"The tension between blasphemy laws and the freedom of expression in modern times is a key area of debate within legal academia and beyond. With contributions by leading scholars, this volume compares blasphemy laws within a number of Western liberal democracies and debates the legitimacy of these l
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aws in the twenty- first century. Including comprehensive and up-to-date comparative country studies, this book considers the formulation of blasphemy bans, relevant jurisprudential interpretations, the effect on society, and the ensuing convictions and penalties where applicable. It provides a useful historical analysis by discussing the legal-political rationales behind the recent abolition of blasphemy laws in some Western states. Contributors also consider the challenges to the tenability of blasphemy laws in a selection of well- balanced theoretical chapters. This book is essential reading for scholars working within the fields of human rights law, philosophy and sociology of religion and comparative politics." (Publisher description)
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"Blasphemy is a serious wrongdoing in all monotheistic world religions. Blasphemy prohibitions have been brought into being and enforced so as to protect the dominant religion specifically. Religions as such, however, are not protected by international human rights law. Human rights law protects and
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empowers people: every person has the right to freedom of religion or belief. Human rights law does not recognise a right to have one's religion or belief at all times exempted from criticism, ridicule or insult, or a right, in other words, to respect for one's religious feelings. The right to freedom of expression is not an absolute right as it carries with it special duties and responsibilities. This right can be restricted on the basis of certain grounds for limitation; however, the interest of ‘religion as such is not among those grounds. In this article it is argued that contrary to popular belief the two rights, though very much interdependent, do not in abstracto ‘clash’. Moreover, with a view toward optimally guaranteeing human rights law in actual practice, the two rights do as a rule not need to be balanced – for it is precisely when the two rights are balanced without a legal necessity to do so that human rights law is undermined. The broader intent of this article is to present a human rights-based assessment of blasphemy prohibitions and counter-defamation (of religions) initiatives. Rather than focussing on strategies to counter defamation of religions, we should concentrate on and deal with practices that actually threaten individual human rights; that is to say, we should more effectively tackle the issue of advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence." (Abstract)
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"This is a book about free speech narratives. Stories about how imagination and rational thinking in wildly different cultures capture, imagine, and conceptualize what freedom of speech means. 1989 and 2011 are only two recent (in historic perspective) turning points when freedom of speech and freed
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om of the press emerged, or at least powerful efforts were made to support its emergence, although disheartening backlashes followed in several countries. This book also tells many other free speech narratives that emerged, or evolved outside the frames of 1989 and 2011, also with several troublesome repercussions. The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the year of largely velvet revolutions (in the words of Vaclav Havel), brought freedom of speech to Central Europe and Eastern Europe. It also increased the hope that freedom of speech and democracy can prevail in more and more countries on the earth. This book examines, in some historic perspective, to what extent this hope has become reality since and prior to 1989, also in light of the Arab revolutions of 2011." (Introduction, page 1)
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