Psychology Today: Beyond free speech: Blasphemy and equality

“How do I know who the true God is?”

It is for asking questions such as this one that Alber Saber Ayad is being prosecuted for “defamation of religion” in Cairo, where his trial resumed today. The 27-year-old computer science student was taken into custody on September 13 by the police after an enraged mob stormed his house, beating him and menacing his mother, a Coptic Christian. Saber was accused of circulating “Innocence of Muslims.” His postings and videotaped ruminations express a more thoroughgoing religious skepticism.

In a complaint filed to the public prosecutor on September 18, Egyptian human rights groups claimed that while in custody Saber has been slashed with a razor blade and compelled to give false statements. He faces the charges of “defamation of Islam and Christianity,” “insulting the divine” and “satirizing religious rituals and sanctities and prophets” under articles 98, 160 and 161 of the Egyptian Penal Code.

Although Egyptian President Morsi and other world leaders made excessive use of the recent UN General Assembly to denounce the excesses of free speech, this debate is about more than free speech. It is about equal treatment for all persons of conscience.

Read the entire article at Psychology Today.

Psychology Today: Cognitive Bias and the Blame for Benghazi

Following the statement by the Director of National Intelligence that the attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya were “deliberate and organized,” new questions are being raised about the narrative, adopted by administration officials, of a spontaneous outburst of rage ignited by a now-infamous video. This narrative, of course, was a perfect fit with the familiar media tropes that trip off of the fingers of producers and commentators as if by auto-complete: “Free Speech: Has It Gone Too Far?” and “Arabs/Muslims: Why Do They [Blank] Us?”

However, there are good reasons to think that it is not mere political expedience or journalistic indolence that leads the public imagination to fasten onto the actions of some Sam Bacile or another when seeking to make sense of a horrific turn of events. This may also reflect our own intuitive and unreflective thinking.

Read the entire article at Psychology Today.

Article at Huffington Post on Innocence of Muslims

In the wake of the furor over Innocence of Muslims, we are hearing renewed calls to criminalize blasphemy under international law from the halls of the United Nations. This comes a little over a year after the so-called Islamic states retired a discredited, decade-long campaign to combat "defamation of religions" (and legal coherence).

Meanwhile, the 1966 human rights treaty banning "advocacy of religious hatred" remains in force. Indeed, it is precisely such a charge that has the Indonesian atheist Alexander Aan and the Russian punks Pussy Riot locked away at this moment. What more could one want?

Read the entire article at Huffington Post.

Volkskrant: A legal weapon against minorities

A new piece in the Saturday edition of the Dutch daily, Volkskrant, about the colonial history of the religious hatred standard.

Review by John Gray

The political philosopher John Gray, writing for the Globe and Mail:

In showing that blasphemy should be protected as part of the practice of religion, Dacey has made an important advance on standard liberal arguments. But he also wants to defend blasphemy as a human right: “Blasphemy must be legally protected,” he writes, “as a matter of equal treatment before the law and as an exercise of the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience.”

Gray goes on to raise an interesting criticism about the concept of tolerance. Read the entire review here.

Guest blog series at The Revealer

I've begun a series of blogs at The Revealer on blasphemy and human rights where I'll be putting contemporary cases in the context of the last 500 years of discourse on blasphemy and "religious hatred."

Reason magazine review

Ron Bailey writes in a short review for the June issue of Reason magazine:

His disturbing analysis traces how various U.N. resolutions demanding “respect” for religions, as well as court decisions and laws in many European countries, traduce freedom by punishing people for offending believers.

Dacey persuasively argues that “the onus is on the agents of civil society—nongovernmental organizations, journalists, academics, educators, individual citizens—to demand that states and international bodies stand up for the free exercise of conscience even when it defiles the sacred.