The West Cannot Let the Muslim World Arrest Voltaire!

David Twersky

During the height of the 1968 uprising by the far left in France, things got bad enough for the interior ministry to recommend to the president the arrest of Jean-Paul Sartre, who from his perch at Les Temp Modernes and cafes on the Left Bank was helping to inspire the revolution.

President Charles de Gaulle famously replied: "One does not arrest Voltaire!"

If Muslim states have their way, all modern and future Voltaires who dare to publicly criticize organized religion will be imprisoned, if not worse. A campaign to criminalize free speech "defamatory" of religion is well under way, although it is only now coming up on the American radar screen.

The leaders of Muslim nations have launched a worldwide campaign to restrict speech critical of religion, expressly citing post 9/11 criticisms of Islam. The 57 Muslim states affiliated with the Organization of the Islamic Conference are using every international, multilateral and bilateral forum to promote these restrictions on freedom.

If the OIC and its allies have their way, any critique of Islam as a faith and as a set of practices will run the risk of being in violation of international law. This campaign has coalesced around proposals by the OIC to various U.N. bodies to criminalize criticism of Islam and other faiths as racist. This effort is under way at UNESCO, and it is a central feature of the emerging agenda for the so-called Durban II conference on racism to be held in 2009. Resolutions seeking restrictions on speech have already passed the Human Rights Council and the Third Committee of the General Assembly.

The campaign rests on the premise that criticism of Islam, or of the behavior of some Muslims, or a critical reading of Islam as a religion, whether historically accurate or faulty, should be considered hate speech and/or racism.

The OIC asks why Holocaust denial is a crime in many European countries, while attacking Mohammed is merely an expression of free speech. The only way to stand up to this assault is to draw a line around protected speech and defend it firmly, even when the result is to allow speech with which we find objectionable. The answer to the OIC is that, in America, Holocaust denial is met with derision and contempt, but not with criminal action.

In the Internet age, you don't have to commit the "defamation" in the country in which you are being prosecuted. People written about in American publications roam the world to search out friendly venues in which to sue them for defamation. This has already happened in the case of Rachel Ehrenfeld, who was successfully sued in Britain by a Saudi, on the grounds that in a 2003 book, she had defamed him by alleging that he is a financial supporter of terrorism.

A group of complainants has filed with a Jordanian court asking that the Danish cartoonist whose now famous sketch depicted Mohammed wearing a turban that was also a bomb be prosecuted under Jordanian law for blasphemy. The Jordanian prosecutor general has formally asked Denmark to extradite the accused.

Many in the West may be tempted to escape confrontation with the Muslim world. We must guard against this temptation. Muslim states must understand that international life cannot be based on the privileged position of Islam in their countries.

Free speech is a core freedom in America. Freedom of religion is another core value. The state cannot interfere with religious practice unless it has a compelling interest to do so. Nor can the state limit speech critical of religion, or of a particular religion, or for that matter of secularism.

Open discussion of Islam must be a central part of the international discourse as we proceed with the violent conflicts with jihadists and Iran and its allies. How can we win the war of ideas if we are prohibited from expressing ideas?

America and Europe should challenge the Muslim world on reciprocity. Muslim states cannot have it both ways, embracing Western values when it suits the propagation of their faith and influence in the West while denying it in their own societies.

In our societies, you do not arrest Voltaire. You may publicly reject his views, but you cannot put him in jail. Everything rests on the basic assertion that if we are to be free, we must be free of state coercion about our ideas or beliefs.

David Twersky writes frequently for the New York Sun.