Insulting Muhammad is a risky business these days. Not only in Muslim-majority nations with stiff blasphemy laws, but also in supposedly enlightened Europe. Yes, even on a continent that loves to trumpet its commitment to freedom of speech, mocking Muhammad can land you in hot water.
Consider the recent trials of two women who committed the speech crime of insulting the Prophet, one in Pakistan and the other in Austria.
In Pakistan, Asia Bibi, a Christian, has finally had her death sentence for blasphemy overturned.
Bibi was found guilty of blasphemy in 2010 after she got into a row with neighbours during which they insulted her Christian faith and she fired back with a swipe at Muhammad. (She has always denied doing this.)
Under Pakistan’s cruel, archaic blasphemy laws—first introduced by the British Raj in 1860 and strengthened under the military rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s—it is a crime to insult religious beliefs, willfully desecrate the Koran, or insult the Prophet.
The price for destroying a Koran? Life in prison. For mocking Muhammad? Death, writes Brendan O’Neill in his latest piece for Reason.
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