Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

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While many nations where Christianity is the dominant religion also have a tradition of separation of church and state which dates back to the enlightenment, many of them still have historical blasphemy laws on the books which were once enacted to protect Christian beliefs, and which are occasionally enforced. As an example, there are blasphemy laws in Norway. However, the last person to be charged for blasphemy was Arnulf Øverland in 1933; he was acquitted.

In March 2005, Austrian writer Gerhard Haderer published the book "The life of Jesus" where he depicted Jesus smoking a joint, and as a surfer on lake Genesaret. He was called for a hearing in Greece and was sentenced for 6 months for blasphemy, but the sentence was later revoked. In general, satirizing religion is more widely accepted in these countries. On February 4 2006, for example, during the Muhammad cartoon crisis, the International Cartoon Festival in Belgium chose a 'yawning Christ on the cross' as winner.

Countries with strong Christian religious fundamentalist movements, such as the United States, have also seen frequent protests against movies, books, and other publications considered blasphemous or pornographic by these movements, sometimes culminating in public book burnings and calls for censorship. For example, the release of The Last Temptation of Christ resulted in death threats for director Martin Scorsese and one incident in France where a theater showing the movie was attacked with molotov cocktails, injuring thirteen people, four of whom were severely burned.

Some critics have claimed that Western prohibitions on freedom of speech are hypocritical, protecting groups like Jews or blacks while allowing attacks on muslims like the cartoons. Typical cited examples of this are bans on holocaust denial or hate speech. However it should be noted that Western counties typically draw a sharp distinction between secular matters of race or humanist ethics and the purely religious. Thus the Islamic prohibition on depictions of Muhammed is not considered an appropriate basis for the limitation of free speech. Other acts such as compromising national security, libel, or purely racist speech are usually considered outside the protection of free speech. However it is the case, especially in the United States, that usually even this kind of speech is tolerated so long as it is not seriously intended or is only published by a fringe group.