They won’t, of course, ever return the favor. In a historic move last month, the international court affirmed a conviction by a lower court in Vienna against a right-wing speaker who criticized the prophet Muhammad.Identified only as “E.S.,” the woman, at a seminar in Vienna in 2009, described the founder of Islam as a “pedophile.” According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was in his fifties when he married his third wife, Aisha, who was six years old at the time. Despite global condemnation of such incidents, nearly two dozen OSCE member states maintain criminal blasphemy and religions insult laws. With this campaign, the EHF has also focused on the persistent blasphemy laws existing in European countries and has been campaigning for their removal at European level. The Austrian court convicted, describing her statement as “a malicious violation of the spirit of tolerance,” which was “capable of hurting the feelings” of Muslims, and of putting religious peace in Europe at risk.After a lengthy appeal, the European Court of Human Rights reaffirmed this troubling verdict, ruling that the speaker’s remarks about Muhammad were not only “without factual basis,” but went “beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate,” thereby putting religious peace in jeopardy.

188 of the Austrian Criminal Code prohibits “ridiculing or denigrating a religious doctrine, a religious custom, or a person or object that constitutes an object of worship” under penalty of up to six months in prison.In other cases, the primary focus appears to be protecting the “feelings” of religious believers, although religious doctrines and objects may still be granted protection per se. EPA/Bilawal ArbabBut the study also revealed the extent to which blasphemy and related “religious insult” laws continue to exist in the OSCE region, which covers 57 states in Europe and Central Asia, as well as the United States and Canada.Updated to account for the recent legal changes in Denmark, the study concluded that Categorising provisions as blasphemy and or religious insult can be complex, given that legal terminology differs from state to state and the lines among blasphemy, religious insult, group defamation and incitement to hatred are frequently blurred. Caving to the threat of violence will ultimately embolden the violent, not appease them.Protecting members of a minority religion from hurt feelings is unique to the West. The IJ4EU fund launched a new call for applications to its Investigation Support Scheme on…

The IPI study focused on provisions that aim to protect particular belief systems and their practices, dogma, deities and objects of worship as well as the feelings of their followers.The list includes, for example, laws in Finland and Greece, which continue to criminally sanction – under threat of imprisonment – “blaspheming against God” and “showing disrespect to the divine”, respectively. Even in Europe, arguably the most secular region of the world, several countries still have laws on their books dealing with blasphemy. The campaign is run by the International Coalition Against Blasphemy Laws which gather many international and national organizations. Helsingin Sanomat Foundation Journalism Fellowship at IPI 261 of the Swiss Criminal Code bans “publicly and maliciously insulting or mocking the religious convictions of others, especially the belief in God; dishonouring objects of religious veneration”.While the IPI study did not look systematically at the application of blasphemy and religious insult laws, it is clear that prosecutions and convictions continue to occur.

European countries have been punishing blasphemy since time immemorial. Some Muslim leaders have urged Europe to use blasphemy laws against newspapers that publish cartoons containing representations of the … In countries like Saudi Arabia—the birthplace of Islam—a Muslim who converts to Christianity still, to this day, faces the death penalty.Of course, religious tolerance and free speech arise historically from only one religion, and it isn’t the one founded by Muhammad.