, her mother watched from off stage and wiped a tear as Clinton conceded the nomination to Obama. The following February, Rodham was on hand as her daughter was sworn in as Obama’s secretary of state.

Dorothy Howell Rodham was born in Chicago in 1919, the daughter of a city firefighter. In her autobiography, “Living History,” Hillary Clinton described her mother’s childhood as lonely and loveless.

The Howells shuttled Dorothy and her younger sister, Isabelle, among relatives and schools. She was 8 when her parents divorced in 1927 and she was sent with her sister to live with their paternal grandparents in Alhambra, Calif. Her grandmother could be cruel when not ignoring young Dorothy, Clinton wrote.

Rodham left her grandparents’ home at 14 when she found room and board as a mother’s helper to another family. After graduating from high school, she returned to Chicago on her mother’s promise of helping to pay for a college education if she lived with her and her new husband. After that promise was unfulfilled, Rodham supported herself with a job in an office.

“I’m still amazed at how my mother emerged from her lonely early life as such an affectionate and levelheaded woman,” Clinton wrote.

She met Hugh E. Rodham, a native of Scranton, Pa., who had found work in Chicago as a traveling salesman. They courted for several years before marrying in 1942. Besides their daughter, they raised two sons, Hugh and Tony.

Dorothy Rodham was a homemaker in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge but for years took a variety of college courses even though she never completed a degree. A Democrat, she was a counter to the conservative Republicanism of her husband, who became a successful businessman.

The Rodhams moved to Little Rock, Ark., in 1987, to be near their daughter and her husband, then the state’s governor, and their granddaughter, Chelsea. Dorothy Rodham’s husband died in 1993. A Washington Post profile in 2007 noted that she moved to Washington to live with her daughter’s family after Hillary Clinton’s election to the Senate in 2000.

In a debate during the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton called her mother her inspiration.

“I owe it to my mother, who never got a chance to go to college, who had a very difficult childhood, but who gave me a belief that I could do whatever I set my mind,” she said.

The Clinton family plans a private memorial service. The family statement said any donations should be made to George Washington Hospital, where Rodham “received excellent care and made terrific friends over many years”; or to the Heifer Project ), her Christmas gift of choice in 2010.

Or, the statement said “to a local organization that helps neglected and mistreated children, a blight Dorothy was determined to remedy until her last day because she knew too well the pain too many children suffer.”

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

via The Associated Press: Family: Hillary Clinton’s mother dies at 92.

November 2, 2011
Obama to Cannes, Clinton to Istanbul

Posted By Josh Rogin Monday, October 31, 2011 – 7:20 PM Share

In what seems like a deliberate ploy to escape the cold autumn weather gripping Washington, President Barack Obama will leave for Cannes on Wednesday for the G-20 summit and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is off to Istanbul for an international meeting on Afghanistan.

Upon arriving in Cannes on Thursday morning, Obama will hold bilateral meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He will then meet with the “L-20,” an elected group of labor leaders from the G-20 countries. On Thursday afternoon, the formal G-20 schedule commences.

Obama will meet on Friday with the newly reelected Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, followed by a press conference, and then perhaps some more one-on-one time with Sarkozy. Other bilateral meetings could pop up, according to Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes.

“The G-20 agenda is critical to growing our economy here back at home, to strengthening the recovery, to increase exports and to create jobs,” NSC Senior Director for International Economics Mike Froman told reporters on Monday morning. “In Cannes, we expect the eurozone to be the primary focus of discussion, but in addition, the leaders will focus on mechanisms that have been put in place to ensure strong, balanced and sustainable growth.”

Froman said other topics at the G-20 summit will include financial regulatory reform and how to keep momentum going on G-20 priorities, such as security and infrastructure development, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, fighting corruption, and strengthening the multilateral trading system.

“[T]here is growing agreement around the world that the focus at Cannes needs to be on growth,” said Treasury Undersecretary Lael Brainard. “President Obama remains intensely focused on putting Americans back to work. Recovery in the U.S. remains fragile and still too vulnerable to disruption beyond our shores.”

Brainard called the new European plan to stave off financial collapse “significant” but declined to comment on whether or not the administration has confidence that Europe’s the $1.4 trillion firewall the Obama administration is recommending will actually be implemented. The officials didn’t comment directly on the idea of China bailing out Europe, but they didn’t seem thrilled about the prospect, either.

So the concept that China and other emerging economies are part of this discussion, that they will be there, along with ourselves and other industrialized countries, speaking with the Europeans, talking about the elaboration and the implementation of their plan, and expressing unity and support of what the Europeans are doing, we think is very much appropriate,” Froman said.

Brainard also implied — but did not say outright — that the United States was not supportive of the European idea of imposing a tax on all trades of stocks and bonds. She talked about the Obama administration’s financial responsibility fee as the preferred approach.

“We think that the financial responsibility fee, which is on the liabilities of the largest financial institutions, is well-targeted to make those institutions that are bearing greater risk pay more. It is better targeted to prevent evasion. And the IMF went through a similar assessment exercise and came, frankly, to a pretty similar conclusion,” she said.

Meanwhile, Clinton leaves Monday night for London to attend a conference on cyber security policy. On Wednesday, Clinton will participate in an international conference in Istanbul on the way forward in Afghanistan. The conference is part of the lead up to the Bonn conference on Afghanistan scheduled for Dec. 5.

“Istanbul is seen as an opportunity for Afghanistan’s neighbors to reiterate their commitment to a stable, secure, economically viable Afghanistan and to supporting Afghan-led reconciliation, the transition to Afghan security leadership, and then a shared regional economic vision,” a senior administration official told reporters on Monday. “It’s a gathering of regional foreign ministers. The U.S. is actually there just as a supporter, which is critical.”

The Bonn conference is expected to include 85 countries and 15 international organizations, and is being held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Bonn Agreement in December 2001, which was convened to establish an interim government for ruling Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion.

As for Wednesday’s conference in Istanbul, the opening session will feature remarks from Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul. Clinton will make remarks on Wednesday afternoon after lunch.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will also be at the conference, and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will be in town for a U.S.-Afghan-Pakistani trilateral meeting as well. The United States has been pressing the Pakistani government to cut ties with the Haqqani network, but there’s no progress to report just yet.

“The secretary, I think, was quite clear that we all need to see visible signs of progress as a matter of some urgency in days and weeks, as she noted, as opposed to months and years,” the senior administration official said.

via Obama to Cannes, Clinton to Istanbul | The Cable.

November 1, 2011
Secretary Clinton to Travel to London, United Kingdom and Istanbul, Turkey

Press Statement
Victoria Nuland
Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC

Secretary Clinton will travel to London, United Kingdom, November 1, 2011, to deliver a keynote speech at the London Conference on Cyberspace, hosted by the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague. While in London, Secretary Clinton will also meet with Foreign Secretary Hague to review a range of issues on our shared global agenda.

Secretary Clinton will then travel to Istanbul, Turkey, on November 2, to participate in the Istanbul Conference for Afghanistan: Security and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia. The conference will be co-chaired by Afghanistan and Turkey and will include Afghanistan’s neighbors and other key regional partners. The United States is attending as a supporter and welcomes regional efforts to demonstrate support for Afghan priorities of transition, reconciliation, and economic growth.

via Secretary Clinton to Travel to London, United Kingdom and Istanbul, Turkey.

October 28, 2011
Clinton warns Iran over US presence in Turkey

WASHINGTON

US Secretary of State Clinton has warned Iran not to ‘miscalculate’ in Iraq, saying US military presence and that of its allies in the region, like Turkey, would remain strong after the withdrawal of all American combat forces by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad says Tehran’s ties with Baghdad are growing

In this file photo, US soldiers ride horses next to the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. Clinton says the US presence will stay strong in the region after American pullout from Iraq.

Iran should not misread the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as affecting U.S. commitment to the fledgling democracy, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Oct. 23.

President Barack Obama’s announcement Oct. 21 that all American troops would return from Iraq by the end of the year will close a chapter on U.S.-Iraq relations that began in 2003 with the U.S.-led invasion.

Washington has long worried that meddling by Iran, a Shiite Muslim theocracy, could inflame tensions between Iraq’s Shiite-led government and its minority Sunnis, setting off a chain reaction of violence and disputes across the Middle East. Clinton said in a series of TV news show interviews that the U.S. would continue its training mission with Iraq, which would resemble operations in Colombia and elsewhere. While the U.S. will not have combat troops in Iraq, she said the American presence would remain strong because of its bases in the region. “Iran would be badly miscalculating if they did not look at the entire region and all of our presence in many countries, both in bases and in training with NATO allies, like Turkey,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about fears of civil war in Iraq after U.S. troops leave, Clinton said: “Well, let’s find out … We know that the violence is not going to automatically end. No one should miscalculate America’s resolve and commitment to helping support the Iraqi democracy. We have paid too high a price to give the Iraqis this chance. And I hope that Iran and no one else miscalculates that.” In an interview released Oct. 22, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran has “a very good relationship” with Iraq’s government, and the relationship will continue to grow. “We have deepened our ties day by day,” Ahmadinejad said in the interview.

Iranian-American due to enter plea over Saudi plot

Meanwhile, an Iranian-American accused of plotting to hire Mexican gangsters to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington was due in federal court yesterday in New York, where he was expected to enter a plea. Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen holding Iranian and U.S. passports who lived for many years in Texas where he worked as a used car salesman, was arrested last month in New York. He and co-defendant Gholam Shakuri, who is at large, allegedly conspired to “kill the ambassador to the U.S. of Saudi Arabia, while the ambassador was in the U.S.,” according to court documents. Iran has strongly denied any involvement in what the U.S. says was a plot by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds force to kill the ambassador by hiring assassins from a Mexican drug cartel for $1.5 million. The two co-defendants are also accused of planning for a “weapon of mass destruction” to be used against the ambassador.

Compiled from AFP and AP stories by the Daily News staff.

via Clinton warns Iran over US presence in Turkey – Hurriyet Daily News.

October 27, 2011
Too early to speak on Iran plot, says Ankara

Sevil Küçükkoşum

ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

FM Davutoğlu speaks to US Secretary of State Clinton (R) in New York. AA photo.

Turkey is proceeding cautiously following a briefing by U.S. officials on an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, D.C., saying it is too early to comment on the incident.

“The U.S. official briefed us about the whole story on the incident; some of its parts are already publicized. We mostly listened to the U.S. official,” a Turkish diplomat told the Hürriyet Daily News on condition of anonymity, adding that Ankara would continue to monitor developments in the court case. The official visited Ankara on Oct. 14 and briefed Turkish officials on the alleged Iranian plot. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu also discussed the issue in a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Daniel Benjamin, coordinator for the U.S. counterterrorism office of the State Department, had talks with Davutoğlu and other Turkish diplomats in Ankara as part of the U.S. delegations, who have been visiting permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, including Russia and China, seeking support against Iran’s alleged plot.

Benjamin also dispatched the indictment in the court case to Turkish officials, the diplomat said.

During talks with Benjamin, Clinton spoke with Davutoğlu to discuss the case and other issues, including an upcoming Afghanistan-Pakistan meeting in Turkey, the diplomat said.

The U.S. State Department ordered all its embassies to mobilize their host countries against Iran over the alleged plot. The U.S. also briefed the embassies of some countries in Washington.

Iran has strongly denied any involvement in what the U.S. says was a plot by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds force to kill the ambassador by hiring assassins from a Mexican drug cartel for $1.5 million.

Meanwhile, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Oct. 12 that several countries had not applied sanctions against Iran as strongly as they might.

“The question ahead of us is what further steps we can take in the U.N. and those consultations continue with our U.N. Security Council partners,” Nuland said.

“Our message has been very clear that we think Iran should be held to account, so I think it’s premature to say what the Security Council might be prepared to do, but we’re continuing to work on that,” he said

via Too early to speak on Iran plot, says Ankara – Hurriyet Daily News.

October 17, 2011