Protecting Religion: Muslim Opposition and Dissidence against Western Representations of Islam

Abstract

In 2005, 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. This event triggered mass protests and riots by Muslim activists across the world. These protests have not, however, been the only form of resistance to the Western secular liberal order and its preference for freedom of expression over the protection of religion against insult. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) sought to get such protection established as a new norm in international human rights law, through a series of United Nations resolutions banning ‘the defamation of religions’. Despite initial success, the highly contradictory natures of the two norms at issue, amongst others, prevented a lasting change in the normative hierarchy between freedom of expression and the protection of religion.