Should governments ban the “improper treatment of objects of significant religious importance to a religious community”? That is what the Danish government is suggesting in a new law it announced last week that could see offenders imprisoned for two years. The proposed ban comes after a spate of incidents in Sweden and Denmark in which Qur’ans have been publicly burned, provoking an outcry across the Muslim world.
The answer to the question is both simple and complex. It is simple because any law outlawing any kind of blasphemy is unacceptable and should be opposed. Having abolished its blasphemy law in 2017, for Denmark to seek to reintroduce it in a new form is retrogressive.
