Blasphemy Day

What the day is

International Blasphemy Rights Day is observed on September 30. Its stated purpose is narrow: to defend the legal right to criticize religion, and to oppose laws that make blasphemy a punishable offense.

Supporters frame it as a free expression issue rather than an anti-religious one, arguing that religious claims should be open to the same public examination as political ones. Critics argue that the day licenses gratuitous offense and that mockery of belief falls unevenly on minority communities. Both readings are held sincerely, and the day has been contentious since it began.

Origin and background

The observance was founded in 2009 by the Center for Inquiry, a United States organization promoting secularism and scientific skepticism, after a student proposed the idea. The first year included exhibitions and free speech events in several cities.

The date was chosen to mark September 30, 2005, when a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting Muhammad. The publication led to protests across a number of countries, diplomatic disputes, and violence in which people were killed, and it became a reference point in arguments about speech, religion and offense that continue today.

The legal backdrop is the substance of the campaign. Blasphemy laws remain on the books in a significant number of countries, with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment and, in a small number of jurisdictions, death. Several European countries have repealed theirs in the last two decades. Human rights organizations have documented cases where such laws were used against religious minorities and in personal disputes rather than in defense of faith generally.

How to take part

• Read about the actual cases. Organizations tracking freedom of expression publish documented accounts of prosecutions.
• Learn where your own country stands. Several nations retain unenforced blasphemy provisions that most citizens do not know exist.
• Distinguish the argument from the insult. The case against blasphemy laws does not require mocking anyone's beliefs.
• Read the counterarguments too, particularly from minority religious communities who face the sharp end of both the laws and the mockery.