‘Blasphemy law by the back door’: BHA and human rights campaigners condemn Jordan attempts to silence criticism of religion.

‘Blasphemy law by the back door’: BHA and human rights campaigners condemn Jordan attempts to silence criticism of religion. HT: ExMoslimForum.

Human rights campaigners have reacted with concern to the news that Jordan is seeking to restrict freedom of expression on matters of religion.

A new resolution tabled by Jordan at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) calls for ‘respect for religions and religious symbols’ and would legitimise attempts from states to criminalise speech deemed ‘defamation of religion’ or which offends religious sensibilities.

Campaigners, including the British Humanist Association (BHA), have warned that such a move would significantly compromise human rights for people around the world, particularly for the non-religious and those of minority religions. The BHA and others are urging the IPU to reject it.

Articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights ensure the right to free expression, including on matters of religion or belief, but legal restrictions against this freedom remain widespread.

The International Humanist and Ethical Union found in its 2014 Freedom of Thought Report that 68 countries place legal restriction on blasphemy or religious insult, while 20 states outlaw atheism. 

As part of the International Coalition Against Blasphemy Laws, the BHA has highlighted their misuse at the UN Human Rights Council and called for their repeal. Earlier this month, for the 28th session of the Human Rights Council, the BHA delegation singled out for hypocrisy those Council members whose laws include the death penalty for being non-religious.

BHA Director of Public Affairs and Campaigns Pavan Dhaliwal commented that ‘The proposed resolution is nothing more than blasphemy law by the back door and must be strenuously rejected by all those who support the right to free expression.

Our every liberty depends upon our right to voice our opinions and disagreements without fear of reprisal or censorship. While blasphemy-related attacks continue to take lives around the world, and while many states continue to punish alleged blasphemers and apostates with the death penalty and other brutal sanctions, the international community should be coming together to repeal these inhumane laws, not to further undermine human rights.’ Hmmmm.......Democracy and Islam are incompatible. Come to think of it didn't Jordan just visit the U.S.?

Catholic Cardinal Calls for End to Blasphemy Laws.

Catholic Cardinal Calls for End to Blasphemy Laws.(Frontpage).

Speaking at a conference in Milan, Italy, on May 8, 2013, that city’s archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Scola, called for the abolition of blasphemy laws worldwide. Such a step would significantly help protect globally the freedom of speech and religion desperately needed by Christians in particular while countering Islamic fanaticism with freedom.

Once favored to become pope, Scola made his remarks at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart for the opening of a conference focusing on Roman Emperor Constantine’s 313 Edict of Milan granting imperial toleration to Christianity. Scola advocated a “healthy secularism” allowing religious freedom, defined by him as a “true litmus test” for a civilized society. To Scola, this “freedom means above all encouraging religious pluralism and opening to all forms of religious expression,” including “eliminating laws that criminally punish blasphemy.”

As the Catholic cable television channel EWTN reported online, the role of blasphemy laws in Muslim-majority countries in persecuting Christians and other religious minorities formed the global context of Scola’s remarks. As reviewed previously by this writer, the authors of Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians have extensively documented that “Christians are the single most widely persecuted religious group in the world today,” a “terrible trend…on the upswing.” Moreover, “it is in the Muslim world where persecution of Christians is now most widespread, intense, and, ominously, increasing.” Abolition of Muslim blasphemy laws, often used to prohibit propagation of Christian beliefs contradicting Muslim doctrine, would eliminate one important instrument of Islamic repression.

Such religious freedom would protect not just private rights, but also public peace. “Religious freedom,” notes Scola’s fellow Catholic, Professor Thomas F. Farr of Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, “the evidence shows, can be an antidote to religion-related extremism, including terrorism.” Freedom, analyzes Farr, dilutes fanaticism by forcing various faiths to justify their claims intellectually without coercion in a marketplace of ideas. “What if,” speculates Farr,

Osama Bin Laden had been raised in a Saudi Arabia that allowed for religious freedom? What if, instead of being steeped exclusively in the toxic teachings of Wahhabism and Sayyid Qutb, he had been exposed to other forms of Islam, to critics of Islam, to other forms of religious belief, and to liberal religion-based arguments about justice and the common good?

Christians like Scola and Farr have a perfectly sound theological basis for faith-based advocacy of religious freedom. As the prominent Protestant pastor and theologian John Piper has written, numerous Biblical verses relate that “Christ did his work by being insulted” in stark contrast to Islam in which the “work of Muhammad is based on being honored.”Hmmm.......Obama 'The future does not belong to those who slander the prophet.'Read the full story here.

Video - Pat Condell "Ha Ha Islamophobia."

Video - David Horowitz TV Free Speech vs. Anti Blasphemy, The Frontline Battle 2012 - Robert Spencer.