Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Re: That Old-Time Religious Persecution

The Telegraph has more information about that incident in Pakistan, in which an 11-year old mentally disabled girl is said to have destroyed pages from a Quran. The Telegraph suggests that Muslim neighbors have been looking for a way to dispel a Christian community in their midst for months now and may have found a way:

As communal tensions continued to rise, about 900 Christians living on the outskirts of Islamabad have been ordered to leave a neighbourhood where they have lived for almost two decades.

On Sunday, houses on the backstreets of Mehrabadi, an area 20 minutes’ drive from western embassies and government ministries, were locked with padlocks, their occupants having fled to already overcrowded Christian slums in and around the capital.

One of the senior members of the dominant Muslim community told the Christians to remove all their belongings from their houses by 1 September. “I don’t think anyone will dare go back after this,” said one Christian, Arif Masih. “The area is not safe for us now.”

As for the girl herself, she has been charged with blasphemy, an extremely grave offense under Pakistani law. The law, the Telegraph reports, “has a proven track record of ensnaring people on the flimsiest of evidence and being cynically used to intimidate communities or settle quarrels over money and property.”

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Re: That Old-Time Religious Persecution

Authorities in Pakistan have arrested an 11-year old Christian girl on blasphemy charges. She apparently was carrying a waste bag which contained some pages from a Quran. According to the BBC, police were reluctant to arrest the girl, who has a learning disability and seems unlikely to have destroyed a Quran on purpose, but “an angry mob demanded her arrest and threatened to burn down Christian homes outside the capital city of Islamabad.”

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Temperman on Extreme Speech

Jeroen Temperman (Erasmus University Rotterdam) has posted a new piece on SSRN, Freedom of Expression and Religious Sensitivities in Pluralist Societies: Facing the Challenge of Extreme Speech. The abstact follows.

Within the European Convention system, judgments have supported legal restrictions on hate speech, but also on blasphemy or religious defamation. The universal human rights instruments, particularly the ICCPR, are increasingly geared towards eradicating hate speech (speech that threatens the rights and freedoms of others), whilst forms of extreme speech that fall short of that category are to be protected rather than countered by states. The Human Rights Committee’s recently adopted General Comment (No. 34) on freedom of expression, provides another strong indication that this is the envisaged way forward: repealing blasphemy and defamation bills, whilst simultaneously increasing the efforts to combat hate speech. This paper argues that it remains ever so important to continue taking stock of the legal justifications for restrictions that are suggested in this area and to scrutinize whether they are in fact sustainable from a human rights perspective –– not only on paper, but also in actual practice. The paper compares and contrasts the universal monitoring bodies’ approach to extreme speech with that of regional monitoring bodies, notably the European Court of Human Rights.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Van Kempen on Freedom of Religion and Criminal Law

Piet Hein Van Kempen (Radboud University Nijmegen) has posted a new piece on SSRN, Freedom of Religion and Criminal Law: A Legal Appraisal–From the Principle of Separation of Church and State to the Principle of Pluralist Democracy?. The abstract follows.

This paper discusses how criminal law and religion should or should not be involved with each other from the point of view of the right to freedom of religion. With that in mind the paper addresses several interrelated questions. What does the principle of separation of church and state require, what interests does it serve, and does it allow for criminal law measures that are explicitly concerned with matters of religion or belief? What does the human right to freedom of religion in general imply about the relation between state and religion? To what extend does the right to freedom of religion oppose, allow or require criminal law measures that deal explicitly with religion or belief? Issues discussed here are e.g. blasphemy, apostasy, an proselytism. And finally: is the principle of pluralist democracy better suited to regulating the relation between the state and religion when it comes to criminal law than the separation principle? As regards the analyses of international human rights law, the emphasis of this contribution is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1966) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR, 1950). The 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (the 1981 UN Declaration), the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR, 1969), and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (AfChHPR, 1981) will be considered insofar as these instruments or the jurisprudence based thereon provide relevant direction on the issues under discussion.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Turkish Pianist Indicted for Insulting Religious Values

On Friday, a Turkish court charged an internationally known pianist with the crime of insulting religious values for comments about Islam he posted on his twitter feed. The pianist, Fazil Say, allegedly mocked Islamic teachings about paradise. Say denies the charge, arguing through his attorney that his tweets were not public and that he merely criticized people who exploit Islam for profit. A New York Times discussion of the case is here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Facebook and Google Remove Religious Images in Response to Indian Lawsuits

Reuters reports that Facebook and Google this week removed certain religious images from their Indian websites in response to lawsuits making their way through the Indian courts. Since enactment of a law last year making companies responsible for material they post on their websites, Indian plaintiffs have sued Google and Facebook, as well as other internet companies like Microsoft and Yahoo!,  for displaying offensive images of Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhammad, and Hindu gods and goddesses. In one case, an Indian judge warned that, “like China,” he would order sites blocked if companies did not “take steps to protect religious sensibilities.” Indian free speech advocates have decried the new law and the recent lawsuits, but supporters point to India’s history of sectarian conflict and argue that offensive religious images pose risks to public order.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Law, Religion, and Politics in Tunisia

An interesting, though rather inaptly titled, article about, among other things, a trial for blasphemy in Tunisia which has generated enormous controversy.  Tunisia’s future, like that of Egypt, appears very uncertain.  I also found the comments about the worries of the residents of Tunis interesting.  Years ago, I spent several weeks in Tunis working as part of an archeological dig in ancient Carthage.  I enjoyed that time in Tunis very much.  It is a sophisticated and cosmopolitan sea-side resort and it is unsurprising that its residents would be alarmed about Tunisia’s future.  It is the democracy that seems to be what they fear.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Prominent Egyptian Liberal to Face Trial for Insulting Islam

According to the Reuters FaithWorld blog, a Cairo prosecutor has decided to prosecute Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, head of the telecommunications firm MobilNil and founder of the secularist “Free Egyptians” party, on the charge of showing contempt for religion. The charge stems from an episode last June, when Sawiris tweeted a cartoon that many Muslims found offensive. The cartoon showed Mickey Mouse wearing a beard and Minnie Mouse wearing a face veil. Sawiris subsequently apologized for the incident.

The Reuters headline refers to Sawiris as a “leading Copt,” but in this BBC interview, in which he criticizes the “closed” nature of the Egyptian Christian community, he comes across more as a secular nationalist. Like other liberal parties,  his “Free Egyptians” party, which advocates the separation of religion and state, has struggled in recent parliamentary elections, which have been dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and  more radical Salafi parties.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Austrian Court Upholds Conviction for “Denigrating Religious Beliefs”

Eugene Volokh has a very interesting post about a recent Austrian case in which a woman was convicted of “denigrating religious beliefs” in connection with a series of lectures on Islam. Eugene puts the case in perspective by comparing it with other recent European blasphemy prosecutions and 19th century American analogues. Actually, I’m not sure that Austria was prosecuting the woman for “blasphemy,” which connotes insults to the majority religion of a state; the prosecution seems more to be about “hate speech” targeting the religion of a minority. The case is a good example of the differences between the American and European approaches to speech about religion, though, as Eugene suggests.