"Denmark and Sweden's Commitment to Free Speech Is Wilting in the Face of Quran Burnings"

Here's an excerpt from the article, by free speech historian Jacob Mchangama, writing in Time:

On July 30, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen announced that the government will seek to enact legislation for "special situations where other countries, cultures, and religions could be insulted, potentially resulting in significant negative consequences for Denmark." Sweden is mulling over similar actions….

The next day after the Danish government´s promise to explore legal remedies against Quran burnings, the OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation] released a strongly worded statement admonishing Denmark and Sweden for failing to immediately criminalize them and pledging to continue to pursue the matter…. [O]nce democracies yield from principle, authoritarian states will not respond with gratitude and conciliatory attitudes but demand that the self-imposed restrictions on free speech be expanded more broadly. …

Earlier this month, the OIC managed to secure a crucial win at the U.N.'s Human Rights Council with a resolution that calls on member states to, among other things, "address, prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred" as a direct response to the Scandinavian Quran burnings. The OIC argues that defamation of religious ideas and symbols constitutes incitement to religious hatred—a category of speech prohibited under international human rights law and in most European democracies. This would not just legitimize but also give legal teeth to the suppression of religious dissent, and would remove the stigma from countries where blasphemy and apostasy is severely punished.

This marks a radical departure from back in 2011, when the Obama Administration rallied democracies around the world and spearheaded a pivotal Human Rights Council Resolution to halt the OIC´s long-standing efforts to internationalize blasphemy laws….

Comments

[Krychek_2]

Yet another example of how religion poisons everything.

[Ed Grinberg]

Some religions are more poisonous than others...

[Martinned]

It's straight from the 16th century christianity playbook.

[Eugene Volokh]

Indeed; fortunately, Christianity has largely moved on from the era of the wars of religion, and (more recently) has largely (though not entirely) moved on from trying to use the law to restrict blasphemy.

[Krychek_2]

That's because Christianity no longer has political power like it did in the Middle Ages. Give it back the political power it once had and it would soon return to what it did then. We see evidence of this in Christians who would happily incarcerate gays and execute abortion providers given the chance; some of them even comment here from time to time. An elder in the church in which I was raised once wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper in which he said that his only real objection to the Holocaust is that it didn't actually succeed in eradicating all Jews. That was in the early 1970s and I doubt his kind is now extinct.

I trust no religion with political power. Period, full stop.

[FivebySixThree]

when the political power is derived from violence or the threat of violence it should be worrying to all involved. they are in effect surrendering to terrorism

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yet a then-Christian nation went to war to save the Jews...

Learn Christian theology before bashing it -- it changed dramatically in the Enlightenment.

[Martinned]

Yet a then-Christian nation went to war to save the Jews…

Who?

[Krychek_2]

A then-Christian nation went to war because Japan wiped out Pearl Harbor. Don't forget that a lot of Jewish refugees died because FDR sent them back to Europe.

I'm familiar with Christian theology as I was raised on it. What would you like to discuss? Covenant theology vs. dispensationalism? Supralapsarianism? Pre-, post- or a-millenialism? The doctrines of limited atonement and irresistable grace? Federal vision theology? Presuppositionalism? Two kingdom theology? Anything from the Westminster Confession?
Bring it on. I think it's all nonsense but I am familiar with its tenets. And I sure would like to have the time back that I spent learning it as a child.

[Krayt]

Political parties are religions, too, and should be treated with the same danger — memeplexes, large, evolving conglomerations of ideas whose purpose is to get enough believers to achieve critical mass and seize the brass ring of power.

Then you no longer need persuasion and can just force yourself on everyone. With a clear conscience, because one of the many ideas in that giant memeplex is that you are a good person for helping.

Swap “for God” with “for the People” and “I’ll make your life better after you die” with “I’ll make your life better after my 5 year plan.”

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Christianity has largely moved on </blockquote<

Did Christianity move on, or did better people diminish the influence of Christianity in modern life?

[y81]

There you go, then. Once we show that a white, Western person once did something wrong, the whole rest of the world is permanently exempt from criticism on account of the same action.

FWIW, whatever happened in the 16th century didn't happen in America, but in benighted European countries from which my ancestors fled. Nothing I ever read, including this story, makes me want to go back to that hellhole.

[Magister]

America's commitment to free speech once wilted in the face of cross burnings.

[Krychek_2]

There seems to be a pattern that the less poisonous ones are the ones without political power.

[Don Nico]

It is not religion. It is extortion. Just ask your local mafioso.

[Will Nonya]

This is not about religion. It is about conviction and which group is willing to stand up for theirs.

Tolerance is easily trampled by oppression.

We've seen these attacks on free speech around the world. It is a bulwark that has to be defeated of authoritarianism is going to win. If people and governments continue to give ground like this then the defeat of freedom is almost certain.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, how a *certain* religion poisons everything -- and ought not be tolerated. Once nice countries have become cesspools because they tolerated the invasion of migrants.

[loki13]

1. Different countries can have different regimes when it comes to free speech.

2. Despite (1), the United States should always advocate for free speech throughout the world. To borrow a phrase, when it comes to free speech, America should always be that shining city on a hill.

[Longtobefree]

"address, prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred"

How does this fit with a religion that advocates militant proselytizing?
(you know, convert or die)

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

"Convert or die" only in one direction. It's "convert and die" in the other.

[Ed Grinberg]

What's mine ("ummah") is mine, and I can hate (and persecute) you there all I want. What's "yours" may be yours for now, but you must abide by my rules!
https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/silent-conquest/
https://tubitv.com/movies/341546/silent-conquest

[Krychek_2]

Ed, serious question: How is that different from Christianity's view of the end times in which Jesus returns to earth, kills and sends to hell all his enemies (defined as anyone who hasn't converted to Christianity), and then gives their property to his followers?

Christianity and Islam are both religions of peace, but they define peace as lack of opposition to Islam/Christianity. So once everyone not of your religion is dead, then there's peace. I don't see a dime's worth of difference between the two of them on that point.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Christianity (and Judiasm) religion of life.
Islam is a religion of death.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"My fairy tale can beat up your fairy tale . . . no, wait, my fairy tale can beat up every other fairy tale."

Always a charming contribution to reasoned debate, particularly when ostensible adults are involved.

Carry on, clingers.

[Don Nico]

Why is this surprising when even the Great Donald Trump caved to the Little Rocketman and groveled to Vlad Putin.

[Religion and Politics, my life]

It is IMMORAL to burn the Koran. I am a Catholic.
But if government is going to get into this it will have to take religious/moral stands. that is the failure here.

Laicite failed miserably and fools didn't even see.

[Krayt]

Pissing people off is dangerous, but not immoral. Immoral is hurting people for not believing in your fantasies.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You start a blog ostensibly focused on freedom of speech. You put in countless hours contributing content and cultivating an audience. You are a movement conservative and Republican partisan admittedly attempting to make right-wing positions and thinking more palatable among a broader audience than the usual Federalist-Heritage-Republican-QAnon-Olin group.

You attract a bunch of like-minded conservatives to your endeavor. You withstand the slings and arrows of mainstream academia, troublesome commenters, and your dean. You take time from your job, your family, your vacations and devote it to your blog.

After more than a decade, your moment has arrived. A former president of the United States has been indicted several times, with another indictment imminent. Free speech issues -- interesting, important, novel legal issues -- abound. Prominent lawyers and law professors -- some of whom you know and admire -- are involved. Court decisions are issued weekly, or more often.

And . . .

silence.

One is more likely to encounter discussion of former Pres. Trump, his co-conspirators, and the related speech issues while standing in line at the library, checking the grapes in the produce aisle, or talking with an old roommate or neighbor than while reading The Volokh Conspiracy.

Instead, Prof. Volokh continues to focus on the Muslim-transgender-Black crime-drag queen-lesbian-white grievance beat, conspicuously avoiding mention of the most important issues of the day, issues precisely within his area of professional focus.

At what point does it become reasonable to figure Prof. Volokh is holding his tongue consequent to involvement in the Eastman-Chesebro-Giuliani-Powell-Ellis-Trump-Epshteyn-Clark clustermuck, either because he is defending one or more of those un-American jackasses or because he was a participant in the un-American conduct?

[jdgalt1]

The law needs to recognize that Islam is not primarily a religion. It is a violent conquest movement which cloaks itself in religion in order to destroy western civilization. As such, it needs to be suppressed and banned from western countries even if it takes the military to do it.

[David Nieporent]

Troll better.

[Krayt]

May I introduce you to the concept of memeplexes, groups of memes aka ideas, often very large. Religion and politics are both memeplexes, who try to suck in followers to grab the legal power and force themselves on everyone not seduced by them.

Thus religion and politics are not just similar phenomena, that you don't talk about at polite cocktail parties. They are the exact same phenomenon.

[Sarcastr0]

They are not exactly the same.

Faith includes the supernatural.
Politics, as practiced in the modern era, is explicitly about this world right here, and is also explicitly evidence-based.

[mydisplayname]

It is true that "[O]nce democracies yield from principle, authoritarian states will not respond with gratitude and conciliatory attitudes but demand that the self-imposed restrictions on free speech be expanded more broadly."

NATO member Denmark must now vote in accordance with its own laws, providing yet one more vote which could commit US soldiers to a fight _against_ one of the freedoms they have sworn to defend. Compare that plight with that of a soldier in the Army of Northern Virginia asked to select between his oath to Virginia and his oath to the Union -- or to a modern bartender who must removing labels from a liquor bottle (to comply with Virginia statute) or must refrain from removing labels from a liquor bottle (to comply with federal statute).

[Bob from Ohio]

The ancestors of these Danish cowards defied the Nazis to rescue their Jews. These guys would help load the trains.

The Queen should honor her grandfather's heroism by vetoing this law.

[Nige]

Says the guy lining up to do it all again to one of the same groups targeted by the Nazis.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

I thought SCotUS got the flag-burning decision wrong, but it is the law of this land (USA). Our First Amendment jurisprudence does not apply, however, in foreign countries, who may wish to restrict *ssh*les who infuriate people without conveying substantial information. The first in the recent series of Qur'an burnings in Sweden was organized outside the Turkish embassy on Jan 21 by Russian-aligned Chang Frick, who wished to goad Turkey into blocking Sweden's admission into NATO.