A/HRC/9/7 page 13 who hold them. According to the Becket Fund, defamation laws are meant to protect individuals from public slander or libel that would negatively affect their livelihood, and are closely aligned with individual and personal, rather than group, rights. Defamation laws are meant to prevent people from using mistruths to harm others, and the traditional defence in a defamation lawsuit is the truth. On the contrary, the idea of defamation of religion seeks to protect a set of beliefs, ideas, and philosophies. Freedom of religion as a concept is designed to protect the diversity of views and beliefs. 41. The Becket Fund further argues that there is no basis in international law for the concept of protection of religious ideas or the collective rights of a sometimes disparate group of people within a larger faith tradition. The grounding of human rights in the protection of individuals instead of in the protection of ideas is well established in treaty law and in customary international law. The Becket Fund maintains that previous attempts to change this paradigm have been rejected and, thus, the idea of defamation of religions cannot have the force of established international law. 42. The Becket Fund also maintains that defamation of religions, as opposed to the defamation of persons, would require the State to determine which ideas are acceptable, as opposed to which facts are true. The notion of “defamation of religions” thus presents a fundamental rule of law problem as belief cannot be empirically proven true. Defamation of religion measures are distinct from traditional defamation laws because they do not protect persons, good faith speech or dissent. Enforcement of defamation of religion measures, including anti-blasphemy and anti-vilification laws, is typically left to the unbridled discretion of State officials, who are free to act on their own prejudices. Ultimately, defamation of religion measures empower majorities against dissenters and the State against individuals. 43. The Becket Fund draws attention to the report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, Asmah Jahangir (A/62/280), cautioning that the criminalization of defamation of religions may create an atmosphere of intolerance and fear and increase the prospect of a backlash against perceived critics and those who do not agree with mainstream views. In that regard, the Special Rapporteur noted that defamation of religion measures might stifle legitimate criticism or even research on practices and laws that appear to be in violation of human rights but are sanctioned by religion. The Fund also refers to the report of the Special Rapporteur on the protection of freedom of expression, Amyebi Ligabo (A/HRC/7/14), who stated that limitations to article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights were not intended to suppress the expression of critical views, controversial opinions or politically incorrect statements, nor were they designed to protect belief systems from external or internal criticism.. 44. The Becket Fund further submitted that the conflation of race and religion has complicated both racism and religious freedom issues. There is a distinction between race, which is immutable, and religion, which, though often exercised and expressed communally, requires and cannot exist without choice guided by individual conscience. Treating racial and religious discrimination as the same thing could lead to the conflation of racist hate speech and the suppression of peaceful, but controversial, discussions of truth claims about and within religions.