AS very rightly pointed out by our envoy to the UN, “Islamophobia in particular and discrimination on the basis of religion and belief are contemporary forms of racism and must be dealt with as such. Not to do so would be a clear example of double standards. Islamophobia has to be treated in law and practice equal to the treatment given to anti-Semitism.”

Hate speech laws go further. Germany punishes anyone found guilty of ‘insulting’ or ‘defaming segments of the population’. The Netherlands bans anything that ‘verbally or in writing or image, deliberately offends a group of people because of their race, their religion or beliefs, their hetero or homosexual orientation or their physical, psychological or mental handicap’. It is illegal to ‘insult’ such a group in France, to ‘defame’ them in Portugal, to ‘degrade’ them in Denmark, or to ‘express contempt’ for them in Sweden. In Switzerland, it is illegal to ‘demean’ them even with a ‘gesture’.

Canada punishes anyone who ‘willfully promotes hatred’.

The United Kingdom outlaws ‘insulting words or behaviour’ that promotes ‘racial hatred’. Romania forbids the possession of xenophobic ‘symbols’.

So what is stopping the United States and the European countries from promulgating legislation to prohibit hate speech against Islam and the Prophet.

If they want to preach freedom of speech around the world, they have to practise it and make their hate speech laws more sensitive to the concerns of Muslims and others.

HILAL AHMED Karachi