Say it while you can, global blasphemy laws an abomination

ON May 6, 1998, a 66-year-old priest walked into a courthouse in central Punjab, Pakistan, put a gun to his head and shot himself.

What brought John Joseph, the first native-born Catholic bishop, to his death is worth reflecting

on given the violent protests by Muslims against the Innocence of Muslims, a silly film produced in the US, and the publication of satirical cartoons in French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The Catholic bishop of Faisalabad shot himself in a busy courtroom to catch our attention and, one suspects, to keep hold of it. For years, Joseph had fought to have Pakistan's horrendous blasphemy laws repealed. He campaigned to save men such as 27-year-old Christian Ayub Masih, sentenced to death for blasphemy for telling people to read Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses to learn the truth about Islam.

Joseph did not live to see Masih released years later. Nor did Joseph's suicide change the situation in Pakistan. Thousands more would be arrested on trumped-up blasphemy charges. Judges who acquitted blasphemers would be assassinated. Those acquitted would be hunted down and killed by mobs. More liberal politicians who campaigned against the same laws would also be murdered.

Last month, a 14-year-old Christian girl was arrested on blasphemy charges for carrying torn pages of the Koran in her bag. The French campaigned to save the girl, reported to have Down syndrome. "The very existence of the crime of blasphemy infringes upon fundamental freedoms, namely the freedom of religion or belief, as well as the freedom of expression," said French authorities.

Ultimately international condemnation saved Rimsha Masih. Investigations revealed that a local imam made the allegations against her, putting the pages in her bag, to drive Christians out of his neighbourhood.

More international political pressure must now be brought to bear on the abomination that is blasphemy law. While our focus this week at the UN in New York is on Julia Gillard making our case for a seat on the UN Security Council, the bigger question should concern the future of free speech in the West. There is a renewed push by some Islamic countries for international blasphemy laws.

Will our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Bob Carr condemn any such illiberal push for these laws given that the federal government is seeking votes for our bid from these countries?

It's not enough that illiberal countries such as Pakistan long have used these abhorrent laws to persecute minorities. Radical Muslims, such as those protesting from Sydney to Islamabad, want global blasphemy laws available to Muslim minorities in the West, to suppress criticism of Islam in their new countries.

For more than a decade now, the 57 members that make up the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation have campaigned at the UN for religious defamation laws. And in the warped world that is the UN Commission on Human Rights, resolutions about the defamation of religion have been adopted -- without a vote. And the right to freedom of expression? That has played second fiddle to the demands of this Muslim bloc, led by Pakistan, a country looking for international laws to provide cover for its abhorrent domestic blasphemy laws

And why wouldn't OIC members make fresh demands for binding blasphemy laws this week when they take their seats in the General Assembly Hall. Consider the verbal mishmash emanating from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. During his press conference last week, the UN's head honcho condemned as "disgraceful and shameful" people who were "provoking values and beliefs of other people". Ban did not mention the UN's commitment to freedom of speech.

When Ban was asked later to comment specifically about free speech, he could offer only a half-hearted defence, again repeating what looks like becoming a UN party line that offensive speech is an abuse of freedom of expression.

If that does become the party line, then we are, to quote the editors of the French satirical magazine, "screwed". If the magazine stopped poking fun at Islam, then fear, not freedom, wins. The fundamental Islamists want "to make everyone afraid, to shut us all in a cave", said editor Stephane Charbonnier. If free speech does not include the right to offend others, then what we are left with is useless, feel-good, motherhood statements emanating from UN gabfests. Ban couldn't muster the strength to explain the real deal with free speech, which is: "I respect your right to express your views and you respect my right to express my views." We don't have to agree. In fact, the point of free speech is that we are not expected to agree.

New demands for blasphemy laws will be made because not enough people offer up a full-throated defence of Western values. After US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was murdered by marauding Muslims, the US embassy in Cairo issued a statement condemning "misguided individuals" who "hurt the feelings of Muslims". Not a word defending America's commitment to free speech. Horrified, the Obama administration distanced itself from the embassy's supine statement, but even the US President and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton devoted more passion to condemning the film than defending free speech.

Back home, ABC Radio National's breakfast radio host Geraldine Doogue fell into the now familiar morass of moral relativism found at our public broadcaster. Talking about the protesters here, she mentioned "warnings that we mustn't give oxygen to people who are consciously provocative". Then, pointing to the publication of the French cartoons, Doogue said, "It's the same thing, isn't it?" No, Geraldine, it's not the same thing. Not by a long shot. The protesters picked up planks of wood to beat our police. They brought violence to the streets of Sydney. The French cartoonist drew a picture. Doogue might instead have explored the irony, not to mention hypocrisy, of radical Muslims who bleat about their feelings being hurt by a film or a cartoon while expressing their own right to free speech, demanding death to infidels.

When will we learn that falling over ourselves to be polite, defaulting to lazy moral relativism, looks like appeasement to radical Muslims, who will demand only more and more special rules? If the West accommodates demands for blasphemy laws, our appeasement inexorably will alter what it means to live in the West. It means surrendering long-cherished Enlightenment ideals and importing intolerably illiberal restrictions on free speech more at home in countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. That is precisely what radical Muslims want. But it can't possibly be what we want.

janeta@bigpond.net.au