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  • Blasphemy And Free Speech

    BLASPHEMY AND FREE SPEECH

    http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2012&month=02
    02/2012 February 2012

    Paul Marshall
    Senior Fellow
    Hudson Institute

    PAUL MARSHALL is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute's Center for
    Religious Freedom. He has published widely in newspapers and magazines,
    including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington
    Post, First Things, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard. He is
    the author or editor of more than 20 books on religion and politics,
    including Their Blood Cries Out, Religious Freedom in the World,
    and Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion. Most recently
    he is the co-author, with Nina Shea, of Silenced: How Apostasy and
    Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide.

    The following is adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale
    College's Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and
    Citizenship in Washington, D.C., on February 3, 2012.

    A growing threat to our freedom of speech is the attempt to stifle
    religious discussion in the name of preventing "defamation of" or
    "insults to" religion, especially Islam. Resulting restrictions
    represent, in effect, a revival of blasphemy laws.

    Few in the West were concerned with such laws 20 years ago. Even if
    still on some statute books, they were only of historical interest.

    That began to change in 1989, when the late Ayatollah Khomeini, then
    Iran's Supreme Leader, declared it the duty of every Muslim to kill
    British-based writer Salman Rushdie on the grounds that his novel,
    The Satanic Verses, was blasphemous. Rushdie has survived by living his
    life in hiding. Others connected with the book were not so fortunate:
    its Japanese translator was assassinated, its Italian translator was
    stabbed, its Norwegian publisher was shot, and 35 guests at a hotel
    hosting its Turkish publisher were burned to death in an arson attack.

    More recently, we have seen eruptions of violence in reaction to
    Theo van Gogh's and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's film Submission, Danish and
    Swedish cartoons depicting Mohammed, the speech at Regensburg by Pope
    Benedict XVI on the topic of faith, reason, and religious violence,
    Geert Wilders' film Fitna, and a false Newsweek report that the U.S.

    military had desecrated Korans at Guantanamo. A declaration by Terry
    Jones-a deservedly obscure Florida pastor with a congregation of less
    than 50-that he would burn a Koran on September 11, 2010, achieved
    a perfect media storm, combining American publicity-seeking, Muslim
    outrage, and the demands of 24 hour news coverage. It even drew the
    attention of President Obama and senior U.S. military leaders. Dozens
    of people were murdered as a result.

    Such violence in response to purported religious insults is not
    simply spontaneous. It is also stoked and channeled by governments
    for political purposes. And the objects and victims of accusations
    of religious insults are not usually Westerners, but minorities and
    dissidents in the Muslim world. As Nina Shea and I show in our recent
    book Silenced, accusations of blasphemy or insulting Islam are used
    systematically in much of that world to send individuals to jail or
    to bring about intimidation through threats, beatings, and killings.

    The Danish cartoons of Mohammed were published in Denmark's largest
    newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, in September 2005. Some were reproduced by
    newspapers in Muslim countries in order to criticize them. There was no
    violent response. Violence only erupted after a December 2005 summit
    in Saudi Arabia of the Organization of the Islamic Conference-now the
    Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The summit was convened to
    discuss sectarian violence and terrorism, but seized on the cartoons
    and urged its member states to rouse opposition. It was only in
    February 2006-five months after the cartoons were published-that
    Muslims across Africa, Asia, and the Mideast set out from Friday
    prayers for often violent demonstrations, killing over 200 people.

    The highly controlled media in Egypt and Jordan raised the cartoon
    issue so persistently that an astonishing 98 percent of Egyptians and
    99 percent of Jordanians-knowing little else of Denmark-had heard of
    them. Saudi Arabia and Egypt urged boycotts of Danish products. Iran
    and Syria manipulated riots partly to deflect attention from their
    nuclear projects. Turkey used the cartoons as bargaining chips
    in negotiations with the U.S. over appointments to NATO. Editors
    in Algeria, Jordan, India, and Yemen were arrested-and in Syria,
    journalist Adel Mahfouz was charged with "insulting public religious
    sentiment"-for suggesting a peaceful response to the controversy. Lars
    Vilks' later and more offensive 2007 Swedish cartoons and Geert
    Wilders' 2008 film Fitna led to comparatively little outcry,
    demonstrating further that public reactions are government-driven.

    Repression based on charges of blasphemy and apostasy, of course, goes
    far beyond the stories typically covered in our media. Currently,
    millions of Baha'is and Ahmadis-followers of religions or
    interpretations that arose after Islam-are condemned en masse as
    insulters of Islam, and are subject to discriminatory laws and attacks
    by mobs, vigilantes, and terrorists. The Baha'i leadership in Iran is
    in prison, and there is no penalty in Iran for killing a Baha'i. In
    Somalia, al Shebaab, an Islamist group that controls much of that
    country, is systematically hunting down and killing Christians. In
    2009, after allegations that a Koran had been torn, a 1,000-strong
    mob with Taliban links rampaged through Christian neighborhoods in
    Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, killing seven people, six of
    whom, including two children, were burned alive. Pakistani police
    did not intervene.

    Throughout the Muslim world, Sunni, Shia, and Sufi Muslims may be
    persecuted for differing from the version of Islam promulgated by
    locally hegemonic religious authorities. Saudi Arabia represses
    Shiites, especially Ismailis. Iran represses Sunnis and Sufis. In
    Egypt, Shia leaders have been imprisoned and tortured.

    In Afghanistan, Shia scholar Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, editor of Haqooq-i-Zen
    magazine, was imprisoned by the government for publishing "un-Islamic"
    articles that criticized stoning as a punishment for adultery. Saudi
    democracy activists Ali al-Demaini, Abdullah al-Hamed, and Matruk
    al-Faleh were imprisoned for using "un-Islamic terminology,"
    such as "democracy" and "human rights," when calling for a written
    constitution. Saudi teacher Mohammed al-Harbi was sentenced to 40
    months in jail and 750 lashes for "mocking religion" after discussing
    the Bible in class and making pro-Jewish remarks. Egyptian Nobel
    prize winner in literature Naguib Mahfouz reluctantly abandoned
    his lifelong resistance to censorship and sought permission from
    the clerics of Al-Azhar University to publish his novel Children of
    Gebelawi, hitherto banned for blasphemy. Mahfouz subsequently lived
    under constant protection after being stabbed by a young Islamist,
    leaving him partly paralyzed.

    After Mohammed Younas Shaikh, a member of Pakistan's Human Rights
    Commission, raised questions about Pakistan's policies in Kashmir,
    he was charged with having blasphemed in one of his classes. In
    Bangladesh, Salahuddin Choudhury was imprisoned for hurting "religious
    feelings" by advocating peaceful relations with Israel. In Iran,
    Ayatollah Boroujerdi was imprisoned for arguing that "political
    leadership by clergy" was contrary to Islam, and cleric Mohsen Kadivar
    was imprisoned for "publishing untruths and disturbing public minds"
    after writing Theories of the State in Shiite Jurisprudence, which
    questioned the legal basis of Ayatollah Khomeini's view of government.

    Other charges brought against Iranians include "fighting against God,"
    "dissension from religious dogma," "insulting Islam," "propagation
    of spiritual liberalism," "promoting pluralism," and, my favorite,
    "creating anxiety in the minds of ... Iranian officials."

    Muslim reformers cannot escape being attacked even in the West. In
    2006, a group called Al-Munasirun li Rasul al Allah emailed over 30
    prominent reformers in the West, threatening to kill them unless they
    repented. Among its targets was Egyptian Saad Eddin Ibrahim, perhaps
    the best known human rights activist in the Arab world. Another was
    Ahmad Subhy Mansour, an imam who was imprisoned and had to flee Egypt,
    in part for his arguments against the death penalty for apostasy. The
    targets were pronounced "guilty of apostasy, unbelief, and denial
    of the Islamic established facts" and given three days to "announce
    their repentance." The message included their addresses and the names
    of their spouses and children.

    Mimount Bousakla, a Belgian senator and daughter of Moroccan
    immigrants, was forced into hiding by threats of "ritual slaughter"
    for her criticism of the treatment of women in Muslim communities and
    of fundamentalist influences in Belgian mosques. Turkish-born Ekin
    Deligoz, the first Muslim member of Germany's Parliament, received
    death threats and was placed under police protection after she called
    for Muslim women to "take off the head scarf."

    But the story gets worse. Western governments have begun to give
    in to demands from the Saudi-based OIC and others for controls on
    speech. In Austria, for instance, Elisabeth Sabbaditsch-Wolf has been
    convicted of "denigrating religious beliefs" for her comments about
    Mohammed during a seminar on radical Islam. Canada's grossly misnamed
    "human rights commissions" have hauled writers-including Mark Steyn,
    who teaches as a distinguished fellow in journalism at Hillsdale
    College-before tribunals to interrogate them about their writings on
    Islam. And in Holland and Finland, respectively, politicians Geert
    Wilders and Jussi Halla-aho have been prosecuted for their comments
    on Islam in political speeches.

    In America, the First Amendment still protects against the
    criminalization of criticizing Islam. But we face at least two threats
    still. The first is extra-legal intimidation of a kind already endemic
    in the Muslim world and increasing in Europe. In 2009, Yale University
    Press, in consultation with Yale University, removed all illustrations
    of Mohammed from its book by Jytte Klausen on the Danish cartoon
    crisis. It also removed Gustave Dore's 19th-century illustration of
    Mohammed in hell from Dante's Inferno. Yale's formal press statement
    stressed the earlier refusal by American media outlets to show the
    cartoons, and noted that their "republication...has repeatedly resulted
    in violence around the world."

    Another publisher, Random House, rejected at the last minute a
    historical romance novel about Mohammed's wife, Jewel of Medina, by
    American writer Sherry Jones. They did so to protect "the safety of
    the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else
    who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel."

    The comedy show South Park refused to show an image of Mohammed
    in a bear suit, although it mocked figures from other religions. In
    response, Molly Norris, a cartoonist for the Seattle Weekly, suggested
    an "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." She quickly withdrew the suggestion
    and implied that she had been joking. But after several death threats,
    including from Al-Qaeda, the FBI advised her that she should go into
    hiding-which she has now done under a new name.

    In 2010, Zachary Chesser, a young convert to Islam, pleaded guilty
    to threatening the creators of South Park. And on October 3, 2011,
    approximately 800 newspapers refused to run a "Non Sequitur" cartoon
    drawn by Wiley Miller that merely contained a bucolic scene with the
    caption "Where's Muhammad?"

    Many in our media claim to be self-censoring out of sensitivity to
    religious feelings, but that claim is repeatedly undercut by their
    willingness to mock and criticize religions other than Islam. As
    British comedian Ben Elton observed: "The BBC will let vicar gags pass,
    but they would not let imam gags pass. They might pretend that it's,
    you know, something to do with their moral sensibilities, but it
    isn't. It's because they're scared."

    The second threat we face is the specter of cooperation between our
    government and the OIC to shape speech about Islam. A first indication
    of this came in President Obama's Cairo speech in 2009, when he
    declared that he has a responsibility to "fight against negative
    stereotypes of Islam whenever they appear." Then in July of last year
    in Istanbul, Secretary of State Clinton co-chaired-with the OIC-a
    "High-Level Meeting on Combating Religious Intolerance." There, Mrs.

    Clinton announced another conference with the OIC, this one in
    Washington, to "exchange ideas" and discuss "implementation" measures
    our government might take to combat negative stereotyping of Islam.

    This would not restrict free speech, she said. But the mere fact of
    U.S. government partnership with the OIC is troublesome. Certainly it
    sends a dangerous signal, as suggested by the OIC's Secretary-General,
    Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, when he commented in Istanbul that the Obama
    administration stands "united" with the OIC on speech issues.

    The OIC's charter commits it "to combat defamation of Islam." Its
    current action plan calls for "deterrent punishments" to counter
    "Islamophobia." In 2009, an official OIC organ, the "International
    Islamic Fiqh [Jurisprudence] Academy," issued fatwas calling for
    speech bans, including "international legislation," to protect "the
    interests and values of [Islamic] society." The OIC does not define
    what speech should be outlawed, but the repressive practices of its
    leading member states speak for themselves.

    The conference Secretary Clinton announced in Istanbul was held in
    Washington on December 12-14, 2011, and was closed to the public,
    with the "Chatham House Rule" restricting the participants (this
    rule prohibits the identification of who says what, although general
    content is not confidential). Presentations reportedly focused on
    America's deficiencies in its treatment of Muslims and stressed
    that the U.S. has something to learn in this regard from the other
    delegations-including Saudi Arabia, despite its ban on Christian
    churches, its repression of its Shiite population, its textbooks
    teaching that Jews should be killed, and the fact that it beheaded
    a woman for sorcery on the opening day of the conference.

    * * * The encroachment of de facto blasphemy restrictions in the
    West threatens free speech and the free exchange of ideas. Nor will
    it bring social peace and harmony. As comedian Rowan Atkinson warns,
    such laws produce "a veneer of tolerance concealing a snake pit of
    unaired and unchallenged views." Norway's far-reaching restrictions on
    "hate speech" did not prevent Anders Behring Breivik from slaughtering
    over 70 people because of his antipathy to Islam: indeed, his writings
    suggest that he engaged in violence because he believed that he could
    not otherwise be heard.

    In the Muslim world, such restrictions enable Islamists to crush
    debate. After Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was murdered early
    last year by his bodyguards for opposing blasphemy laws, his daughter
    Sara observed: "This is a message to every liberal to shut up or be
    shot." Or in the words of Nasr Abu-Zayd, a Muslim scholar driven out
    of Egypt: "Charges of apostasy and blasphemy are key weapons in the
    fundamentalists' arsenal, strategically employed to prevent reform of
    Muslim societies, and instead confine the world's Muslim population to
    a bleak, colourless prison of socio-cultural and political conformity."

    President Obama should put an end to discussion of speech with the
    OIC. He should declare clearly that in free societies, all views and
    all religions are subject to criticism and contradiction. As the late
    Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia, the world's largest
    Muslim country, and head of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world's largest
    Muslim organization, wrote in his foreword to Silenced, blasphemy laws

    . . . narrow the bounds of acceptable discourse. . . not only about
    religion, but also about vast spheres of life, literature, science,
    and culture in general. . . . Rather than legally stifle criticism
    and debate-which will only encourage Muslim fundamentalists in
    their efforts to impose a spiritually void, harsh, and monolithic
    understanding of Islam upon all the world-Western authorities should
    instead firmly defend freedom of expression. . . .

    America's Founders, who had broken with an old order that was rife
    with religious persecution and warfare, forbade laws impeding free
    exercise of religion, abridging freedom of speech, or infringing
    freedom of the press. We today must do likewise.

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