Almost a quarter of the countries in the world punish blasphemy. Research by Pew indicates that while laws restricting blasphemy are found in several countries (including in Europe), they are most common in the Muslim world and unsurprisingly, the notion of blasphemy or “offending religion” also continues to be a particularly sensitive issue in parts of the Muslim world.

In December, a man belonging to the Ahmadi community was shot dead, for no apparent reason, in Pakistan allegedly after religious and media personalities incited hatred against members of that community – a people who have often found themselves accused of blasphemy by the very exercise of practicing their belief.

Earlier that month, in Indonesia, the editor of the prominent newspaper, the Jakarta Post, had been summoned for questioning by the police on blasphemy charges, for publishing a cartoon.

While readers will be quite familiar with the design and application of the blasphemy law in Pakistan and also the sudden spike in the extrajudicial killings carried out to punish alleged blasphemy, this article briefly touches upon the blasphemy laws of three Muslim majority countries which sit in different parts of the world, all of which privilege religion in their national constitution.

It also highlights a worrying trend: blasphemy related charges are on the rise in some countries, and often, for incidents that probably cause more harm to draconian sensitivities and the free exercise of religion than for any, real, tangible or identifiable harm to an individual or group.

While blasphemy laws in themselves need not by design inhibit rights and can have an ostensible purpose of securing public order, in practice, their application has often robbed individuals of precisely the sort of rights that would exist in any state that aspires to become a pluralistic democracy (which does not necessarily mean “secular”).

Indonesia is the most populous democracy in the Muslim world. Its constitution does not privilege a particular religion but refers to “God”; in 1965, it enacted a “blasphemy law”, which makes it a criminal offense to deviate from or defame one of the six recognised religions; it also punishes non-religious belief, making it an offence to “...not practice any religion at all that is based on belief in Almighty God.” The maximum punishment is five years imprisonment. There are also similar provisions “protecting religion” in other laws in Indonesia.

In practice, blasphemy was rarely prosecuted in the country. However, Amnesty International reports that the number of blasphemy convictions” skyrocketed” during former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s decade in power (2004-2014).

It recorded at least 106 individuals who were prosecuted and convicted under the blasphemy laws for offences ranging from expressing atheist beliefs on Facebook to believing and preaching that the current Quran was not the original one revealed.

In 2009-2010 several NGO’s bought proceedings in the Constitutional Court to challenge the validity of the law by arguing that it contravened the constitutional right to freedom of religion, but failed to have the law overturned.

Saudi Arabia is ranked as having the second most “Islamic” constitution in the Muslim world in the Islamic Constitutions Index.

Its blasphemy laws are not clearly accessible (partly because the country claims to base its “laws” on the wholesale adoption of Shariah rather than legislation); there is no formal criminal code but yet the government has used charges of blasphemy against persons seeking to debate the role of religion in relation to the state, as well as promoters of political and human rights reforms.

The USCIRF alleges that the Saudi government has “used criminal charges of apostasy and blasphemy to suppress discussion and debate and silence dissidents. Promoters of political and human rights reforms, and those seeking to debate the role of religion in relation to the state, its laws, and society, typically have been the targets of”.

For example, a person who started a blog discussing religion, politics and other topics in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. The blasphemy law was deployed to silence him; he was charged with insulting Islam. In 2011, an Australian Muslim was charged with blasphemy while he performed the Hajj; he had allegedly insulted the companions of the Prophet. There may certainly be other less known but similar incidents which have not made it in the press. It is hard to get an idea of the trend in blasphemy charges in the Kingdom but one would imagine that with recent expressions of political freedom, the number convicted may not have dwindled.

Iran is ranked as having the most Islamic constitution in the Muslim world. The Penal Code stipulates that blasphemy against the prophets, Shia imams and/or the religious leadership is punishable by imprisonment, unless it is classified as against the Prophet, when it can be punishable by death.

Indeed, blasphemy can be charged under a range of offenses, such as “spreading corruption on earth,” (which is apparently an unpardonable offence and can include acts deemed undesirable by the state), insulting religious sanctities, insulting Islam, criticising the Islamic regime, or deviating from Islamic standards.

In November, an Iranian man was sentenced to death for “insulting the Prophet of Islam” for Facebook posts deemed offensive to the Prophet. Other examples include three years for a Shia history professor and Iran-Iraq War veteran who called for political reforms and 11 years imprisonment — for a senior Shia cleric who advocated greater separation of religion and the state. Bahai’s, Christians, and Sunni and Sufi Muslims, as well as Shia Muslim dissidents and journalists are often the targets of the blasphemy law.

Blasphemy laws do not have to be damaging to rights and conversely; the lack of a law punishing blasphemy does not mean a country has lost all respect for religion.

That is, democracies that respect religion do not necessarily need to impinge on freedoms.

Nevertheless, while intolerance is not unique to Muslim countries and is in fact, also rising in “secular” Europe, these incidents and cases portend a warning: intolerance and authoritarianism masquerading as blasphemy is becoming more prevalent – and for all the wrong reasons – in parts of the Muslim world and this can do little but erode democratic ambitions.

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A map of blasphemy cases in Pakistan from 2009-2014:

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