General Assembly Resolution #550 “Freedom Of Association” (Category: Civil Rights; Strength: Significant) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.
The General Assembly,
Admiring this body's strong efforts to protect fundamental freedoms such as the
freedom to assemble and the
freedom of expression,
Disappointed, then, by the pitifully weak attempt by GA 550 "Freedom of Association" to protect its own eponymous freedom despite calling it a "third pillar" comparable to the aforementioned two,
Bewildered by the target allowing for any organization to "have criminal penalties attached for association with it on the basis that it actively undermines national security, directs its members to violate national criminal law, includes the commission of crimes among its goals or activities, or spreads, or intends to spread, a message of hate directed toward a specific group,"
Alarmed that allowing for association to be criminalized merely "on the basis" of such vague and broad concerns, particularly "that it actively undermines national security," guts the target's protections and renders it functionally useless,
Incensed that by phrasing this as active permission to criminalize association rather than an exception, the target also undermines national protections intended to prevent freedom of association from being unduly criminalized at the more local level,
Amused that GA 537 "Freedom to Assemble" - passed prior to the target - competently covers association anyway by, among other things, banning "punitive or discriminatory action against any individual for planning, assisting, or participating in non-violent assembly
or association for the purpose of articulating or advocating any belief or ambition" (emphasis added) under a more comprehensive framework with actually reasonable exceptions, and
Believing that this body has the freedom to cease associating itself with a resolution that kneecaps its own protections, does more harm than good, and was utterly unnecessary even when it was passed,
Hereby repeals GA 550 "Freedom of Association."
