“As long as there are still laws in Germany that sanction statements about religious or ideological beliefs in a special way, the fight against the persecution of dissident minorities on an international scale can only succeed with difficulty.”
This is what the President of the Humanist Association of Germany, Frieder Otto Wolf, said on Wednesday in Berlin in response to CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Volker Kauder’s call for the abolition of blasphemy laws in Pakistan. Volker Kauder had previously appealed to the Pakistani government to release Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy, and to ensure her safety. Kauder called on the government to “finally comply with international agreements on human rights”. Kauder’s demand is right and important, said Frieder Otto Wolf. But it is not only in countries with a majority of followers of the Islamic religion in the population that sometimes drastic state sanctions restrict human rights to freedom of conscience, opinion, speech and religion, he reminded the audience. “In Russia and other Eastern European states, too, there are now new laws with the support of the churches that undermine these rights for minorities in the population.” He recalled the enactment of laws to punish so-called “homo-propaganda”, which is intended to prevent advertising for public discussions in society about non-heterosexual identities and advocacy for the rights of homosexual people. “Christian believers and followers of other faiths as well as non-religious and homosexual people are persecuted and punished in many countries on the basis of a ban on blasphemy and similar laws that are directed against freedom of opinion, speech and conscience,” Wolf continued. In Pakistan, the doctor Younus Shaikh was sentenced to death after he founded an association for non-religious people and had to flee to Switzerland. “From a humanist perspective, Kauder’s appeal is therefore an example of hypocritical double standards as well as half-hearted and clientele-oriented commitment to human rights” as long as it does not include all minorities and also aims to abolish the so-called blasphemy laws in this country. Wolf emphasized that the existing laws against incitement to hatred, insult or incitement to commit crimes are completely sufficient. Wolf: “As long as the Federal Republic of Germany protects religious or ideological beliefs in a special way, its politicians and other representatives are making fools of themselves by calling for their abolition in other countries.” It should therefore be clear to all parties that are genuinely interested in a comprehensive safeguarding of human rights: The removal of the superfluous paragraph 166 from the German Criminal Code belongs on the legislative agenda so that political commitment here becomes credible and more authentic on an international scale: “Germany must finally show for itself that it considers these bans to be incompatible with international agreements.”
Further information:
iheu.org: Report Freedom of Thought 2012 diesseits.de: “Those who deviate are persecuted”
