Freedom of Speech

Britain is going down the French path. While in France, criticising religion is included in the crime of 'inciting racial hatred', the UK government, which already has a 'racial hatred law' wants to bring in a 'religious hatred law'. While it is true, that as Rushdie writes, Britain is an 'exception to European secularism', secularism is not a safeguard for freedom of speech, as we see in France with the threats to sue the 'intellectual' Alain Finkielkraut for expressing his xenophobic and islamophobic opinions.

Guardian

Philip Pullman:

I'd better say why I would like to be free to criticise religion, and think about its effects on society, without fear of prosecution. Religion is something that human beings do. Like art, it's a phenomenon that has characterised every society we know about. Thanks partly to the Enlightenment, it's been possible in the past couple of hundred years or so to consider religions dispassionately, to look at their historical development, to examine their social effects, to appreciate the art they inspire, to question the philosophical implications of their claims to truth, and so on.