If the powers want to criminalize
criticism of Islam, they will do so by labeling it as such, as Islamic
supremacist groups in the West have been doing for years. This
initiative is very close to coming to fruition, and then Khan can claim
victory.
More on this story.
“Pakistan PM Imran Khan urges the Muslim world to unite and use trade
boycotts to force the West to pass blasphemy laws to protect the
Prophet,” by Rachel Bunyan and James Tapsfield, MailOnline, April 27, 2021:
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has boasted that his
plan for Muslim-majority countries to unite and force Western
governments to criminalise insulting the Prophet Mohammed will work. The 68-year-old leader said lobbying Western nations, the EU and UN
to adopt blasphemy laws with a warning of a trade boycott if they do not
do so will be ‘effective’ in achieving their goal.
He said leaders of Muslim-majority countries should call on the West
to ‘stop hurting the feelings’ of Muslims across the world with their
current freedom of speech laws, reports Pakistani newspaper Dawn. Khan said insulting Islam’s Prophet should be treated in the same way
as questioning the Holocaust, which is a crime in some European
countries.
‘My way is to take heads of all Muslim countries into confidence,’ Khan said in an address on Monday. ‘Together we should ask Europe, the European Union and United Nations
to stop hurting the feelings of 1.25 billion Muslims like they do not
do in [the] case of Jews.’ ‘I want the Muslim countries to devise a joint line of action over
the blasphemy issue with a warning of trade boycott of countries where
such incidents will happen,’ Khan continued. ‘This will be the most
effective way to achieve the goal.’
Khan said Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has already discussed
the plan with four foreign ministers from Muslim-majority countries. Britain’s former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind told
MailOnline that trying to force Western countries to bring in such a ban
would be ‘foolish’. ‘That is a pretty foolish decision. It is not countries that insult
the Prophet Mohammed, it’s individual citizens. However distasteful that
might be, as in Pakistan it is the law of the United Kingdom or any
other country to determine whether they are allowed to do that or not,’
Sir Malcolm said.
He said it should be for the courts to decide whether insulting the Prophet breached the law. ‘We already have laws about hate crimes, which apply regardless of a
particular religion. I do not think there should be a separate law for
one religion.’
Sir Malcolm added: ‘The comparison with the Holocaust doesn’t really
carry weight. If the Holocaust happened elsewhere, something similar,
the reaction should be exactly the same as the reaction has been to the
Holocaust during the Second World War.’
