Religion and free speech
Jeroen Temperman · 2025
This chapter investigates the law and politics of blasphemy and hate speech regulation in Europe. International law developments are considered too, since Europe (sometimes ‘Western Europe’, sometimes as EU, sometimes Europe more broadly) occasionally acts as a block within international institutions, notably when free speech or the ‘limits to free speech’ debates are ongoing within the United Nations.It is contended, first of all, that while a dominant anti‑blasphemy laws paradigm is gradually emerging as far as international institutions are concerned, European case law and State practice remain puzzling and inconsistent. Notably, there appears in some jurisdictions a major discrepancy between what States favour as an international law approach to blasphemy law and what they preach at home. If these perplexities would be overcome by Western states, their expressed international mission to eradicate draconian blasphemy laws worldwide, it is argued, would be much stronger. Secondly, on the issue of hate speech, more consistency – both horizontally, as far as State practice is concerned, and vertically, i.e. strong parallels between international benchmarks and State regulation – than that on anti‑blasphemy laws can be detected. Notably compared with the United States, the raison d’être of laws and case law curtailing hate speech is not questioned in Europe; however, the exact form laws combating hate speech take differs widely as does the concomitant policy debate. This chapter is structured as follows. In the subsequent part (Section 30.2), the ‘law and politics of blasphemy’ is discussed. The next part (Section 30.3) then shifts the focus to the ‘law and politics of hate speech’, followed by some concluding reflections (Section 30.4). In each of these parts, the focus shall chiefly be on the identity of a ‘European law’ or a ‘European policy’ on blasphemy and hate speech respectively. Seeing as that identity is significantly created by how ‘Europe’ manoeuvres at international fora, notably the United Nations, the net will at times be cast a little wider and indicate trends and developments in that area as well.