FRIAS Lecture Series - Javier Martinez Torron

Tensions among Human Rights: Conflicts between Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Religion

Limitations on freedom of expression have become a recurrent issue in contemporary times, especially considering how easy it is to spread offensive opinions against people, ideas or institutions via the Internet or social networks. Many important questions arise in this area, beginning with the responsibility of social networks managers or owners to filter and control the information they allow to be published. The focus of this lecture will be on a specific question: the relations between freedom of expression and freedom of religion, which has a double dimension. On the one hand, the acceptable limitations on offensive anti-religious speech. And on the other hand, the freedom of speech of religious leaders, when they touch on sensitive moral issues and their language can be perceived by some people as offending their dignity. Taking the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a point of departure, especial attention will be paid to two issues: the need to distinguish what is legally illegitimate from what is socially or morally unacceptable, and to what extent anti-religious offenses are treated by the law according to the same standards as other types of offensive language.

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