A/HRC/40/58 the sensitivities of others.8 Restrictions on expression involving religion or belief, including anti-blasphemy laws and “defamation of religion” laws, have been promoted on such grounds. Such laws, some proponents argue, contribute to maintaining religious harmony or religious peace. Their intention is to secure the religious sensibilities of adherents of majority or minority faiths against insult or offence and provide protection against ensuing hostility or violence that might arise in response to said affront.9 Some of these proponents hold the view that there are insufficient prohibitions on speech that negatively stereotypes particular religions, and that this poses a threat to global and social harmony and to the rights of individual adherents of those religions. That threat takes the form of discrimination, violations of the right to privacy, heightened racial or religious profiling and violence. For the true believer, some of these advocates would note, convictions held in earnest – such as those inspired by religious belief – constitute an immutable foundation of human identity analogous to race, ethnicity and other characteristics thought to be immutable. As such, attacks on a defining characteristic such as religion or belief (that is, one that persons use to define themselves and by which they are defined by others) are grounds for prohibition in the same way that “hate speech” laws are applied to protect vulnerable persons or groups who are targeted on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. While there are elements of religious intolerance that overlap with racism, equating the two leads to serious problems, as explained below. 26. Furthermore, some States rely on public order laws to limit the expression of views that may offend the beliefs of majority populations. They either prohibit attacks on religious beliefs that could be deemed blasphemous, or limit the expression of views relating to religion or belief that conflict with those of the majority, such as on the role of religion in public life, thereby effectively widening the scope for limitations on freedom to express views relating to religion or belief for purposes that exceed those stipulated in international law. Meanwhile, even in countries where the expression of such views is not restricted beyond what is stipulated in international human rights law, questions remain about how actors in society – such as the news media – should respond to speech that some members of society view as offensive or blasphemous. 27. The range of restrictions imposed on the expression of views relating to religion or belief can be divided into two broad categories. The first category encompasses laws aimed at protecting religion, belief, ideas or icons from criticism, rejection or insult. This includes laws against apostasy, blasphemy and defamation, and public order laws. The second category includes laws enacted in an attempt to protect persons against “hate speech” motivated by religion or belief. 28. More than 70 countries from all geographic groupings of the United Nations had laws against blasphemy and the defamation of religion in force in 2017. Arguably, laws against blasphemy and laws against the defamation of religion are two sides of the same coin. Antiblasphemy laws are an attempt to shield religious doctrine and what is held sacred from criticism, while anti-defamation laws restrict the freedom of expression in an attempt to prevent gratuitous offence to believers, as opposed to belief. The predominant aim of antiblasphemy laws is to protect majority faiths, but some such laws are aimed at protecting minority religions or religious figures as well. At least 20 countries have such laws in place. They usually protect all religions against denigration and, at least in theory, apply equally to majority and minority religions. In some ways, laws against the defamation of religion mimic “hate speech” laws in their intent, but approach their goal of protecting believers from stigmatization, discrimination and violence by protecting them against the vilification of their 29. 8 9 Neville Cox, “Blasphemy and Defamation of Religion Following Charlie Hebdo” in Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression: Comparative, Theoretical and Historical Reflections after the Charlie Hebdo Massacre, Jeroen Temperman and András Koltay, eds. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 59. See, for example, the national laws as summarized by the European Court of Human Rights in Otto Preminger-Institute v. Austria, Application No. 13470/87, Judgment of 20 September 1994, Wingrove v. the United Kingdom, Application No. 17419/90, Judgment of 25 November 1996, and E.S. v. Austria, Application No. 38450/12, Judgment of 25 October 2018. 7