Category: Free Expression in Crisis

  The entire Muslim world . . . is agitating for the United Nations to pass an anti blasphemy law. The rest of the civilized world must oppose this at everytu rn. —Mahfooz Kanwar, Calgary Herald It seemed the whole world was marking International Blasphemy Rights Day (September 30). Debates about free speech and criticism …

Questions have arisen over whether the Internet film Innocence of Muslims (or its fourteen-minute trailer) should be considered protected by the First Amendment.1 The very core of free speech would be nullified if the film were denied constitutional protection. Some may assert that this film meets the standard of “a clear and present danger” in …

In the discourse of human rights, impiety is no longer understood as an affront to a sacred entity but to a human entity. Blasphemy is personal. Under existing human rights treaties, the prevailing legal model of personal blasphemy is “religious hatred.” Roughly speaking, laws against religious hatred or religious hate speech tend to draw from …

Shadia Drury’s two-part column “The Decay of American Democracy,” Part I of which appeared in the October/November issue, will be concluded in a future issue – Eds. The display of Muslim rage in over twenty countries that was triggered by an American-made video insulting the prophet Muhammad has once again turned the conflict between religion …

Sanal Edamaruku has been campaigning for critical thinking in India for more than three decades. As head of the Indian Rationalist Association, he travels throughout India showing how gurus or “godmen” perform supposedly science-defying miracles by means of simple stage magic. In a country where superstition is backed by poverty and illiteracy, rural Indians often …