Why secular Denmark is using a sledgehammer to protect the sacred

By ERASMUS

DENMARK is one of the least religious countries in the world; a poll has found that barely one in five Danes considers faith to be a really important factor in daily life. Yet as of this week, it looks as though Denmark may be one of the very few countries in the Western world where a blasphemy law is in active use.

The country’s state prosecution service has emphatically defended its decision to bring blasphemy charges (and the suggestion of a fine, not a prison term) against a 42-year-old man who burned a copy of the Koran in his garden and then posted a video of the deed on an anti-Islamic Facebook group. "Such an act may be a violation of the blasphemy section of the Criminal Code which concerns public mockery or scorn with reference to a religion," a prosecutor said.

What lies behind this decision? It’s easy to think of reasons why the authorities in any Western country would view the public burning of Islam’s holy text as something against the public interest, an act to be discouraged in any possible way. When Pastor Terry Jones, a Florida-based preacher, threatened to to stage a Koran-burning spectacular, he was told by bigwigs like the then defence secretary, Robert Gates, and David Petraeus, perhaps America’s best-known general, that such an act would put many lives, including those of American soldiers, in danger. But utimately it proved impossible to prevent the pastor from carrying out his incendiary acts, given that country’s robust tradition of freedom of religious and anti-religious expression.

Half a dozen European countries still have blasphemy laws (in other words, laws which criminalise the mockery either of religion in general or of particular faiths) on their statute books, but in most cases they are fast falling into desuetude. Norway and Iceland actually rescinded their blasphemy laws as a response to the murderous attack on a satirical French newspaper in 2015, and the dreadful abuse of such laws in countries such as Pakistan and Sudan.

Denmark considered following suit but a panel of experts recommended in favour of letting the sleeping dog lie. And of course, the Danish authorities have particular reasons to be wary of incurring Muslim wrath. In December 2005, a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The following year, there were anti-Danish riots in many parts of the world and Danish exports were faced with a boycott.

It’s a striking fact the editors of that irreverent newspaper were never prosecuted with blasphemy, despite the massive international pressure, even though the legal basis to bring a charge existed. In fact, Denmark’s anti-blasphemy law has very rarely been used. The most recent conviction was in 1946, of a man who mockingly impersonated a priest. Nobody has been charged since 1971, when two people broadcast an anti-Christian song; they were acquitted. As many libertarians have pointed out, no blasphemy charge was brought in 1997 when an artist burned a copy of the Bible on a state broadcasting channel.

Jacob Mchangama, a Danish lawyer who founded Justitia, a civil-liberties group that monitors freedom of expression across Europe, called the blasphemy charge a giant step backwards for his country. Given that the authorities had held back from prosecuting when Christianity’s holy text was burned, it now seemed that there was a kind of “jihadist veto” on acts of desecration against Islam and its symbols, which did not apply to other faiths, Mr Mchangama said.

On the other hand, the case may yet turn out to be a last gasp for the application of blasphemy laws in western Europe. In the prosecutor’s words, "the circumstances of this case are of a such a nature that the matter should be prosecuted, in order to enable the courts to assess the case." If a judge throws out the charge, then arguably the law will become a dead letter. And if the charge is upheld, then perhaps legislators will be embarrassed into changing the law.

For good reason, most democracies forbid stirring up hatred or violence against vulnerable minorities, and they often have laws against behaviour which is liable in a direct way to lead to a breach of public order. But using the old-fashioned charge of blasphemy (with the implication that religions or philosphical systems have a right to be shielded from attack) is surely the worst possible signal that a liberal democracy could send to a world where trumped-up or malicious charges of blasphemous behaviour are causing untold suffering, from the cities of Punjab to the villages of Nigeria.