ABSTRACT
Indeed, no country is without some restrictions on religion and support for these restrictions can be strong. There is strong public support in particular countries for laws aimed, for example, at curbing ‘cult’ activity (as in France), preserving an established church (as in the United Kingdom) or keeping taxexempt religious organizations from endorsing candidates for elected office (as in the United States). There is also strong public support for some restrictions that
prevent criticism or defamation of religion, sometimes with dire consequences. For instance, in response to a Pakistani legislator introducing a bill that would remove the death sentence for insulting Islam after Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman, was sentenced to death for blasphemy, Sunni Muslim clerics organized a 24-hour strike across Pakistan to protest the bill. On 31 December 2010, the BBC reported that mass rallies occurred after Friday prayers in the capital, Islamabad, in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta. According to the BBC report, a Sunni cleric in Islamabad warned in his Friday sermon that any change to the blasphemy law would happen ‘over our dead bodies’ (BBC News 2010). Throughout the country businesses closed and transportation workers walked off the job, including in the southern financial city of Karachi, where demonstrators blocked traffic. To date, no-one convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan has been executed by the government but dozens of people accused under the law have been killed by mob action.
