It isn’t just insulting Islam itself that the Muslim reactionaries in Egypt and elsewhere want banned. Or rather, it is, but they think criticizing them is blasphemy too. A group of Islamists in Egypt have filed a legal complaint over a reform politician daring to criticize them in public:
Category Archive: Free Speech
Nov 13 2012
Preacher Ordered Away From Bus Stop
A county judge in Pennsylvania has issued a ruling ordering a street preacher to stay at least twenty yards away from school bus stops. The preacher was proselytizing school children as they waited for their school buses, but the school and concerned parents went to court to prevent him from doing so. You can see …
Nov 09 2012
More Barton Lies
I think it’s crystal clear that David Barton simply does not care whether any claim he makes is true as long as that claim supports his agenda. On his radio show last week, he just flat out lied about the Obama administration’s position on blasphemy laws and the United Nations.
Nov 06 2012
Another School Ignores the First Amendment
The administrators of a high school in Celina, Ohio clearly need to retake American history and civics (if the school offers such a class) after censoring pro-equality t-shirts worn by a group of students in support of two other students they had already censored.
Nov 02 2012
Polish Court Clears Way for Blasphemy Conviction
If you think that support for blasphemy laws comes only from Muslims and that such prosecutions only take place in Muslim countries, you’re wrong. Christians also support such laws in many countries in the world, including Poland, where a rock musician is on trial for blasphemy for ripping up a copy of the Bible during …
Oct 30 2012
Appeals Court Rules Against Geller, Spencer
There’s been an ongoing court case here in Michigan involving an ad that Pam Geller and Robert Spencer wanted to place on buses in the Detroit area. The public bus system, called SMART, rejected the ad because they said it violates their policy regarding political and controversial content. Geller and Spencer’s group, the American Freedom …
Oct 30 2012
Other Rush Wants Journalists Tried for Treason
Erik Rush, the absolutely deranged Worldnutdaily columnist, has actually managed to turn up the level of authoritarianism in right wing rhetoric with his latest column, in which he proposes that Candy Crowley and other journalists be tried for treason. Yes, he actually says this.
Oct 26 2012
Canadian Appeals Court Rules for Boissoin
I’ve written many times over the years about the case of Stephen Boissoin, a Canadian pastor who was brought up on charges of violating that nation’s hate speech laws for writing a letter to a newspaper condemning homosexuality. I actually didn’t know the case was still going on, but an appeals court in Alberta just …
Oct 25 2012
Egyptian Man Speaks Out Against Blasphemy Laws
Maikel Nabil Sanad is under investigation for blasphemy. His friend Alber Saber has already been charged and is in jail awaiting a trial. Sanad is bravely speaking out publicly against the barbarism of such laws in a column on the Foreign Policy website.
Oct 24 2012
OIC Drops Demand for UN Blasphemy Law
Michael DeDora, who represents the Center for Inquiry at the United Nations, reports that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has dropped its push for the UN General Assembly to make blasphemy and defamation of religion illegal under international law.
Oct 24 2012
Turkey Prosecutes Blasphemy Too
Here’s yet another blasphemy prosecution in a Muslim country, but this one is in Turkey, which is supposed to be — and is, in most ways — the most secular Muslim country in the world (which isn’t exactly a high bar; that’s like being the friendliest serial killer in the world):
Oct 22 2012
More Kids Arrested for Insulting Islam
This is actually a couple weeks old but I just saw it. In the wake of the appalling arrest of a young girl in Pakistan for blasphemy, on charges that were trumped up, two more kids, only 9 and 10 years old, have been arrested in Egypt for desecrating the Quran.
Oct 22 2012
Free Speech, Holocaust Denial and Defamation of Religion
Michael Moynihan, writing at the Jewish online magazine Tablet, points out the similarities between laws that punish the “defamation of religion” — meaning saying anything that offends the religious — and laws that prevent the public expression of Holocaust denial.
Oct 20 2012
Interesting Tidbit About Herdahl Case
I have a very interesting footnote to the case I wrote about the other day, in which Lisa Herdahl filed suit over a variety of clearly unconstitutional behavior by the schools in her Mississippi town. Her attorney in that case was Danny Lampley. You may remember that name because he’s the guy who was thrown …
Oct 18 2012
Muslims Protest Google in England
Thousands of outraged Muslims have been protesting outside Google’s UK headquarters in London over the posting of the Innocence of Muslims video on Youtube, which Google owns. So far those protests appear to be peaceful, but I wouldn’t bet on how long that will last when they’re expressing authoritarian nonsense like this:
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