blasphemy laws - Page 2

Free speech is increasingly imperiled as nations around the world turn to authoritarianism, which comes packaged as everything from iron-fisted dictatorial rule to coercive “progressivism.” One thing every brand of authoritarianism has in common is speech codes. Dissenting ideas dilute authority, so they must be suppressed. We should be thankful for the free speech that remains, and rise from our Thanksgiving tables prepared to fight for it.

A 53-year-old Christian mother on death row in Pakistan for allegedly committing blasphemy is asking for prayers as she waits to hear whether the Supreme Court will free her or uphold the capital punishment, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) reported this week.

A brewery is removing the Saudi Arabian flag from football World Cup bunting in hundreds of pubs because people were offended that Islamic symbols were displayed in a place serving alcohol.

The last remaining Jewish citizen in Afghanistan finds himself among a small group of non-Muslim religious minorities who have become a target of a deadly persecution campaign at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and the Taliban, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) mentions in a report released on Tuesday.

A hardline Islamist group filed a blasphemy complaint in Indonesia on Wednesday against politician Sukmawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of modern Indonesia’s founding president Sukarno and the sister of ruling PDI party leader and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri.

In the 37th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this week, participants were regaled with stories of egregious human rights abuses in Pakistan including systematic persecution of Christians by the Islamic majority.

A mob of an estimated 3,000 Islamic extremists in Pakistan reportedly called for the beheading of a 17-year-old Christian whose phone, after reappearing days after he lost it, contained blasphemous content that authorities could use to sentence him to life in prison or death.

Authorities in Pakistan’s Sindh province have officially charged four Muslims, including two women, with committing blasphemy against Islam during a wedding, an act that carries a potential penalty of life imprisonment or death.

Pakistan’s state-run telecommunication authority has warned users against committing blasphemy while using their mobile service.

Jakarta’s Christian governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known by his nickname “Ahok,” has been convicted of blaspheming against Islam and sentenced to two years in jail.

On Friday, two European DJs were called into Tunisia’s Hammamet to host a dance party for the Orbit Festival. DJ “Dax J” played a track that included the Muslim call to prayer for the partygoers. This artistic choice was not well-received by local authorities.

Sina Dehghan was 19 years old when the Iranian Revolutionary Guards arrested him at a military barracks in Tehran where he was a conscript on guard duty in October 2015. He and two co-defendants were charged with “posting anti-Islamic content on social media,” according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

The state prosecution service of Denmark is bringing blasphemy charges against a man who burned a copy of the Koran in his garden and then posted a video of the act on a Facebook page.

A man who burned the Islamic holy book in his backyard has been charged with blasphemy, in a move his lawyer speculates was driven by fear of Muslim extremists. The attempted prosecution is the first of its kind in nearly 50

The National Secular Society (NSS) has said Muslims are creating a “special category” to protect Islam from criticism in the UK, and the press and British institutions have “internalised [a] de facto blasphemy law” after a gymnast was banned from competition after “mocking” the religion.

A British gymnast and Olympic champion has been banned from the sport for two months after appearing to ‘mock’ Islam in a leaked private video.

Olympic gymnast Louis Smith has missed out on celebrations being held in central London to honour Britain’s Olympic team – to visit two London mosques in a bid to atone for having joked about Islam.

A Turkish court acquitted world-renowned pianist Fazil Say of blasphemy on Wednesday, four years after he first went on trial on charges of insulting Islam in a case that raised alarm about freedom of expression in Turkey.

A 17-year-old was shot dead and a friend seriously injured by a Muslim mob in Pakistan, allegedly in retaliation for the arrest of a mentally unstable Hindu man accused of “desecrating” a copy of the Quran.

A teacher in Austria will be charged for telling students Mohammed, the founder of Islam, was a child molester. A middle school teacher in the Austrian city of Bregenz is facing criminal prosecution for her comments regarding the founder of Islam.

Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, joined host Stephen K. Bannon on Breitbart News Daily Monday morning to discuss the horrific massacre of Christians in Pakistan on Easter Sunday. Shea is the author of Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians.

The Imam of the largest mosque in Scotland has praised the killer of a moderate Pakistani politician who spoke out against blasphemy laws and defended the countries only Christian politician, also murdered by Islamists. Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman of

Pakistan’s religious body known as the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has deemed a bill that would outlaw pedophilia “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous,” according to various media reports.

TEL AVIV – At a UN forum in Geneva, leaders of Egypt’s Coptic Christian community called for the abolition of an “exploitative” blasphemy law, but praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for saving them from the oppression of the Muslim Brotherhood.

On Sunday, Egypt’s minister for Religious Endowments, Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa, called for an “international law to criminalize contempt of religion,” which would make it a crime to publish articles or cartoons showing disdain or ridicule of religions.