HATS OFF to Renée Loth for her insightful column “Human rights are absolute’’ (Op-ed, Dec. 18). As she contends, “broadly accepted principles of human dignity could be in jeopardy,’’ because many countries now argue that such protections undermine the integrity of their indigenous culture.
This danger is not only being abetted by totalitarian states such as China and Cuba, but also by many Islamic states. In 1990, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference established the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. This document made all human rights subject to Sharia, or Islamic law, and thereby legitimized state-sponsored efforts to eviscerate freedom of religion, gender equality, and other basic rights.
Today, totalitarian and theocratically guided states are working together to shift the global discourse on human rights.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the workings of the UN Human Rights Council, which routinely overlooks egregious human rights problems and invests its moral capital in a relentless campaign to demonize the United States and Israel.
Michael Tichnor
Robert Leikind
Boston
The writers are president and director, respectively, of the Boston office of the American Jewish Committee. 
