First Freedoms

[Valin]

Claremont Review of Books:

Claire Berlinski

9/10/12

 

In their new book, Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, a senior fellow and the director, respectively, of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, argue that the West has been slow to appreciate the devastating effects of blasphemy and apostasy laws in the Islamic world, even as these laws are the source of countless outrages against human rights, freedom, and dignity. Former president of Indonesia Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid remarks in the book's preface that these laws have "prevented Muslims from thinking...about vast spheres of life, literature, science and culture in general," serving "to stop the developmental process of religious understanding dead in its tracks." What's more, such bans "conflate the sanctioning authority's current, limited grasp of the truth with ultimate Truth itself, and thereby transform religion from a path to the Divine into a ‘divinized' goal, whose features and confines are generally dictated by those with an all-too-human agenda of earthly power and control."

 

He is right, entirely right. I live in Turkey, where just recently the Turkish pianist Fazil Say was charged by prosecutors with making comments offensive to Islamic belief on the internet. He had used Twitter to question whether Islamic heaven is like a brothel or a pub, citing Koranic verses that describe beautiful women and rivers of drinks for those admitted to paradise. As the Turkish Penal Code specifies, "Anyone who openly denigrates the religious values of a part of the population shall be sentenced to imprisonment of from six months to one year, where the act is sufficient to breach public peace." In recent years, many people who once chatted about politics and religion on Facebook and Twitter in Turkey have thought better of doing so. I cannot blame them.

 

The West has likewise been hesitant to resist the encroachment of these laws on its own societies. Rather than rejecting pressure from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to ban "negative stereotyping of Islam," many Western nations have agreed to define this nebulous act as a crime, enact racial and religious hate-speech bans to combat it, and prosecute their own citizens for defying the new laws. These bans, the authors argue, serve as proxies for blasphemy laws and have a similarly stultifying effect upon the human spirit. Only the United States has thus far rejected this pressure, but it has done so in a hesitant, bewildered, and incoherent fashion. The West's lack of resolve in responding to this pressure is a great mystery. Surely, if the West stands for anything, it stands for freedom of religion and speech?

 

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Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide

Paul Marshall and Nina Shea

 

 

It should also be noted before we here in the West get all full of ourselves, thinking how great we are with our Freedom Of Speech....The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

[Valin]

Family Faces Fines for Hosting Bible Study

Todd Starnes

9/17/12

 

A Florida family is facing fines for hosting a weekly Bible study in their home – an act that city officials argue violates zoning codes.

 

Shane and Marlen Roessiger, of Venice, Fla. are facing a $250 per day fine for hosting Friday night prayer and Bible study gatherings that are attended by as many as 10 people.

 

“It is difficult to understand how it is illegal to have a prayer meeting on Friday night with a half dozen people but it is alright if I invited the same group on Monday evening to watch Monday night Football,” Roessiger said.

 

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