“Blasphemy!” It’s a crime we thought belonged in the history books, even though we knew it still survived in the world’s few remaining theocracies. Yet, to the surprise of many, 2010 began with headlines dominated by blasphemy battles across Europe and at the United Nations. The new blasphemy laws come cloaked in contemporary garb, under the rather attractive guise of ending the “defamation of religions”, but they pack the same old punch: debate is stifled and dissent punished. While religious leaders whine that their critics should be penalized for hurting religious feelings, it’s the freethinkers who face the threat of really getting hurt.

Humanists are fighting back, often in alliance with religious groups. The campaign against “the new blasphemy laws” has made some hard-won progress in the past year. But the few steps forward have been followed by some big steps backwards.

In early 2009 a strong statement against the concept of “defamation of religions” was made at the United Nations: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights,” said Michael Martin, foreign affairs minister for the Republic of Ireland. Opposing a move by Islamic states to pass a non-binding resolution against the “defamation of religions”, Mr. Martin protested that, “It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.”

The Islamic states ignored Mr. Martin’s argument. More surprisingly, so did his own government. Just months later, Ireland made blasphemy a crime under its new defamation law. And this time the Islamic states took note. But we’ll come back to that later.

Irish Blasphemy

Ireland’s ban on blasphemy was included in a defamation law that was passed, with a one vote majority, in July 2009. It outlaws any utterance or publication “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion”. The Humanist Association of Ireland, an IHEU member organization, wrote to the Minister for Justice requesting that there be a constitutional debate before the blasphemy law was implemented. “To criminalise publication of views, whether serious or satire, is more in line with a theocracy rather than a modern democracy,” argued the Humanists. The ministry rejected their proposal.

As soon as the Irish blasphemy law went into affect, on January 1st of this year, a group known as Atheist Ireland challenged the law by publishing 25 blasphemous quotations on its website. The quotes were from famous figures ranging from Dawkins and Rushdie to Jesus and Mohammed. “This new law is both silly and dangerous,” said Atheist Ireland’s leader, Michael Nugent, “It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentivises religious outrage.” Nugent says his group will challenge the blasphemy law through the courts if they are charged under it.

Axe Attack

Let’s hope that Ireland’s brave blasphemers will not have their lives threatened by the religiously outraged. On January 1, 2010—the very same day that Ireland’s new blasphemy law came into effect—a man armed with an axe and knife broke into the home of Kurt Westergaard with the apparent intent to behead him for blasphemy. Westergaard has been a target of Muslim outrage since 2005 when he drew a cartoon of a man (that many presume is the Prophet Mohammed) with a bomb in his turban. Westergaard has received so many death threats that he has a safe room in his fortified home. Fortunately, the 74-year-old cartoonist was able to retreat to the safe room and call police while the attacker was still breaking through the home’s bullet-proof windows. He and his granddaughter escaped unharmed, while the attacker was shot and arrested after throwing his axe at the police.

Westergaard is just one of the Danish cartoonists, editors and publishers living in fear because they dared to poke fun at the religion of Islam. As well as hiding from assassins, these Danish cartoonists are facing a summons issued by a Jordanian court on charges of blasphemy. Jordanian prosecutors say that they hope the case “will help establish an international law against slandering religion.”

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is working to impose just such a global blasphemy law through the United Nations. The OIC, which represents 56 countries with significant Muslim populations, has been sponsoring UN resolutions against “defamation of religions” since 1999. These have been passed every year by the UN Commission on Human Rights and its successor in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Committee. Since 2005, the UN General Assembly itself has adopted resolutions against “defamation of religions”. So far, these resolutions have not had the force of international law, but the OIC is working to change that.

Fighting Back

IHEU has been leading the campaign against the blasphemy push at the UN. Our teams in New York and Geneva have pushed back with policy papers, briefings and lobbying within the UN. In a comprehensive report titled “Speaking Freely About Religion: Religious Freedom, Defamation and Blasphemy” (reprised in the last issue of IHN), IHEU rebutted the claims that freedom of expression must be restricted to protect freedom of religion, and detailed how outlawing “defamation of religions” would violate many long-established principles of international law.

Furthermore, IHEU’s analysis suggests that the concept of outlawing “defamation of religions” is derived from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s own laws against blasphemy. Within Pakistan, the blasphemy laws have been used by the dominant form of Islam to persecute dissenting Muslims, minority religions, freethinkers and anyone who dares criticize Islam or the oppression and atrocities carried out in its name. In effect, the blasphemy law is a way to protect the dominant religion from any criticism or competing ideas.

Just ask Dr. Younus Shaikh, the Humanist leader in Pakistan who spent more than three years on death row after being charged with blasphemy in 2000. Or Dr. Taslima Nasrin, the Humanist writer from Bangladesh, who listened to a mob of 300,000 people demand that she be hanged for blasphemy. In response, her government issued an arrest warrant against her for “hurting religious feelings.” In both cases, IHEU successfully campaigned to save the lives of these courageous Humanists. Yet both must still live in exile and in fear of zealots willing to take a life to avenge hurt feelings.

All of this work by IHEU is producing results at the UN. For example, efforts to include language against “religious defamation” in the 2009 “Durban II” UN anti-racism agreement were a complete and unexpected failure. Yet we still have a long way to go to win this battle. On December 18, 2009, the UN General Assembly again adopted a resolution against “defamation of religions.” After intensive lobbying by a diverse collection of non-governmental organizations including IHEU and many religious groups, the majority for the resolution shrank to just 19 UN member states (80 in favor, 61 against, and 42 abstentions). In 2008 the majority was 33 and in 2006 it was 57. So despite another loss, the tide appears to have turned. And the resolutions remain legally non-binding.

But making progress in the new blasphemy battles is slow and difficult work. And when progress is made it can be easily reversed. Just look at Ireland. For years, human rights champions had pointed out that blasphemy laws were disappearing across the developed world. When Ireland bucked this trend by introducing a new law against defamation of religion, the OIC took note.

Last autumn the OIC opened a new front in their attempt to use the UN to outlaw blasphemy. At the obscure Ad-Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards, the OIC is proposing to add an amendment about “defamation of religions” to the International Covenant on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The wording for the amendment is taken verbatim from the new Irish blasphemy law. Since ICERD has the force of international law, the amendment would outlaw ‘defamation of religion’ in all countries that ratify it.

Taking Action

The experiences of the past year show that we can make progress against blasphemy laws or we can fall back and lose one of our most fundamental freedoms. Humanist individuals and organizations must step up the campaign. One place to start is to ask your government to oppose the UN resolutions against “defamation of religions.” To help argue your case you can use IHEU’s policy paper “Speaking Freely About Religion: Religious Freedom, Defamation and Blasphemy” (download it from: http://www.iheu.org/UN-blasphemy-report).

As long as blasphemy is treated as a crime, good people will continue to be silenced, imprisoned and killed for speaking their conscience. We should be using human rights agreements to help them; not creating phony "religious rights" to protect their oppressors from criticism. But it is now clear that we are not going to win this battle without a long and hard fight.

Matt Cherry is an International Representative for IHEU. He leads the IHEU delegation to the United Nations in New York and is vice president of the UN’s NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief.