Israel’s newspaper Haaretz is reporting that the supreme Mufti of Syria has declared that Islam must protect Jews. He is quoted as saying:

"If the Prophet Mohammed had asked me to deem Christians or Jews heretics, I would have deemed Mohammed himself a heretic."

He also said that Islam was a religion of peace:

"If Mohammed had commanded us to kill people, I would have told him he was not a prophet."

This mufti, Ahamd Badruddin Hassoun, has long been proclaiming that Syria is a country of religious freedom. Read the US State Department‘s views on freedom in Syria.

The new law in Ireland finds a person guilty of blasphemy if “he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.”

Easy no-bake recipe for blasphemy

a substantial number of believers in monotheistic Religion A
a substantial number of believers in monotheistic Religion B
one egg of proclaiming one’s belief on God

Carefully separate the egg of proclaiming one’s belief in God, discarding the white shapeless matter of "all people really worship the same god". Then take any random believer in religion A who likes the yolk of faith and blend well with the believers of religion B. Stand back while the spontaneous heat of insulted people rises and hardens into outrage. To double the recipe, simply mix the same blend of a believer in religion B with those of A.

Why this recipe is so easy: The statement "My God exists" is heard as "Your God doesn’t exist" by believers of a rival monotheistic religion.

Atheists didn’t invent blasphemy—Religion invented blasphemy, and continues to use it as a weapon to this day. The biggest blasphemers are religious people.

Oh, by the way, "No gods exist".

Ireland’s new blasphemy law went into effect with the New Year. The group Atheist Ireland promptly published 25 blasphemous statements. See reports at CNN and The Guardian.

The quotations are by Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, James Kirkup, Monty Python, Rev Ian Paisley, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Bjork, Amanda Donohoe, George Carlin, Paul Woodfull, Jerry Springer the Opera, Tim Minchin, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict XVI, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Ian O’Doherty, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Dermot Ahern.

Here is a sample, from Mark Twain (Letters from the Earth, 1909):

“Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.”

The home of Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew the bomb-wearing Muhammad, was attacked on Friday.

Westergaard was not injured and police captured the intruder, an Islamic terrorist from Somalia.

On Friday the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution combating the so-called "defamation of religions."   The resolution, sponsored by the Organization of Islamic Conference, was adopted with 80 votes in favor, 61 votes in opposition, and 42 abstentions. 

You can read Derek Araujo on this latest development at CFI’s Free Thinking blog, and read CFI’s statement in opposition to the resolution here.

The herioc story of Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident who joined student-led protests in Beijing in 1989 and has spent several years in jail and detention during the decades since, now goes on trial yet again.

The Washington Post reports:

"The Chinese government has set Wednesday as the trial date for Liu Xiaobo, a dissident who has been in detention for more than a year for his role in writing Charter 08, a manifesto calling for political reform, human rights and an end to one-party rule." 

Read some expressions of outrage and support for Liu Xiaobo over this fresh abuse from Human Rights Watch and Reporters without Borders.

According to The Australian, "Legislation to be introduced next year will require internet service providers to implement a mandatory filter that will block all overseas and locally hosted internet content that has been refused classification by the Classification Board. There will be a 12-month implementation process before the filter is switched on."

Global media are reacting negatively, comparing Australia to China, although Australia would join several other European countries already restricting internet freedoms.The United Kingdom is once again pursuing more restrictive rules.

Other recent censorship news involving Australia from the Asian Correspondent:

"Australia was accused of censorship after it denied visas to North Korean artists invited to a rare international exhibition of their work, saying their studio is a propaganda tool of their country’s communist government."

"Indonesia has banned a movie that depicts its troops murdering five Australia-based newsmen to keep secret an attack on East Timor in 1975."

African witch hunter Helen Ukpabio, head of the Liberty Gospel Church in Nigeria and a frequent target of criticism by CFI, has filed a lawsuit in Nigerian federal court against Leo Igwe, CFI’s representative in Nigeria.

The Center for Inquiry (CFI), an international organization that fights for science and reason, launched an anti-superstition campaign in May 2009 to highlight and combat the abuse of alleged child witches throughout the African continent.  The IHEU posts the video of the attack on Igwe’s meeting by about two hundred members of Ukpabio’s Liberty Gospel Church.

See CFI’s press release about the dispute. You can read Leo Igwe’s statement and see the reactions to this case at the New Humanist and The Examiner.

CFI / New York City’s Derek Araujo blogs on a bold effort by Pakistan to seed the exact language of Ireland’s regrettable blasphemy law into the normative principles of international law.

Pakistan Pushes Irish Blasphemy Law Language at the UN

The 56-member Organization of the Islamic Council continues its push for a United Nations resolution banning religious criticism. Moving on from its manipulation of the Human Rights Council, these Islamic countries are now trying to get a resolution before the UN General Assembly.

Western nations are pushing back. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has released a policy paper defends international protections for individual freedom of thought and expression. Here is an excerpt from the executive summary to this paper:

Over the past decade, countries from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have been working through the United Nations system to advance the problematic idea that there should be laws against the so-called “defamation of religions.” Although touted as a solution to the very real problems of religious persecution and discrimination, the OIC-sponsored UN resolutions on this issue instead provide justification for governments to restrict religious freedom and free expression. They also provide international legitimacy for existing national laws that punish blasphemy or otherwise ban criticism of a religion, which often have resulted in gross human rights violations. These resolutions deviate sharply from universal human rights standards by seeking to protect religious institutions and interpretations, rather than individuals, and could help create a new international anti-blasphemy norm.

Read the Commission’s paper here: The Dangerous Idea of Protecting Religions from “Defamation”: A Threat to Universal Human Rights Standards.