The Escalating Frequency of Quran Burnings in Sweden and Denmark Sparks Outrage in the Muslim World

Sep 4, 2023 | The burning of the Quran in Denmark and Sweden has raised security concerns both domestically and internationally for the traditionally secular Nordic nations. Denmark has recently suggested a ban on burning all sacred texts. Could this move by Copenhagen be a solution that balances the preservation of freedom of speech while also addressing security and diplomatic challenges?

That Denmark is re-introducing a form of blasphemy law to deal with these Quran burnings is as insane as it is outrageous. This will put Denmark, once a bastion of enlightened liberal values, on a fast track to the ‘New Dark Age’ I wrote of so many years ago!

It is not difficult to understand WHY the Danish government may conclude that this is the right political decision; but it is NOT. The re-introduction of ANY form of blasphemy law is WRONG. And it is wrong in so many ways and for so many reasons.

The blasphemy law in Denmark has only relatively recently been repealed. I am pretty sure that it was never, if ever, used by the Danish Christian community. But here, we are dealing with a very different community! The Muslim community will take every opportunity to use this law against any perceived transgressor. Be sure of one thing, Denmark: The Danish courts will used by Muslims to help firmly establish Islam’s hoped-for supremacy in the country.

By re-introducing a rejigged blasphemy law into the nation’s statute books, Denmark is embarking on a new journey on a very slippery and dangerous road.

This is the beginning of the end of true freedom for the Danes. – © Mark Alexander

ACT [Australian Capital Territory] Parliament Passes Religious Vilification Laws

THE CANBERRA TIMES: Vilification on the grounds of religion is now illegal and in serious cases could result in a criminal conviction with a fine of up to $7500, under laws passed by the ACT parliament on Thursday.

Both Labor and Liberal supported the move put by the Greens Shane Rattenbury, who said the display of hatred, intolerance and offensive behaviour towards Muslims was one of the biggest intolerance issues in Australia today. » | Kirsten Lawson | Thursday, August 4, 2016

Bangladesh Protesters Demand Blasphemy Law
Hundreds of thousands of marchers call for law that would include death penalty for bloggers who insult Islam.

Islamic Nations Relinquish Demand for Defamation Laws
VOICE OF AMERICA: WASHINGTON — In the wake of a U.N. resolution condemning discrimination on the basis of religion, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has stopped pushing for an international treaty banning the defamation of religion.

The 57-member confederation of Muslim countries has lobbied for years for an international treaty that would outlaw blasphemy against Islam and other religions.

Ufuk Gokcen, the OIC's Permanent Observer to the U.N., played a key role in that effort.

But the Turkish diplomat said the OIC is now satisfied with U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 adopted last year.

"I don't see any attempt to go back to the old controversy over defamation and blasphemy," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said Resolution 16/18 recognizes that free expression plays an important role in bolstering religious tolerance. » | Gabe Joselow | Wednesday, October 24, 2012

West's Free Speech Stand Bars Blasphemy Ban: OIC
REUTERS.COM: (Reuters) - Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world's top diplomat said.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said his 57-nation body would not try again for United Nations support to ban insults to religion, but appealed for states to apply hate-speech laws concerning Islam.

"We could not convince them," said the Turkish head of the 57-member organisation which had tried from 1998 until 2011 to get a United Nations-backed ban on blasphemy.

"The European countries don't vote with us, the United States doesn't vote with us."

Western countries see the publication of such images and materials as a matter of free speech. » | Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor | ISTANBUL | Monday, October 15, 2012

Pakistan's Conservative Mullahs Question Blasphemy Law
THE KANSAS CITY STAR: ISLAMABAD -- A group of Islamic leaders in Pakistan lent strong support Monday to a mentally disabled Christian girl accused of blasphemy in an unprecedented public move that was the first denunciation by hard-line mullahs of the country's controversial blasphemy law.

The All Pakistan Ulema Council, an umbrella group of Muslim clerics and scholars that includes representatives from fundamentalist groups, joined hands with the Pakistan Interfaith League - which includes Christians, Sikhs and practitioners of other religions - to call for understanding for the girl, who's been identified only as Rimsha. They also demanded that those making false allegations of blasphemy be punished.

Tahir Ashrafi, the chairman of the Ulema Council, warned that it was the "law of the jungle" when angry mobs routinely pressured police to file blasphemy charges, as happened in the case of Rimsha, who her family says is 11 years old and suffering from Down syndrome.

Rimsha was charged earlier this month with desecrating the Quran. The issue has terrorized the country's Christian population after a rampaging crowd drove Rimsha's family members, who were living in a mixed Christian-Muslim enclave in Islamabad, and their Christian neighbors from their homes.

The Vatican has expressed its concern, saying that Rimsha - who cannot read and made a living by collecting garbage - had simply picked up scraps of paper that turned out to have religious text on them. » | Saeed Shah, McClatchy Newspapers | Monday, August 27, 2012

Sombre Mood in Islamabad after Minister's Murder
Mar 3 - Residents of Pakistan's capital Islamabad say they feel unsafe after the country's Minister for Minority Affairs was gunned down in broad daylight. Travis Brecher reports

REUTERS.COM: Pakistan vows to battle extremism after minister slain: Pakistan must not buckle to extremism, President Asif Ali Zardari said on Thursday, a day after Taliban militants killed his government's only Christian minister for challenging a law on blasphemy toward Islam. >>> Zeeshan Haider | Thursday, March 03, 2011

Exclusive Footage of Shahbaz Bhatti's Interview
Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's slain minister was aware of the threats that he faced in Pakistan.

 Al Jazeera has obtained the footage of an interview with the minister in which he talks about how he would carry on fighting to end the suffering of his community. 

Bhatti's close colleague shared the video with Al Jazeera saying that Bhatti had requested him to do so in the eventuality of his assassination because "it is with the Muslim world I want to share the message of love. That is the only message that can bring the Muslim world out of the circle of hate and killings".

 Al Jazeera is not responsible for the content of this video.

Related >>>

New Dark Age Alert! Pakistan's Only Christian Minister Assassinated Over Blasphemy Row
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Pakistan's only Christian minister Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead today after pushing for the reform of harsh blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam.

The assassination comes just a fortnight after Mr Bhatti, Minister for Minorities, said he was prepared to die for his beliefs following a series of death threats.

He claimed his faith gave him strength during a recent visit to Canada.

The member of Muslim-majority Pakistan's Christian community, was on his way to work in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, when unknown gunmen riddled his car with bullets, police officer Mohmmad Iqbal said.

He was taken to Shifa Hospital with his driver who was also badly wounded.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but private Pakistani TV channels showed pamphlets at the scene of the killing that were attributed to the Pakistani Taliban warning of the same fate for anyone opposing the blasphemy laws. >>> | Tuesday, March 02, 2011

AlJazeera English: Inside Story – Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law

Pope Targets Pakistan Blasphemy Law
Pope Benedict XVI calls on Pakistan to repeal the law that calls for stoning to death those who criticize Islam. Video courtesy of Reuters

Salmaan Taseer, Aasia Bibi and Pakistan's Struggle with Extremism
THE GUARDIAN: In the home village of the Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, there was little sympathy for the politician who was assassinated for supporting her


Maulvi Saalim, the village cleric who led the blasphemy prosecution of Aasia Bibi in Pakistan. Photograph: The Guardian
Aasia Bibi isn't at home. Children play at the blue gate of her modest home in Itanwali, a sleepy Punjabi village. Bibi, the woman at the heart of Pakistan's blasphemy furore – which triggered the murder of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer last week – is in jail, desperately praying that she won't be executed. Her neighbours are hoping she will be.

"Why hasn't she been killed yet?" said Maafia Bibi , a 20-year-old woman standing at the gate of the house next door. Her eyes glitter behind a scarf that covered her face. "You journalists keep coming here asking questions but the issue is resolved. Why has she not been hanged?"

Maafia was one of a group of about four women who accused Bibi, also known as Aasia Noreen, who is Christian, of insulting the prophet Muhammad during a row in a field 18 months ago. But she will not specify what Bibi actually said, because to repeat the words would itself be blasphemy. And so Bibi was sentenced to hang on mere hearsay – a Kafkaesque twist that seems to bother few in Itanwali, a village 30 miles outside Lahore.

A few streets away Maulvi Muhammad Saalim is preparing for Friday prayers. The 31-year-old mullah, a curly-bearded man with darting, kohl-rimmed eyes and woolly waistcoat, played a central role in marshalling the blasphemy charge. When a court sentenced Bibi to death last November – the first woman in Pakistan's history – he "wept with joy", he says. "We had been worried the court would award a lesser sentence. So the entire village celebrated."

The young cleric excuses himself: it is time for Friday prayers. Padding across the marble floor in his socks, he plugs in a crackly speaker, and issues a droning call that rings out across the village. A madrasa student shoos a stray goat out of the mosque courtyard. Villagers wrapped in wool blankets shuffle in.

Judging by the sermon it is not Christianity that was preoccupying Saalim this Friday. For 30 minutes he rails against the evils of drinking, gambling, kite flying, pigeon-racing, cards and, oddly enough, insurance. "All of these are the work of the devil," he says, before launching into a fresh recitation. >>> Declan Walsh, in the village of Itanwali, Pakistan | Saturday, January 08, 2011

Pakistan Supporters Fear for Safety of Aasia Bibi after Taseer Killing
THE GUARDIAN: Christian woman is on death row under blasphemy laws that Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer had condemned before his assassination

Salmaan Taseer meets with Aasia Bibi after she was sentenced to hang for blasphemy in Punjab province, where Taseer was governor until his assassination on Wednesday. Photograph: The Daily Telegraph
Human rights workers say they fear for the immediate safety of Aasia Bibi, the Christian woman at the heart of Pakistan's blasphemy furore, following the assassination of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer this week.

"None of us feel safe, least of all her," said Shahzad Kamran, a Christian charity worker who has visited Bibi in jail several times since last November when she was sentenced to hang for blasphemy.

Bibi, a mother of four who has been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the prophet Muhammad, has been in solitary confinement for the past month. But since Taseer was shot multiple times by his own guard in Islamabad on Tuesday, Kamran said he feared Bibi could be killed by a zealot.

"There are many chances. The prison guards could also kill her because they are Muslims and we cannot trust them," he said.

Kamran said he expected that Bibi's "heart was broken" at the death of Taseer, her most prominent defender, and that her plight had reverberated across Pakistan's embattled Christian community.

"Taseer died for the Christians and now we are feeling broke and scared. If they can kill the governor of Punjab then who am I?" >>> Declan Walsh in Islamabad | Thursday, January 06, 2011

Ireland's Blasphemy Law: Worse Than Blasphemy?
TIME: There could perhaps be no better (or worse, depending on your religious inclination) day to open a blasphemous art exhibition than Good Friday. As many Irish Catholics were dutifully attending church, a group of young, well-dressed Dubliners gathered in the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art to view an exhibition inspired by the country's new — and much loathed — antiblasphemy law.

The first artwork to greet the visitors to "Blasphemous" is a grotesque variation on Michelangelo's Pieta, with the Virgin Mary transformed into a malicious giant rat. Next is a multimedia piece called Resur-erection that references the Irish Catholic sex-abuse scandals of recent months and features stop-motion priests and bishops in suspicious scenarios. Another exhibit simply and bluntly declares "F___ Christmas" in baubles and fairy lights. The reaction of gallery-goers on opening day ranged from bemusement to gratitude that at least one venue in Dublin's capital was serving alcohol on the most abstinent of Irish religious holidays. But for curator K. Bear Koss, the objective of the exhibition is very serious: "We want to raise awareness about the new blasphemy law," he says, "and to celebrate the freedoms of discourse that the law seeks to stifle." >>> John O’Mahony, Dublin | Monday, April 12, 2010

Will the UN Make Blasphemy Illegal?

Hat tip: Always On Watch >>>

*Please excuse the profanity at the bottom of the screen. I have no control over that message. Because this video is too important to ignore, I am overlooking it. I hope you will too.

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
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Blasphemy Law Is Dropped in Netherlands
RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE: Blasphemy will no longer be a crime in the Netherlands, the Dutch government announced last week. On Nov 1 Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin said the country’s coalition government would repeal a 1930s blasphemy law in favor of strengthening the current anti-discrimination legislation.

Two of the three members of the centre-right government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende --- the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the Christian Union (CU) --- had balked at past demands made by junior coalition partner the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) that Netherlands scrap the Blasphemy law, but have now agreed to back Labour’s demand that religion not be given a privileged place above free speech.



The push to reform the blasphemy laws comes in response to heightened tensions with the Netherland’s Muslim minority. Criticism of Islamists and Islam by comedians, cartoonists, filmmakers and politicians has led to threats of prosecution for offending Muslim sensibilities. >>> By George Conger | November 9, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback – The Netherlands) >>>

The Netherlands: Blasphemy Law to Be Scrapped
RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE: A majority in the Dutch parliament, led by the ruling Labour Party, wants to scrap a law which fines or even imprisons people who commit blasphemy. But although the law isn't used anymore, even debating whether or not to scrap it is sensitive. The Christian parties in Dutch politics have always argued to keep it on the books.

Now, tension is high in anticipation of far right Dutch MP Geert Wilders' film, which is expected to be considered blasphemous by most Muslims. 

And although there's a majority for scrapping the law, government is not asked to get rid of it immediately.

The Netherlands is known as a permissive country. Prostitution is legal, people of the same sex can get married. But if you take the lord's name in vain, you risk a fine, or imprisonment. A law forbidding blasphemy is still on the books. Now parliament wants to change that. Law against blasphemy to be scrapped >>> By John Tyler, political editor | 13-03-2008

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