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Author: Jeroen Temperman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2017-11-16
Total Pages: 771
ISBN-13: 1108416918
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book details the legal ramifications of existing anti-blasphemy laws and debates the legitimacy of such laws in Western liberal democracies.
Author: P. B. Cliteur
Publisher: Leiden University Press
Published: 2016
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9789087282684
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn contemporary politics two conflicting trends have influenced freedom of expression. The first confirms that many Western countries have become less strict about sacrilegious expression and repealed their blasphemy laws or withdrew much of their punishment for blasphemy. Yet the second trend manifests in an opposing movement, often couched in terms of religious freedom, which attempts to reconcile free speech with freedom of religion by punishing expressions deemed, for instance, "hate speech." With contributions by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this book offers an examination of topical issues relating to both of these movements, looking at freedom of expression, censorship, and blasphemy in contemporary multicultural democracies.
Author: U S Commission on International Religious Freedom
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Published: 2017-08
Total Pages: 152
ISBN-13: 9780160942938
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis report examines and compares the content of laws prohibiting blasphemy ("blasphemy laws") worldwide through the lens of international and human rights law principles. The laws examined in this study prohibit or criminalize the expression of opinions deemed "blasphemous," or counter to majority views or religious belief systems, and many impose serious, often criminal, penalties. Blasphemy laws are actively enforced in many states throughout the world. Many governments deem repeal not feasible or desirable and justify the prohibition and criminalization of blasphemy as necessary to promote religious harmony. This study seeks to evaluate the language and content of blasphemy laws to understand what aspects of these laws adhere to--or deviate from--international and human rights law principles. A better understanding of the laws' compliance with these principles may assist in the public policy community in developing clear, specifically-tailored recommendations for areas for reform. Related products: Explore ourFaith-Based Education resources collection Discover ourHuman Rights collection
Author: Talal Asad
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Published: 2013-05-09
Total Pages: 166
ISBN-13: 082325237X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume interrogates settled ways of thinking about the seemingly interminable conflict between religious and secular values in our world today. What are the assumptions and resources internal to secular conceptions of critique that help or hinder our understanding of one of the most pressing conflicts of our times? Taking as their point of departure the question of whether critique belongs exclusively to forms of liberal democracy that define themselves in opposition to religion, these authors consider the case of the “Danish cartoon controversy” of 2005. They offer accounts of reading, understanding, and critique for offering a way to rethink conventional oppositions between free speech and religious belief, judgment and violence, reason and prejudice, rationality and embodied life. The book, first published in 2009, has been updated for the present edition with a new Preface by the authors.
Author: Charb
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2016-01-05
Total Pages: 63
ISBN-13: 0316311340
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn impassioned defense of the freedom of speech, from Stéphane Charbonnier, a journalist murdered for his convictions. On January 7, 2015, two gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. They took the lives of twelve men and women, but they called for one man by name: "Charb." Known by his pen name, Stèphane Charbonnier was editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo, an outspoken critic of religious fundamentalism, and a renowned political cartoonist in his own right. In the past, he had received death threats and had even earned a place on Al Qaeda's Most Wanted List. On January 7 it seemed that Charb's enemies had finally succeeded in silencing him. But in a twist of fate befitting Charb's defiant nature, it was soon revealed that he had finished a book just two days before his murder on the very issues at the heart of the attacks: blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the necessary courage of satirists. Here, published for the first time in English, is Charb's final work. A searing criticism of hypocrisy and racism, and a rousing, eloquent defense of free speech, Open Letter shows Charb's words to be as powerful and provocative as his art. This is an essential book about race, religion, the voice of ethnic minorities and majorities in a pluralistic society, and above all, the right to free expression and the surprising challenges being leveled at it in our fraught and dangerous time.
Author: Leonard Williams Levy
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 708
ISBN-13: 9780807845158
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat society considers blasphemy - a verbal assault against the sacred - is a litmus test of the standards it believes to be necessary to preserve unity, order, and morality. Society has always condemned as blasphemy what it regards as an abuse of liberty
Author: Austin Dacey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2012-01-26
Total Pages: 209
ISBN-13: 1441101780
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the days of Moses, blasphemy was the mortal offence of failing to respect the divine. In an age of human rights, blasphemy is understood as a failure to respect persons, as insult, defamation, or "advocacy of religious hatred." The criminalisation of this personal blasphemy has been advanced at the United Nations and upheld by the European Court of Human Rights, which has asserted a universal "right to respect for religious feelings." The Future of Blasphemy turns respect on its head. Respect demands that we grant each other equal standing in the moral community, not that we never offend. Politically, respect for citizens requires a public discourse that is open to all viewpoints. Going beyond the question of free speech versus religion, The Future of Blasphemy defends an ethical model of blasphemy. Controversies surrounding sacrilege are contests over what counts as sacred, disagreements about what has central, inviolable, and incommensurable value. In such public contestation of the sacred, each of us-secular and religious alike-has equal right to speak on its behalf.
Author: S. Brent Plate
Publisher: Black Dog Publishing
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 202
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThrough an examination of a broad range of contentious imagery in art, this book questions the status of blasphemy in a world ever more divided in its views of what is acceptable, and aims to provide a vantage point from which to view the interrelations between religion, politics and the visual arts.
Author: European Commission for Democracy through Law
Publisher: Council of Europe
Published: 2010-01-01
Total Pages: 318
ISBN-13: 9789287166784
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMutual understanding and acceptance is perhaps the main challenge of modern society. Diversity is undoubtedly an asset, but cohabiting with people of different backgrounds and ideals calls for a new ethic of responsible intercultural relations, in Europe and in the World. This book tries to answer a series of pertinent and poignant questions arising from these issues, such as whether it is still possible to criticise ideas when this may be considered hurtful to certain religious feelings; whether society is hostage to the excessive sensitivity of certain individuals; or what legal responses there may be to these phenomena, and whether criminal law is the only answer.
Author: Heini í Skorini
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-19
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 1000134695
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book explores the political struggle to interpret and define the meaning, the scope and the implications of human rights norms in general and freedom of expression in particular. From the Rushdie affair and the Danish cartoon affair to the Charlie Hebdo massacre and draconian legislation against blasphemy worldwide, the tensions between free speech ideals and religious sensitivities have polarized global public opinion and the international community of states, triggering fierce political power struggles in the corridors of the UN. Inspired by theories of norm diffusion in International Relations, Skorini investigates how the struggle to define the limits of free speech vis-à-vis religion unfolds within the UN system. Revealing how human rights terminology is used and misused, the book also considers how the human rights vision paradoxically contains the potential to justify human rights violations in practice. The author explains how states exercise power within the field of international human rights politics and how non-democratic states strategically apply mainstream human rights language and secular human rights law in order to justify authoritarian religious censorship norms both nationally and internationally. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to scholars and students researching international human rights, religion and politics. The empirical chapters are also relevant for professionals and activists within the field of human rights.
