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Tad Stahnke discusses how blasphemy and "defamation of religion" laws have resulted in arrests and arbitrary detentions, in addition to sparking assaults, murders and mob attacks around the world.
On March 22, a Malaysian human rights group called Sisters in Islam was hit with a lawsuit asking it to remove the reference to Islam in their name because it defames Islam. According to press reports, Sisters in Islam have offended conservative groups by criticizing Shariah laws that allow the caning of women. They recently tried to stop the Malaysian authorities from caning three Muslim women who had extramarital sex. This is but one recent example of how a religious defamation law has been abused to suppress the exercise of fundamental rights.
Last year in Afghanistan, the Fatwa department of the Afghani Supreme Court recommended that two journalists, Aftab chief editor Mer-hossin Mahdaw and Ali Raza Payam, be executed for publishing a cartoon depicting a monkey evolving into a man slumped over a computer screen with the words, "Government plus religion equals cruelty." The piece was deemed blasphemous because it showed humans evolving from apes. In its ruling, the Court stated, "The Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan is obliged to give the death penalty to the people who have abused or made fun of Islam..." In 2007 in Pakistan, several Christian nurses were prosecuted on blasphemy charges for allegedly drawing lines through Qur'anic verses.
In each of these cases - and in numerous other examples unearthed by U.N. experts each year - blasphemy and "defamation of religion" laws have resulted in arrests and arbitrary detentions, as they have sparked assaults, murders and mob attacks. Journalists, bloggers, teachers, students, poets, religious converts and others are targeted, charged and sentenced for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Those who support "defamation of religions" law say these policies are necessary to combat incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, as well as to protect freedom of religion. But the facts tell a very different story, one that has resulted in eroding international support for this flawed concept.
