Oh great, the return of the great push to enact global blasphemy laws. This time it’s not the OIC but a group of Arab countries.
Manama: Arab countries are working on a draft law that bans the defamation of religions and empowers them to take abusers to court even if they are not residents.
The draft, presented by Qatar, is being reviewed by delegates from several Arab countries at the Arab League.
Under its provisions, all forms of defamation, derision or denigration of religions and prophets will be considered crimes.
Is that sweeping enough? Under that wording, anything could be considered a crime – something that doesn’t explicitly mention religion could just be treated as allegory or sarcasm.
Oh and also? Fuck you. Seriously. Religions depend for their survival on everyone just politely not noticing that there is no good reason to believe any god exists or that any humans know what any putative god wants. They’re frauds, in short. If you start making it a crime even to have a laugh at them now and then, the politeness is over. (No, I haven’t been all that polite as it is, but I can get much worse, I promise you.)
“The main feature of the draft is that it gives every state the right to put on trial those who abuse and hold in contempt religions even if they are outside the country,” Ebrahim Mousa Al Hitmi, the Qatari justice ministry assistant undersecretary for legal affairs, said, local Arabic daily Al Arab reported on Wednesday.
Well that will keep people out of your countries, for sure.
The official insisted that the draft law does not clash with freedom of expression.
“The law does not interfere in any way with the freedom of opinion and expression which is well protected and guaranteed. All penal laws in Arab countries criminalise defamation of religions but there are no specific sanctions when an abuser is outside the country. Therefore, the main goal of this law is to deter all forms of defamation of religions and give each country that ratifies it the right to file lawsuits against those who offend religions, even if they are not residents,” he said.
What an imbecile. Deterring all forms of “defamation” of those persistent frauds called religions does interfere with the freedom of opinion and expression, in fact it terminates it. If people aren’t free to question and mock open cheats like religion then they have very little freedom at all.