Canada’s New Blasphemy Laws, by Khadija Khan.
A resolution, M-103, seeking to condemn so-called “Islamophobia,” was introduced a few weeks ago in the peaceful country of Canada by Liberal Party MP Iqra Khalid in the House of Commons, sparking a controversy.
A similar motion, labelled M-37, was later tabled in the Ontario provincial legislature … and was passed … [It] demanded that lawmakers condemn “all forms of Islamophobia” …
Although these motions are not legally binding, extremists have already started demanding them as laws.
There are, of course, no comparable motions against “Judeophobia” or “Christianophobia”.
Neither motion M-103 nor motion 37 exactly define “Islamophobia,” leaving that to the imagination of the supposed victim(s). …
Hardliners who support this form of censorship, and presumably other restrictions required by Islamic sharia law, aim to blur the line between genuine bigotry and criticism of core problems across the Muslim world, such as the murder of apostates and homosexuals, communal hatred, anti-Semitism, violence against women and minors, female genital mutilation (FGM), child marriage, unequal legal and inheritance rights for women, stoning, flogging and amputation, and social taboos such as honour killings or right to choose a husband for girls or restrict girls’ education. …
These issues are genuine concerns for millions of Muslims as well as human rights defenders, but are never addressed by those apologists, who always try to present these atrocities as perfectly acceptable “cultural norms”. …
Shutting out any criticism against hardliner behaviour in the West actually means giving extremists a license to keep on committing atrocities. …
This is the thin edge of a wedge:
Motions such as these are how most Muslim societies — and other authoritarian states — were founded: by depriving citizens of the basic right to express a difference of opinion, and worse, on the pretense of “doing good.”
The blasphemy laws of Pakistan were introduced on the premise of protecting the sanctity of the people’s religious beliefs, but the laws only ended up meting out public death sentences to innocent and marginalized victims.
Under Muslim blasphemy laws, such as those being slowly presented to Canada, such deeds are punishable by death or life in prison.
Unfortunately, blasphemy laws are often interpreted as a state’s permission to attack, lynch or destroy non-Muslim minorities, while the attackers are regarded as heroes for their crimes.
