BETWEEN BLASPHEMY AND CRITIQUE: FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Issue 1 (19th February 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Green, M. Christian
• Is Part Of: Journal of law and religion. Volume 29:Issue 1(2014)
• Page Start: 176
• Page End: 196
• Publication Date: 2014-02-19
• Subjects: Religion and law -- Periodicals; 344.096
• DOI: 10.1017/jlr.2013.12
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0748-0814

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="text-abstract"> <title> <x content-type="archive" xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>On Valentine's Day, 1989, novelist Salman Rushdie was driven into hiding in England by a fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran decrying his 1988 novel, <italic>The Satanic Verses</italic>, as "blasphemy against Islam" and demanding Rushdie's execution. Twenty years later, Yale University Press refused to publish cartoon representations of the Prophet Muhammad in political scientist Jytte Klausen's book, <italic>The Cartoons That Shook the World.</italic> That book analyzed the controversy spawned by a Danish newspaper's publication of the cartoons in 2005 and the republication of the cartoons in several European newspapers in 2008, which led to protests by Muslims around the world. In 2010, Terry Jones, a Christian pastor in Florida, announced plans to publicly burn a Qur'an on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Under protest, he cancelled his book-burning plans for the 9/11 anniversary, but he made good on his promise six months later in March 2011, in an incident whose online video dissemination around the world is said to have motivated riots in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of twelve people. Throughout this period, with the regularity of a drumbeat, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference), a coalition of majority Muslim nations at the United Nations, introduced resolutions each year—first in the Human Rights Council (HRC) from 1999 forward and then in the General Assembly from 2005 forward—on "combating defamation of religions" at the UN and in wider global discourse.</p> </abstract>