Turkey's foreign minister asks the EU for blasphemy laws to protect Islam

Posted by Robert on March 13, 2006 11:07 AM

The cartoon-rage-based war on free speech spreads, and is still based on the fiction that Christianity and Judaism are somehow protected from criticism by European laws. From [1] The Telegraph, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Abdullah Gul, the Turkish foreign minister, sparked disagreement among his EU counterparts at a weekend meeting in Austria, when he called for European nations to review existing laws, to ensure they outlawed the "defamation" of all religions.

Mr Gul told a meeting of EU and Balkan foreign ministers in Salzburg that many Muslims believed that European laws amounted to a double-standard, protecting established Christian religions, and banning anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, while doing nothing to defend Muslims who felt offended....

However, Bernard Bot, the Dutch foreign minister, told reporters: "We have freedom of speech. That means that Mr Gul can say what he wants and I can say what I want. And I think that this [Mr Gul's idea] is superfluous."

Bot, I hope you win.


Article printed from Jihad Watch: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2006/03/turkeys-foreign-minister-asks-the-eu-for-blasphemy-laws-to-protect-islam.html

URLs in this post:
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/13/weu13.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/13/ixworld.html