blasphemy laws

Danish activist Rasmus Paludan has been sentenced to four months in prison in Sweden over alleged comments made during Qur’an burning protests.

Pakistan’s anti-terrorism court has sentenced young Christian Ehsan Shan to death for allegedly reposting a blasphemous image of a desecrated Quran on social media.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said that if elected, his government would take a hardline approach in policing “Islamophobia”.

A Presbyterian church in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, caught fire shortly after services on Good Friday, forcing the local Christian population to hold Easter services in a hotel and raising suspicions of arson.

Prime Minister of Pakistan Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar used his address to the United Nations to demand that nations outlaw “Islamophobia.”

“The unfree, medieval forces of the Middle East have won a victory today”, says Denmark’s former immigration minister.

A mob reportedly made of up as many as 10,000 men began burning down, looting, and otherwise violently assaulting Christian communities in Jaranwala, Pakistan, on Wednesday in response to reports that a Christian man had allegedly desecrated a Quran.

Bowing to pressure from protests from Muslim groups, a British cinema chain has pulled all screenings of a film over “safety concerns”.

The Charity Commission has accused an Islamic charity which doxxed a British teacher who showed his class a caricature of the Muslim prophet Mohammed of inflaming tensions and risking the safety of the teacher.

A group of Muslims armed with automatic weapons opened fire on the houses of Christian residents in Lahore, Pakistan, wounding six, the Barnabas Fund reported this week.

Authorities of the Islamic nation of Algeria have closed down three Christian churches in what critics describe as “direct violations of the right to religious freedom,” Crux reported Tuesday.

Members of the public have generously donated more than £30,000 to the Batley Grammar School teacher who was forced into hiding after showing his class cartoons of the Islamic prophet, Mohammed.

A schools trust has cleared of wrongdoing a teacher who went into hiding following death threats for showing cartoons of Mohammed to his class, but said that it was “not necessary” to use the images of the Islamic prophet.

Muslim countries should unite and form a transnational trade boycott to force the West to pass blasphemy laws that would protect Muhammad from perceived insults, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan proposed Monday.

Two more teachers have allegedly been suspended after a teacher was put on administrative leave for showing cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed to his pupils.

The most senior Primate in England’s established church has backed free speech following protests and threats after a teacher in West Yorkshire showed a class a caricature of the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

Local Islamic leaders in West Yorkshire will send a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson demanding that Britain show “respect” to Islam or face becoming “like France” following controversy over a teacher showing students a picture of Mohammed.

Comedian Ricky Gervais has joined the chorus of condemnation against the suspension of a British teacher for showing a caricature of the Islamic prophet Mohammed, questioning whether people will be “punished for insulting unicorns” next.

A British teacher who showed his class cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed has reportedly been moved to a safe location and is under police protection.

A mob of Muslim villagers in Egypt attacked a church and assaulted Coptic Christians in retaliation for a Facebook post published by a young Coptic man, which Muslim locals considered insulting to the Prophet Muhammad.

“Blasphemy in the garb of freedom of expression is intolerable,” Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said in a slogan broadcast on Twitter by the Pakistani government’s official account.

Yassin Elforkani, the Imam of Amsterdam’s Blue Mosque, has demanded Dutch lawmakers consider passing new legislation to ban insulting the Islamic prophet Mohamm

Fifteen Muslim congregations in Stockholm have demanded the government consider new laws to ban the burning of religious texts like the Quran and mocking faiths.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has chosen Jakarta’s first Christian governor of Chinese descent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, as a top candidate to oversee the construction of a new capital city in the majority-Muslim country, the Nikkei reported on Friday.

Trump’s rhetoric is combative and over-the-top. Yet his actions, as usual, not only obey the First Amendment, but also reinforce it. Biden would do the opposite.

A group of armed men raided a Christian church in Punjab, Pakistan, on Saturday, desecrating a cross and demolishing a gate and a boundary wall, L’Observatoire de la Christianophobie reported Monday.

An Islamist filmed a message making the rounds on the Internet this week saying he is in Canada to slay Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi, who was recently released from prison in Pakistan after spending nearly a decade on death row over false blasphemy allegations.

Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who spent eight years on death row for blasphemy against Islam before she was freed last year, is now safely in Canada and reunited with her family, her lawyer has said.

A Pentecostal Christian with a mental disability was beaten up by a Muslim crowd in Pakistan last week, after a neighbor accused him of blasphemy against the prophet Muhammad.

A prominent Muslim cleric has defended Pakistan’s harsh blasphemy laws, insisting that they actually have saved the lives of “thousands” of people from public lynching.

Free speech is increasingly imperiled as nations around the world turn to authoritarianism, which comes packaged as everything from iron-fisted dictatorial rule to coercive “progressivism.” One thing every brand of authoritarianism has in common is speech codes. Dissenting ideas dilute authority, so they must be suppressed. We should be thankful for the free speech that remains, and rise from our Thanksgiving tables prepared to fight for it.

Asia Bibi, a Christian mother recently acquitted by Pakistan’s Supreme Court of a blasphemy conviction that carried a death sentence, is seeking asylum in the Netherlands along with her family, her lawyer revealed on Friday.

A 53-year-old Christian mother on death row in Pakistan for allegedly committing blasphemy is asking for prayers as she waits to hear whether the Supreme Court will free her or uphold the capital punishment, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) reported this week.

A brewery is removing the Saudi Arabian flag from football World Cup bunting in hundreds of pubs because people were offended that Islamic symbols were displayed in a place serving alcohol.

The last remaining Jewish citizen in Afghanistan finds himself among a small group of non-Muslim religious minorities who have become a target of a deadly persecution campaign at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and the Taliban, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) mentions in a report released on Tuesday.

Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and wounded on Sunday in what appears to be an assassination attempt by a member of a recently formed hardline Islamist party.