Abstract

This article is about freedom of speech and the political responses to the blasphemous Innocence of Muslims video, which sparked international controversy in the fall of 2012. Politicians from multiple corners of the world spoke out on freedom of speech and its relation to blasphemy. Whereas one might expect that those politicians would abide by international human rights law, many of them issued Statements that unequivocally undermined the principle of free speech enshrined in those human rights instruments. This article discusses a number of these political statements against the background of human rights standards.