‘Qurangate’ and Britain’s new blasphemy rules
Spectator (UK)Feb 27, 2023
A small group of demonstrators from the right-wing ultra-nationalist Danish Patriots set fire to copies of the Quran, the holiest text in Islam, in front of the Egyptian and Turkish embassies on Tuesday in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, sparking outrage from the Egyptian and Turkish governments.
Tuesday's demonstration came a day after the same group burned a copy of the Quran on Monday and last week in front of the Iraqi embassy. Two such incidents have taken place in Sweden over the past month.
Though the intentional desecration of a holy text is certainly an unsavory act, Europe doesn't have blasphemy laws for a reason: to facilitate a free society. Legislation that would threaten said freedom of expression is a slippery slope that inadvertently demeans Muslims by singling them out as a community that requires special protection from free, open discussion.
Just because something is legal doesn't make it right. Although freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate are two of the pillars of a liberal democracy, and neither Sweden nor Denmark has blasphemy laws, European nations must continue to debate the limits of these freedoms.
Desecration of holy texts isn't free speech; it's hate speech. All these acts seek to do is provoke Muslims both in Europe and outside it and have no place in a "free" society. Bigotry only makes the world worse and stimulates hatred, which only serves the agendas of extremists, leading to the goals of their malevolent ideologies.