Read Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide for Free Online Page A

well as the EU itself, affirm that restrictions on speech should protect individuals rather than religions, but the conflation by Muslim complainants of insults to the religion with insults to the individual is widespread, as shown in our case examples. Proceedings brought against actress Brigitte Bardot in France, writer Mark Steyn in Canada, two Christian pastors in Australia, and others, involved complaints arising from speech critical of Islam and not personal insults. Most worrisome about the use of hate-speech laws against religious criticism—which is increasing, although not systematic—is its chilling effect. A growing number of publishers, journalists, filmmakers, and artists are acknowledging that they are shying away from Islamic subjects in their work. At both the national and international levels, it appears the West has begun to answer Muslim demands, not with a unified and principled defense of fundamental freedoms, but with religious hate-speech laws, which are just as arbitrary and vague as Muslim blasphemy regimes.
    While legal strictures on religious speech are dangerous, a more pervasive, and in many ways deeper, problem is violence and threats of violence against those accused of insulting Islam. Chapter 13 sheds light on the effects of this violence not only on politicians and lawmakers but also on ordinary Muslims living in the West, converts from Islam, and others who are intentionally outspoken, defiant against Islamist strictures, attempting to reform ideas, or simply careless with words. A pattern of violent intimidation is becoming familiar in Western society. Such intimidation is especially evident in some Muslim communities, in which threats of violence follow in the wake of whatever words and actions are deemed “insulting to Islam.”
    The gruesome 2004 murder and near decapitation of director Theo van Gogh in Holland, and the related death threats against Somali-born ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, powerfully illustrate this growing trend. The murderer, Mohammed Bouyeri, made it clear that he was not enraged for any purely personal reasons. Instead, he declared, “From now on, this will be the punishment for anyone in this land who challenges and insults Allah and his messengers.” The West still remains a relative haven for free debate, for voices of Islamic reform, and for those with unorthodox views of Islam. But Western states and international organizations stand at a crossroads between a robust defense of free speech and a flaccid response to the persistent encroachment of antiblasphemy restrictions, whether imposed through legislation, and court decisions, or enforced outside the reach of law by radical vigilantes.
Muslim Criticism of Apostasy and Blasphemy Laws
     
    This book is not a work on Islamic law or history, nor does it analyze the development of apostasy and blasphemy concepts. Our concern is to survey the contemporary use and effects of such accusations and threats. Clearly, however, one of the most important means of combating these threats to individual freedoms of religion and expression is in the war of ideas itself. It is vitally important to show that temporal punishments for purported blasphemy and apostasy are not necessary within Islam and can, in fact, be understood as a departure from and a threat to Islam. There is no consensus on this. For example, Sheikh Qaradawi, perhaps the most widely consulted Islamic authority for the West, equivocates on the issue. Even a Muslim chaplain at Harvard wrote in 2009 that there was “great wisdom (
hikma
) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment) and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand.” 2
    In light of such statements, we asked three highly respected Islamic scholars to address this issue, which they did in three original essays included in this book. As committed Muslims, they are known