Freedom of speech versus blasphemy

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Marithé and François Girbaud's ad that parodied the The Last Supper: This ad resulted in a lawsuit against them by the Catholic Church

Freedom of speech versus blasphemy represents the tension which exists between political freedom, particularly freedom of speech, and certain examples of art, literature, speech or other acts which some consider to be sacrilegious or blasphemous. The extent to which this tension has not been resolved is manifested in numerous instances of controversy and conflict around the world.

Although many laws prohibiting blasphemy have long been repealed, particularly in the West, they remain in place in some countries and other jurisdictions (see Blasphemy laws). In some cases such laws are still on the books, but are no longer actively enforced.

Even in the United States there are some states that still officially have blasphemy laws on the books. Massachusetts, for example, still has a law under Chapter 272 of its general laws;

Section 36. "Whoever wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior."

The issue of freedom of speech versus blasphemy cannot be seen in isolation from the role of religion as a source of political power in some societies. In such a society, to blaspheme is to threaten the entire political power order of the society, and not merely a religion, and hence, the official punishments (and popular responses to blasphemy) tend to be more severe and violent. This situation can also take the form of opposition to religion, or enforced atheism, as was the case in the Soviet Union.

A non-exhaustive list of modern incidents which have led to public outcries, persecution, or some other form of repression is set out below.

1 Christianity
2 Islam
3 Sikhism
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Christianity

The Christmas 1882 edition of The Freethinker included several antireligion cartoons; because of these, an indictment for "blasphemous libel" was brought against G.W. Foote, its editor, and William Ramsay, its manager. (Reg. v. Ramsay and Foote) The cartoons were rebuked by various Christian individuals: John Jackson, the bishop of London, called the publication "vile" and supported the prosecution; Anglican clergyman Stewart Headlam, on the other hand, agreed that the Freethinker was "disgusting," but defended Foote's freedom of expression. Headlam argued that "the more you prosecute, the stronger you make the cause which you cannot imprison."^[1] In the end, Foote was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour.
In 1951, Italian neorealist Roberto Rossellini's 40-minute film, titled The Miracle, sparked widespread moral outrage.^[2] The film centred around a man, "Saint Joseph", who villainously impregnates "Nanni", a disturbed peasant who believes herself to be the Virgin Mary. Protesters in Paris picketed the film with vitriolic signs carrying messages like "This Picture Is an Insult to Every Decent Woman and Her Mother," "Don't Be a Communist," and "Don't Enter the Cesspool." ^[3] It was criticized as "vile, harmful and blasphemous." After some pressure by the Catholic Church, the New York Board of Regents revoked the film's license on grounds that it was "sacrilegious." Its director, Joseph Burstyn, subsequently appealed the decision, and in 1952 it was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional in the case Joseph Burstyn, Inc v. Wilson. ^[4]
In 1966, Dutch author Gerard Reve was prosecuted for blasphemy, after a piece of prose he wrote described making love to God, incarnated in a three year old donkey. He was later acquitted on the grounds that this was an artistic expression protected by freedom of speech.
Hollywood movies depicting Jesus or referencing early Christianity in a non-mainstream way sometimes attract immense controversy and public outcries. As the controversies often arose in the film's country of origin, consulates and embassies have for the most part been left alone. Movies subjected to heavy criticism over allegedly blasphemous content include The Last Temptation of Christ and Monty Python's Life of Brian (which was banned in Ireland and Norway, and advertised in Sweden as "the movie that is so funny it was banned in Norway".)
Artist Andres Serrano's photograph Piss Christ, showing a crucifix immersed in urine, caused similar controversy, as did artist Chris Ofili's painting "Black Madonna," which depicted a black African Mary surrounded by images from blaxploitation movies and close-ups of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines.
A British evangelical organisation, Christian Voice led street protests against the BBC screening of Jerry Springer – The Opera, in which Jesus wearing a nappy says "I'm a bit gay". Christian Voice published the home addresses and telephone numbers of several BBC executives on their web site. This led to one of these people receiving death threats. Another organisation, the Christian Institute attempted to level blasphemy charges against the BBC. These were rejected by the High Court.
The comedy film Dogma (1999) resulted in picketing and charges of blasphemy, but also death threats made against its director Kevin Smith and producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein.
In 2002, the author of the Spanish public domain personal computer game Slaughter Cofrade, known by the initials "J. C. C. S.," was formally accused by the Cristo del Gran Poder of violating section 525 of the penal code, which forbids any sort of "attack" on religious dogma, beliefs, or ceremonies. His game depicted the shooting of characters robed in religious clothing and carrying Christian crosses.
In 2004, Jesus Dress Up fridge magnets, which depicts a cartoon crucified Jesus in tighty-whities and can be dressed in Satan pajamas, sparked national controversy at an Urban Outfitters receiving more than 250,000 complaints after being featured on MSNBC. The retailer canceled all remaining orders with the magnet's creator Normal Bob Smith, then as a result of this attention an activism group called Laptop Lobbyists alerted the artist's web-hosting company and succeeded in shutting down the Jesus Dress Up web site. [1]
In 2005 SOHO a magazine from Colombia was sued after recreating The Last Supper with a nude model in the role of Jesus and twelve left- wing intellectuals as the apostles.
In 2005 Marithé and François Girbaud's parodied Leonardo's religious painting The Last Supper in a publicity poster. The Catholic high clergy initiated a controversial lawsuit against the Girbauds, sparking a polemic concerning freedom of expression and blasphemy. The judge qualified the poster as "an insult to Christians."
Gerhard Haderer's cartoon book The Life of Jesus was banned in Greece in 2003 under Greek laws of "blasphemy" and "insulting religion". In 2005 its author was given a six-month suspended prison sentence in absentia. Both the ban and the conviction were later reversed in appeal after an outcry against the initial decision both in Greece and in Europe. [2] [3] [4]

[edit] Islam

On August 18, 1925 The Star (a now defunct London evening newspaper) printed a cartoon by David Low in which the Captain of the English Cricket team, Jack Hobbs, was depicted as the towering statue in a 'Gallery of the most important historical celebrities' and the one to whom the others looked up. Among the others was Muhammad. Colin Seymour-Ure and Jim Schoff's book David Low notes "Harmless enough at home, the depiction of Muhammad meant that in India the cartoon 'convulsed many Muslims in speechless rage', as the Calcutta correspondent of the Morning Post put it. Meetings were held and resolutions of protest were passed."^[5]

In 1989, Indian born British author Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death for blasphemy by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini for Rushdie's depiction of Muhammad as a businessman in his novel The Satanic Verses. An Iranian businessman offered a $3 million reward to anyone carrying out the sentence against Rushdie. Other Islamic scholars followed suit, providing similar fatwa (legal pronouncement in Islam made by a mufti). In 1989, Khomeini died, making fatwa permanent to those who follow his teaching. In 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, the book's Japanese translator was murdered at the university where he taught in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 60 kilometres north of Tokyo. The book's Italian translator was beaten and stabbed in Milan. William Nygaard, the Norwegian publisher was shot in 1993. Thirty-seven people, who had come to listen to a speech by the translator and publisher (of some parts of the book) Aziz Nesin, a well-known satirist, perished when the hotel where they had gathered was torched in Sivas, Turkey. The post-Khomeini Iranian government, while maintaining that fatwa cannot be reversed, promised only in 1998 to dissociate itself from it. Rushdie stayed in hiding under police protection for several years. ^[6]
In May 1994, a fatwa on Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin came after she was quoted in The Statesman that "…the Koran should be revised thoroughly." This follows attacks and persecution of Taslima for her 1993 book Lajja (Bangla word for 'shame')
In 1997 Tatiana Soskin was apprehended in Hebron while attempting to attach to an Arab storefront a drawing she'd made depicting Muhammad as a pig reading the Koran. The incident created considerable tension.
In 1998 Ghulam Akbar, a Shi'a Muslim, was convicted, in a Rahimyar Khan court, of uttering derogatory remarks against Muhammad in 1995 and sentenced to death. He was the first to receive such a sentence under Section 295(c) of the Pakistani penal code.^[7]
In August 2000 a Lahore court sentenced Abdul Hasnain Muhammad Yusuf Ali to death and 35 years' imprisonment for "defiling the name of Muhammad" under Section 295(a), 295(c), and 298.^[8]
In 2001, prior to 9/11, American magazine Time printed an illustration of Muhammad along with the Archangel Gabriel waiting for a message from God. The magazine apologized for printing the illustration after widespread protests in Kashmir.^[9]
In June 2002 Iranian academic Hashem Aghajari gave a speech that challenged Muslims to refrain from blindly following their clergy. His speech provoked international outcry, and, in November 2002, he was sentenced to death for "blasphemy against Muhammad." ^[10]
In November 2002 an article in the Nigerian ThisDay newspaper prior to the upcoming Miss World pageant, suggesting Muhammad would have chosen one of the contestants as his bride, sparked riots that eventually claimed over 200 lives.^[11]
In December 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Marlette published a drawing that showed Muhammad driving a Ryder truck, with a nuclear rocket attached. He received more than 4,500 e-mails from angry Muslims, some with threats of death and mutilation.^[12]
In 2004, Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali created the 10-minute movie Submission. The film is about violence against women in Islamic societies. It shows four abused naked women, wearing see-through dresses. Qur'anic verses allegedly unfavourable to women in Arabic are painted on their bodies. After the movie was released, both van Gogh and Hirsi Ali received death threats. Van Gogh was stabbed and shot dead on November 2, 2004, in Amsterdam by Mohammed Bouyeri. A note he left impaled on Van Gogh's chest threatened Western governments, Jews and Hirsi Ali (who went into hiding).
In February 2005 the "Världskulturmuséet" ("Museum of World Culture") in Göteborg, Sweden decided to remove the painting "Scène d’Amour" by Louzla Darabi. The painting was part of a temporary exhibition about HIV/AIDS, and depicted a man and a woman having sexual intercourse. The artist and the curator had received numerous death threats from Muslims enraged over the Koran quotations which were featured in a corner of the painting. Some threats were telling the artist to "learn from the Netherlands", referring to the murder of van Gogh and threats against Hirsi Ali.[5] (News article in Swedish)
On April 19, 2005 the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet broke the news that celebrity preacher Runar Søgaard in a causerie had called Muhammad "a confused paedophile," alluding to Muhammed's marriage with Aisha. Søgaard had at the same time also told jokes about Jesus and Buddha. Søgaard received numerous death threats from Muslims and went on national television to apologise for his jokes. His apologies did not help, and Muslim extremists in Sweden contacted imams around the world in order to have a fatwa issued against Søgaard. Among the contacted ones were Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A fatwah with a death sentence against Søgaard was eventually issued by an African imam.[6][7] (News articles in Swedish)
In September 2005 the Tate Britain gallery decided not to display a work by John Latham entitled God Is Great #2, made ten years previously, which consisted in part of a Koran, a Bible and a Talmud that had been disassembled. The exhibition was close to the time of the July 7 2005 London bombings which influenced the Tate's decision. ^[13]^[14]
In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed twelve cartoons of Mohammed which, four months later and fueled by interested parties, eventually led to massive unrest in the Muslim world (including more than 100 deaths), burnt embassies and international tension.
In February 2006, activist Manfred van H. was convicted in Germany and sentenced to one year of prison on probation for mailing toilet paper stamped with "The holy Qur'an" to mosques and the media.

[edit] Sikhism

In 2004, a theatre in Birmingham cancelled the performance of the play "Behzti" (Dishonour) by playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti. The play depicted sex abuse and murder in a Sikh temple.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ Orens, John Richard (1989). Stewart Headlam's Radical Anglicanism: The Mass, the Masses, and the Music Hall, Manchester University Press, 44. ISBN 0-252-02824-4.
^ Kozlovic, Anton Karl (2003). Religious Film Fears 1: Satanic Infusion, Graven Images and Iconographic Perversion, 5 (2-3).
^ Black, G. D. (1998). The Catholic crusade against the movies, 1940-1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
^ Jowett, G. (1996). "A significant medium for the communication of ideas": The Miracle decision and the decline of motion picture censorship, 1952-1968. Movie censorship and American culture, 258-276. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
^ Colin Seymour-Ure and Jim Schoff, "David Low", Secker and Warburg 1985, p. 63
^ Koenraad Elst. The Rushdie Rules. work. Retrieved on 2006-02-03.
^ Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2004, November 2004, 108-2 Joint Committee Print, S. Prt. 108-59. Published 2005, page 666.
^ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 1980, Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O. Page 2508.
^ "Time Magazine undskyldte Muhammed-tegning i 2001", Politiken, 2006-02-03.
^ Annual Report, International Religious Freedom, 2000, U.S. G.P.O., Supt. of Docs. Page 502.
^ "Nigeria violence rages on", BBC News, 2002-11-23.
^ Moore, Art. "What would Muhammad drive?", WorldNetDaily, 2002-12-28.
^ "Tate 'misunderstood' banned work", BBC News, 2005-09-26.
^ Tate press release. Retrieved on 2006-02-03.