Nilanjana S. Roy wrote an article titled At the edge of the abyss, Business Standard, March 14, 2016 AD.
Now, apparently it is a big joke but imagine, virtually impossible to do I now, if you noted that one of your joys was watching a Satanist rocker sing “Muslims To The Lions” or if another Satanist rocker ripped out of a Qur’an during a concert. Now, the get the picture.
Roy note that “One of the few joys of researching blasphemy…is that it’s a fine excuse for watching a Satanist rocker for a Polish death metal band spin his hair expertly as he belts out the lyrics to ‘Christians To The Lions’” and “Behemoth’s frontman Adam Nergal Darski ripped pages out from a Bible when he was onstage in Gdynia, calling it a ‘book of lies.’” He also stated that “the Catholic Church was ‘the most murderous cult’” a statement with which I am empathetic, actually.
Well, we all know that when someone burns or even threatens to burn the Qur’an there are riots, condemnations, death threats, etc. However, when, for example, someone burns, urinates on, tares pages out the Bible no one cares if, that is, they even hear about it as it barely makes the news, see Eric Minerault burns and urinates on a Bible: satanic crime or art? and Marilyn Manson Christophobic hate speech – brave or cowardly? also relevant is Satanist compliments Judeo-Christianity: destroys Ten Commandments.
Roy actually notes that “one element was, luckily for the rocker, missing: there was no threat of violence from mobs, organised or spontaneous, to muddy the blasphemy debate…There’s been unrest in Punjab over the burnings of copies of the Guru Granth Sahib and other Sikh holy books.”
It is noted that “In 2012, the European Union made a strong statement in Darski’s support, citing the definition of freedom of expression.” Well, I would LOVE to hear them support anyone who does likewise with a Qur’an.
Nilanjana S. Roy chronicles that in March 2016 AD the Kerala, Southern India, newspaper Matrubhumi was made to apologize to the “radical Muslim confederation,” the Popular Front of India (PFI) as well as the Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, an Indian group of Sunni scholars and clerics when the paper published something which was taken as an insult to Muhammad. Last year, the PFI was “found guilty of chopping off lecturer T J Joseph’s palm after he was accused of insulting the Prophet in 2013.”
The same paper’s “columnist Dr M M Basheer stopped writing on the Ramayana after a sustained campaign and threats from Hanuman Sena activists, who declared they would not let a Muslim write on a Hindu epic in September 2013 AD.
In 2015 AD the group Shri Ram Sene threatened “to cut off the tongues of writers if they did not stop insulting Hindu gods: this was in the context of threats made to Professor K S Bhagwan and the writer Chandrashekhar Patil. A year after she was forced to go into hiding for publishing an image from Charlie Hebdo in the Urdu paper Avadhnama, editor Shireen Dalvi still faces threats from extremist Muslim organisations, and has no job.”
Early this year, “a court in Anantapur issued a non-bailable warrant against the cricketer M S Dhoni for an old 2013 magazine cover depicting him as Vishnu; the Shiv Sena Hindustan and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad are among those who’ve filed cases against him.”
Also, “comedian Kiku Sharda was arrested under this law for mimicking the godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh; Yogesh Master, the author of the Kannada novel Dhundi, has faced several cases on the charges of offending Hindu religious sentiments” and the “comedian act All India Bakchod apologised to the Archdiocese of Mumbai for jokes that “offended religious sentiment.”
The battle thus becomes freedoms such as of speech vs. blasphemy laws.