Here is an excerpt from the article, by free speech historian Jacob Mchangama, writing in Time:
On July 30, Danish Overseas Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen introduced that the federal government will search to enact laws for “particular conditions the place different nations, cultures, and religions may very well be insulted, probably leading to important adverse penalties for Denmark.” Sweden is mulling over comparable actions….
The following day after the Danish authorities´s promise to discover authorized treatments in opposition to Quran burnings, the OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation] launched a strongly worded assertion admonishing Denmark and Sweden for failing to right away criminalize them and pledging to proceed to pursue the matter…. [O]nce democracies yield from precept, authoritarian states is not going to reply with gratitude and conciliatory attitudes however demand that the self-imposed restrictions on free speech be expanded extra broadly. …
Earlier this month, the OIC managed to safe an important win on the U.N.’s Human Rights Council with a decision that calls on member states to, amongst different issues, “tackle, stop and prosecute acts and advocacy of non secular hatred” as a direct response to the Scandinavian Quran burnings. The OIC argues that defamation of non secular concepts and symbols constitutes incitement to non secular hatred—a class of speech prohibited underneath worldwide human rights legislation and in most European democracies. This is able to not simply legitimize but additionally give authorized enamel to the suppression of non secular dissent, and would take away the stigma from nations the place blasphemy and apostasy is severely punished.
This marks a radical departure from again in 2011, when the Obama Administration rallied democracies world wide and spearheaded a pivotal Human Rights Council Decision to halt the OIC´s long-standing efforts to internationalize blasphemy legal guidelines….
