Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (107 page)

44
. Baran,
The Other Muslims
, 2, 189.

45
. George Weigel,
The Cube and the Cathedral
(New York: Basic Books, 2005), 141.

46
. In contrast, the United States has “hate-crimes” legislation but not hate-speech bans or blasphemy crimes, due to the free speech protections in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Incitement to violence is a crime in the United States only when the expression is directed to inciting violence that is likely and imminent.

47
. “Report on the Relationship Between Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Religion: The Issue of Regulation and Prosecution of Blasphemy, Religious Insult and Incitement to Religious Hatred,” adopted by the Venice Commission at its 76th Plenary Session (Venice, 17–18 October 2008), 11,
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/religion/IV1.htm
.

48
. Ezra Levant, “Rev. Stephen Boissoin’s Conviction Overturned,” blog entry,
http://ezralevant.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=HRC
.

49
. Grim and Finke,
The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Violence in the 21st Century
.

50
. Elizabeth Powers, “Liberty for All Free Speech is the American Way,”
The Weekly Standard
, April 19, 2010. C. Edwin Baker finds that hate-speech regulation has no real effect on curbing “hate”; see Ivan Hare and James Weinstein, eds.,
Extreme Speech and Democracy
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

51
. In his June 4, 2009 Cairo speech, President Obama pledged to “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” Lamin Sanneh rightly asks “why Catholic and other religious groups cannot be given the same degree of enforcement of their religious rights”; see “President Obama and America’s New Beginning with Islam: A Response” (unpublished paper, Yale University, June 4, 2009), available through Professor Sanneh.

52
. Robert M. Gates, speech, April 14, 2008,
http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1228
. As Farr observes, “There is no systematic approach to what ought to be a central task of U.S. national security strategy, namely, understanding the religious wellsprings of Islamist extremism and its origins in places such as Saudi Arabia. There is too little thought given to supporting religious actors capable of altering the climate of opinion that nurtures the terrorists, their extremist religious views, and the export of those views.” See Thomas Farr,
World of Faith and Freedom
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 218. However, traditional Muslims, precisely because they have not pursued a religiously based political agenda, lack a national infrastructure, and their organizations are virtually invisible to state and national governments. Western governments tend to rely heavily in their Muslim outreach on individuals and institutions that are prominent simply because they have Saudi and Gulf support, often espousing views starkly at odds with fundamental freedoms of speech and religion; see Hedieh Mirahmadi, “Navigating Islam in America,” in Baran,
The Other Muslims
, 29; Nina Shea and James Woolsey, “What About Muslim Moderates?”
Wall Street Journal
, July 10, 2007.

53
. ICCPR Article 20(2), calling for states to ban “incitement to religious hostility,” is commonly cited as the legal authority for mandating laws against religious hate speech, but it was proposed by the Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia, and some other authoritarian states; no Western European state voted for it. See Stephanie Farrior,
Molding the Matrix: The Historical and Theoretical Foundations of International Law Concerning Hate Speech, Berkeley Journal of International Law
14, no. 1 (1996): n. 231. Eleanor Roosevelt, representing the United States, warned that it was a provision “likely to be exploited by totalitarian States for the purpose of rendering the other articles null and void.” Upon signing the ICCPR, the United States provided as follows: (1) the U.S. understands that Article 20 “does not authorize or require legislation or other action by the United States that would restrict the right of free speech and association protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States”; (2) “For the United States, article 5, paragraph 2, which provides that fundamental human rights existing in any State Party may not be diminished on the pretext that the Covenant recognizes them to a lesser extent, has particular relevance to article 19, paragraph 3 which would permit certain restrictions on the freedom of expression..” The U.K. delegate echoed this concern: “Unscrupulous governments like nothing better than a moral justification for their actions.”

54
. Christian Caryl, “A Eulogy for Pakistan,”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
, March 16, 2011,
http://www.rferl.org/content/pakistan_bhatti_washington/2340390.html
; Lela Gilbert, “Pakistan and Blasphemy: A Matter of Life and Death,”
Jerusalem Post
, April 21, 2011,
http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=217432
; “Pakistani and US Leaders Urge Tolerance, Harmony in Minister Shahbaz Bhatti Memorial Service at the Embassy,” Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan press release, March 10, 2011,
http://www.embassyofpakistanusa.org/news474_03102011.php

Abbasids, 14, 74, 79, 288, 297

Abdullah, King of Jordan, 122

Abdullah, King of Saudi Arabia, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33

Aboutaleb, Ahmed, 267, 277, 323

Abu-Zayd, Nasr Hamid, 8, 13, 34, 76–77, 287–288

essay by, 289–294

Afghanistan, 9, 101–116

Islamic Constitution, 104

overview, 102

safe haven for Al-Qaeda, 102

Taliban activities, 102–103

Africa, 133–148

overview 134–135

See also individual African countries

Aghajari, Hashem, 55–56, 60

Ahadi, Mina, 281

Ahmadi religion, 89

Ahmadiyyah
, defined, 89

Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, Iranian president, 37

anti-Semitic remarks of, 42, 49, 224, 346n74

criticized by Montazeri, 57–58

deterioration of rights under, 8, 42, 50, 51, 60

reaction to cartoons, 190

reaction to Regensburg address, 198

Ahmadis, persecuted or repressed, 310

in Bangladesh, 149–153

in Indonesia, 159–162

in Malaysia, 169

in Pakistan, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89–92

Al Qimni, Sayed, 61, 72, 75, 78, 80–81

Al-Azhar University (Cairo), 72, 74

censorship powers of, 72

fatwas issued against Baha’is, 8, 63–65

judges Abu-Zayd apostate, 76

See also
Mansour, Ahmed Subhy; Tantawi, Muhammad Sayyed

Al-Banna, Gamal, 72, 74–76

Al-Ghamdi, Sa’id ibn Nasser, Wahhabi theorist, 34

Al-Qaeda, 9, 155, 318, 283

in Africa, 134, 138, 139

in Arabia and Yemen, 32, 34, 130

kills mostly Muslims, 326

safe haven in Afghanistan, 102

threatens Westerners, 192, 193, 194, 201, 259, 266

threatens reformers

Abu-Zayd, xiv

Al Qimni, 61

Mansour, 80

Al-Sadat, Anwar.
See
Sadat

Al-Shabab movement, 10, 134, 138–140, 194, 311

Al-Turabi, Hassan, 143, 147–148

Alevis, Turkish Muslim group, 9, 183, 311

persecuted, 127, 129–130

Algeria, 20, 118–122

Brigitte Bardot on, 238

moderate, 20

reaction to Christian evangelism, 9, 119, 311

relatively secular, 118, 131

Ali Bhutto, Pakistani prime minister, 85

Ali Jinnah, Muhammad, Pakistani founder, 80

Allah, xvii, 55, 100,
and throughout

higher than clerical judgments, 55

identified with state or regime, 59, 315

named in militant predictions, 261–262

Malaysian ban on use of name by non-Muslims, 165–166

See also
God

Allam, Magdi, 285, 323

Anglican Church, 271–272

and blasphemy laws, 234, 251

Anglicans, 46, 249

animist religion, 84, 135, 147

anti-Semitism, 214, 224, 237, 329

in Muslim countries, 49, 155, 209, 279, 324, 346n74

apostasy, 33,
and throughout

Abu-Zayd accused of, 76–77

Abu-Zayd’s accuser accused of, 77

case study of, 35–36

death penalty for, 8, 10, 13, 142

strongly supported in Pakistan, 86

essay of Abu-Zayd on, 295–303

in Iranian law, 38–39, 39–41

not punished by the Prophet, 75

remarks of Abu-Zayd on, 293–294

threats of death for, 279

traditional Muslim law on, 295–298

vague use of, 20

Apple Computer Corporation, 15

Arman, Yasser, 147

Armenian Apostolic Church, 46

Armenians, 122, 128

art

protest against works of, 263–267

Assemblies of God, 46, 47

Assyrian Catholic Church, 197

Assyrian Church of the East, 46

Assyrian Evangelical Church, 46, 48

Ates, Seyran, 273, 326

Australia, 153, 198, 231

religious vilification laws, 249–250, 321, 329

See also
Catch the Fire Ministries case

Baha’i religion, 61

Muslim objections to, 41, 310

origin of, 41

Baha’is

championed by Montazeri, 58

defended by Al-Banna, 76

persecution of

in Afghanistan, 310

in Egypt, 63–65

in Iran, 41–46

in Yemen, 9

Bangladesh, 85, 172, 178, 180, 203

bans books of Taslima Nasreen, 154

persecution of Ahmadis.
See
Ahmadis

persecution of Christian converts, 153

prosecutes Choudury, 155–156

prosecutes Rahman, 156–158

Bardot, Brigitte, 12, 248, 257, 321

Benedict XVI, Pope, 285

on violence against Christians, 95

See also
Regensburg address

Bhatti, Shahbaz, 9, 94, 216, 315

champions religious minorities, 94

eulogy for, excerpt, 100

killed by Al-Qaeda and Taliban, 99–100

Bible(s), 7, 36, 196, 239, 249, 252

as evidence of apostasy, 101

as evidence of proselytizing, 101–102, 120

confiscated or destroyed, 120, 166

lead to murder of possessor, 140

permitted in some Muslim countries, 125

restricted or outlawed, 46, 108, 165, 382n3

bin Laden, Osama, 148, 177

criticized by Hirsi Ali, 244

in Al Qimni book title, 78

on Danish cartoons, 192