The Guardian, Sun 4 Nov 2018 19.00 GMT

When freedom of expression and religious views clash

https: //www. theguardian. com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/freedom-of-expression-religious-views

Paul Chadwick, the Guardian’s readers’ editor

‘The European court of human rights recently upheld[1] the Austrian courts’ punishment of a woman for criticising Muhammad. ’ Photograph: Vincent Kessler/Reuters

The Guardian, Sun 4 Nov 2018 19. 00 GMT

Much of the English-language journalism in global news services is generated in increasingly secular societies, and in newsrooms, places that lean towardsscepticism and irreverence[2]. But the world is not so secular. Faith and its teachings and rituals play central roles in many lives.

A readers’ editor sees how offence over sincerely held religious beliefs can be easily given, and easily taken. Around Easter, for example, Christians might complain about cartoons in which the burdens of a politician are depicted through references to the crucifixion of Jesus. The cartoonist will typically be thinking topically and pictorially, alluding to great works of western art. There may be no intention to offend. But a readers’ editor soon hears about the outrage or dismay[3] felt by those for whom the New Testament is core belief and Easter a holy time. Examples could be given for Islam and Judaism too.

A free-speech scholar, Eric Barendt, summarised one church’s argument in favour of offences against religion and public worship: that “society is entitled to, or perhaps even should, protect a sense of the sacred. Something valuable is lost if there are no restrictions at all on what can be said or written about God or religious belief. ” Barendt continued: “…Many people, perhaps now a majority in England, live by secular values, and may prefer that the law makes no attempt to protect what they regard as private, rather than shared, values. ”

Episodes of freedom of expression for some can be perceived by others as an attack on their religion, and respect for a religion can be thought to constrain expression unduly. Managing those tensions through self-regulation will grow, especially in organisations such as the Guardian that serve online a diverse global audience. The law is gradually withdrawing from its traditional role as an enforcer of religious orthodoxy[4]. Not totally, or everywhere, but there’s a trend.

… On 25 October the European court of human rights … upheld the Austrian courts’ punishment of a woman for criticising Muhammad, considered by Muslims to be the last of God’s prophets. She was fined? 480, or, in default[5], six months in prison.

Named by the court as ES, the woman had been found guilty of “publicly disparaging an object of veneration[6] of a domestic church or religious society, namely Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, in a manner capable of arousing justified indignation”. In 2009, ES gave a seminar arranged by the rightwing Freedom party and attended by about 30 people. She questioned whether Muhammad was a model for Muslim males to imitate, given that Muhammad had, according to Islamic scholarship she cited, married a girl of six and consummated the union[7] when the girl was nine. … The court found, ES “essentially conveyed the message that Muhammad had had paedophilic tendencies”. The court found that ES ought to have put child marriages in historical context. It noted that child marriages used to be widespread among European ruling dynasties.

The human rights court found that “a religious group must tolerate the denial by others of their religious beliefs and even the propagation by others of doctrines hostile to their faith, as long as the statements at issue do not incite hatred[8] or religious intolerance”, but ES’s remarks had been capable of arousing justified indignation, were not aimed at contributing to a debate of public interest, and could only be understood as aiming to demonstrate that Muhammad was not a worthy subject of worship.

Views will differ about the case. I was struck by the courts’ apparent neglect of scale[9]. One stated rationale[10] for blasphemy offences in the past, and for hate speech laws now, is to limit incitement[11] and to keep the peace. A seminar with 30 self-selecting attendees does not seem a potential mob. No mass audience of Muslims was exposed to what ES said.

At the seminar was an undercover journalist. Her employer, a weekly journal called N by the court, informed the public prosecutor, and police questioned ES, who was charged.

Journalists sometimes work in mysterious ways.

[1] поддержал

[2]непочтительность

[3] Негодование, бесчинство или смятение

[4]поборник религиозной ортодоксии

[5] при неисполнении

[6]Публ. унижение объекта почитания

[7]вступить в брачные отношения

[8]разжигать ненависть

[9] Явное пренебрежение масштабом

[10]логическое обоснование; основная причина; аргументация

[11]подстрекательство; стимул; возбуждение

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