We Need to Defend the Right to Offend
Today marks the 26th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie. The horrible events in Paris on January 7 serve as a brutal reminder that the obscurantist spirit of ...
No Blasphemous Miming Here
If you’re planning on visiting an Arab country for business or pleasure, be sure not to engage in any blasphemous dancing, singing, or miming — yes, miming.
On March 24, diplomats ...
A Questionable Victory for Free Speech
For the past two years, the United States, European states, and the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have pretended that their past deep divisions about the ...
No More Apologies
How should a liberal democracy react to violent outrage over private citizens’ purported denigration of Islam? That question has preoccupied Western governments since Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa calling for the killing ...
The Human-Rights Challenge
It is trite to observe that the enjoyment of democracy and human rights is a distant hope for many people in the world. But human rights are threatened not only ...
The Call for a Global Tax
Targeting the G-8, United Nations human-rights officials (“independent experts”) have issued a call for a global financial-transaction tax “to offset the costs of the enduring economic, financial, fuel, climate and ...
Cuba’s Shame
‘He who loses his honor loses everything.” So states one of the propaganda posters, featuring quotations from Fidel Castro, that are ubiquitous in Cuba. How ironic, then, that Castro’s policies ...
The Welfare State and Freedom: A Mismatch
America’s looming presidential election will likely present voters with a clear choice between moving the country further toward a European-style welfare model or bucking the trend of increased public spending. ...
Businesses and Human Rights
Earlier this year, the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) updated its “Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises,” a set of principles for transnational corporations (TNCs). For the first time, ...
Religious Rights
This book is indispensable for anyone seeking to understand the degree to which the freedoms of religion and expression are being violated in Muslim-majority countries, and why this development has ...