Are anti-blasphemy laws really on the rise? Consider this: Since the founding of the UN in 1948 till the year 1992, there was no mention of blasphemy in any form under the Declaration of Human Rights. The articles 7, 21, 18 and 19 could have been interpreted to reject the idea that blasphemy is a crime. Jump to half a century later; every year from 1999 to 2006 has seen new resolutions to restrict “Defamation of Religion” introduced through the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by member nations, mostly Islamic. Since 2005, the UN General Assembly has passed a similar resolution every year. I’ll come back to the UN resolutions in a bit, but first I’d like to consider some recent developments in India.

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