Freedom of Religion

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A New Chapter in the Prophet Cartoon Controversy: A Clear Violation of Freedom of Speech in the Making

December 23, 2025

On June 26, satirical magazine Leman published a cartoon, depicting two men with white wings flying over a bombarded city, greeting each other: “As-salamu alaykum (Peace be upon you), I am Muhammad,” “Aleichem sholom (Peace be upon you), I am Moses”. The Istanbul prosecutor's office, claiming that the cartoon depicted Prophet Muhammad and Prophet Moses and held them responsible for the bombardment, launched a criminal investigation on the grounds of public insult to religious values (Article 216/3 Turkish Penal Code). On short notice, the magazine's cartoonist, and four others were arrested; a financial investigation was launched to determine possible foreign financial support for the cartoon; the relevant issue of the magazine was seized; and access to Leman’s social media accounts was blocked. The prosecutor requested sentences ranging from 1 year, 6 months, to 4 years, 6 months. 4 were released after 3 months, whereas the cartoonist's conditional release came after 5 months in detention. The case is still pending.   Despite widespread critique from journalist organisations and…

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ECtHR’s Veil of Ignorance: Intersectionality and Indirect Discrimination in the Belgian Headscarf Ban in School

September 13, 2024

On April 9th, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgment concerning Belgium’s Hijab (Headscarf) ban on wearing visible religious symbols in Schools. The Court, following its previous notorious trial of SAS v. France, continued to allow the creeping erosion of the right to manifest religion under Article 9 of the European…

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Animal Welfare Beats Freedom of Religion

May 22, 2024

Sien Devriendt and Carla M. Zoethout have recently presented, in this blog, the ECtHR judgment of 13 February 2024 in Executief van de Moslims van België et al. v. Belgium (16760/22 et al.), welcoming the change in ethical thinking regarding animal welfare reflected in that judgment. In this post, which is based on a comment forthcoming, in…

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The UN Human Rights Committee Disagrees with the European Court of Human Rights Again: The Right to Manifest Religion by Wearing a Burqa

January 3, 2019

It is perhaps unsurprising to observers of the UN Human Rights Committee’s (HRC) jurisprudence that in the recent decisions of Yaker v France and Hebbadi v France, the HRC came to the opposite conclusion to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) regarding the compatibility of the so-called ‘French burqa ban’ with the right to manifest religion.

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Legitimizing Blasphemy Laws Through the Backdoor: The European Court’s Judgment in E.S. v. Austria

October 29, 2018

This past weekend Irish voters decided, by an overwhelming majority, to amend the Irish Constitution so as to decriminalize blasphemy. Just a few days before this referendum, however, a unanimous Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights gave its blessing to the criminalization of blasphemy, in all but name, in its judgment in E.S. v. Austria,…

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