By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 30 -- Morocco was celebrated in the September 30 session of UN Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee, at which the United States spoke, and positively. But is the UN promoting laws that violate the US Constitution?
“Morocco has developed a strategy to prevent the abuse of religion to justify and incite terrorist violence and is now sharing it with the world. An institute has been established in the Kingdom where religious teachers undergo mandatory training before they start preaching in public. Jean-Paul Laborde, Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) and Assistant Secretary-General hailed the dissemination of these teachings also called the 'Moroccan Experience.'”
Inner City Press went to the UN Security Council stakeout and asked Morocco's speaker, and a person beside him who seemed to be an interpreter, if this doesn't violate the US Constitution's freedom of religion clause -- how can exercise of religion be so controlled by a government? How could the UN be propagating this model, with the US cheering it on?
The Moroccan speaker gave a long answer in Arabic, which was then not translated. Inner City Press has submitted to the Moroccan Mission to the UN this question-cluster, in English: is it
“true that in Morocco a person cannot preach before mandatory training before they start preaching in public, and if so, how this relates to provisions like those in the US Constitution saying that the free exercise of religion cannot be controlled or impacted by government? Also, whether new laws against foreign fighters, traveling for terrorism, can be abused given the terrorism is not defined and some countries may use their laws against dissidents and political opponents?”
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