.... The message of General Comment No. 34 is not only a clear condemnation of the blasphemy laws of countries such as Pakistan, which despite having ratified the ICCPR in 2008, continues to impose the death sentence for blasphemy and “defiling” the name of Prophet Muhammad.
The Comment equally repudiates the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which has upheld Austrian, British, and Turkish laws against blasphemy and religious insult by invoking a sui generis right to “respect for the religious feelings of believers.”
The major disappointment in the comment, in my view, is its failure to address hate speech laws, which in many countries function as de facto restrictions on blasphemy and sacrilege. Theoretically, we can distinguish between bashing a belief and bashing its adherents. [Religion Dispatches] Read more [via National Secular Society]
