Charlie the Freethinker: Religion, Blasphemy, and Decent Controversy

This comment examines the tension between freedom of expression and freedom of religion by embedding the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a wider, century-old European tradition of publications mocking religion, including Christianity. It describes, and draws lessons from, the 19th century blasphemy case a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Benesch, Susan (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill, Nijhoff 2015
In: Religion and human rights
Year: 2015, Volume: 10, Issue: 3, Pages: 244-254
Further subjects:B Charlie Hebdo The Freethinker Blasphemy (history of English law of) Coleridge freedom of expression lawful attacks on religion human rights law freedom of expression freedom of religion
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:This comment examines the tension between freedom of expression and freedom of religion by embedding the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a wider, century-old European tradition of publications mocking religion, including Christianity. It describes, and draws lessons from, the 19th century blasphemy case against the British Freethinker newspaper, whose “technique of offense” was similar to that of Charlie Hebdo. Finally, the comment tackles the problem of violent response to text or images that mock religion, pointing out that malicious intermediaries often carry such messages between social groups or across national borders—greatly escalating the risk of violence.
ISSN:1871-0328
Contains:In: Religion and human rights
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/18710328-12341291