Danish government will introduce new law to ban burning the Quran

Governments should not be allowed to burn books.

Private citizens should be allowed to burn any books they own.

Neither governments nor private citizens should be allowed to harm or threaten people who burn their own damn books.

Example: you can purchase a dozen copies of "On The Origin of Species", burn them, and I will very happily not threaten to behead you. Easy.

Blasphemy laws being expanded in 2023. Not what I think people would have predicted in, say, 1990.

While I'm sure most people doing this are just irl trolls looking for outrage rather than making any deeper political point, the return of blasphemy laws to Europe after we spent so long removing them and lowering religions influcance seems like a backwards step.

Soooooo, did Danish government just announce that they will fold and accept any demand if enough people, not necessarily even living in Denmark, make threats of terrorism and murder? Because it kinda sounds like they did...

Woder if it would also work for, I don't know, universal basic income, 3-day weekends or lower taxes?

Kinda unsettles me a bit. To be clear, I don't want violence. But I also don't think that burning an object should be punishable. And that goes for stuff like my country flag, my pride flag, my bible. People should have the freedom of expression, even if their expression is a bad take or a waste of paper and nylon.

I just wish everyone could be more chill. Half the people need to quit being assholes, and the other half need to take 12 seconds to calm down and not freak out over something small. We have much bigger things to freak out about that we should be (constructively) freaking out about, like the collapse of entire food chains due to overfishing.

Fuck religion. Time and time again eroding our rights. Shame on the Danish government who is bending down to violence and superstition.

How about banning public book burning in general? Not a lot of good memories related to that.

Want to keep burning books? Have waste collection services provide a pickup point. Then they can do it in some industrial incinerator so you'll have your book burned but without providing media with an easy outrage (unless you wanted outrage?).

Book burning seems to be a tool of right wing extremism, even when it's used against right wing extremists of some other kind, there's very little benefit to the society.

Also obligatory, fuck organized religion.

Sending clear message that violence is an acceptable and working political tool. Climate protesters need to up their game.

There seems to be deep misunderstanding why this is troublesome.

The Government burning any book is bad.

A private citizen should be allowed to burn any book he/she wants.

It's an exceptionally bad idea to get the state involved in picking which interpretations of a religion are going to be defended.

Cyprus pretty much has this kind of law, and the Chruch loves tormenting even dissenting Christian theologians or prominent people of faith who disagree with the Church with it, let alone critics who aren't part of the religion at all.

Fucking Assholes, Apologists and Democracy Enemies.

Fuck that and them.

Full title: "Danish government to put forward law making burning Quran and other religious texts illegal "

Anybody who publicly mocks or insults the religious doctrine or worship of any religious community lawfully existing in this country will be punished by fine or imprisonment for up to 4 months

So Denmark got this Blashemy Law off of the books in 2017, and they're ready to bring it back.

How about no?

Denmark over here negotiating with terrorists.

Wow, giving in to the threats of people from another side of the planet. Plus don't they really have any idea what it says about non-Muslim people? Especially women? And of course children!?

Can they still draw Mohammed though?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

This comes after a string of public desecrations of the Quran by a handful of anti-Islam activists sparked angry demonstrations in Muslim countries.

It will only aim at actions in a public place or with the intention of spreading in a wider circle,” Hummelgaard said, adding that it would be punishable by fines or up to two years in prison.

Hummelgaard told a news conference that the recent protests were “senseless taunts that have no other purpose than to create discord and hatred.”

Denmark’s government has repeatedly distanced itself from the desecrations, but has insisted that freedom of expression is one of the most important values in Danish society.

Last month, he said the government would seek to legally prevent burnings of the Quran or other religious scriptures, saying it “only serves the purpose of creating division in a world that actually needs unity.”

The three parties in the governing coalition control 88 seats and are also supported by the four lawmakers representing the semi-independent Danish territories of Greenland and the Faeroe Islands.

The original article contains 355 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 51%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Sooo... other countries burning flags of other nations in public is okay, but this is not?

Even if this has whataboutism-character and I appreciate the take of "making it better, even if others don't", I can't deny there is some irony to that.

Can the Danish government ban books thats are against homosexuality?

Hmpf. In my opinion this is not as great a threat to atheism as it may seem. As far as I understand it is still allowed to defame Islamic text in other ways e.g. by shredding or exposure to extreme kinetic forces.

I wanted to say that this is a hot take but it seems a lot of people in this comment section agree, It doesn't matter what kind of book it is. Destroying books is and should very much be a big no no.

I feel bad every time I have to throw out a book. Because it's not only a Symbol of wisdom and knowledge, it is also a testament to a world view, a thought process and identity.

Burning books is the very antithesis of what we consider a modern Society. It directly attacks fundamental rights, if only Symbolically. The right to think freely, to have a different opinion, the pursuit of knowledge to better ourselves and our Surroundings in pursuit of these world views.

To quote Heinrich Heine: "dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen" (Where one begins by burning books, one will end up burning people. )

PS: In search of the correct Quote I stumbled upon this quote by Arnold Zweig: "Wer Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt auch Bibliotheken, bombardiert offene Städte, schießt mit Ferngeschützen oder Fliegerbomben Gotteshäuser ein. Die Drohung, mit der die Fackel in den Bücherstapel fliegt, gilt nicht dem Juden Freud, Marx oder Einstein, sie gilt der europäischen Kultur, sie gilt den Werten, die die Menschheit mühsam hervorgebracht und die der Barbar anhaßt, weil er halt barbarisch ist, unterlegen, roh, infantil"

Roughly translated: "Whoever burns books also burns libraries, bombs open cities, shoots down places of worship with long-range guns or aerial bombs. The threat with which the torch flies into the pile of books is not aimed at the Jew Freud, Marx or Einstein, it is aimed at European culture, it is aimed at the values that humanity has laboriously created and which the barbarian hates because he is just barbaric, inferior, raw, infantile"

For those people who do not understand why this law was made it is because not that long ago in Denmark a crazy man burned the Quran which resulted in a lot of havoc which resulted in hundreds of cars that were either burned or destroyed so for something like that to not happen again they banned burning religious things

Isn't this the government that hates non-white immigrants that's now bending to non-whites abroad? What's going on?

I think it’s a good idea. No one gets anything from publicly burning a book other than maybe demonstrate some kind of opinion?

And it’s a good and easy way to prevent terrorists bombing themselves into heaven in some danish city.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with burning the quran but if it helps to reduce terrorism I am all for it.

Finally they came to their senses and will stop racists and other malicious islamophobes from purposefully inciting intercultural hate and violence. I am not willing to discuss this with you triggered islamophobes, just wanted to leave my two eurocent here, so try harassing me and you get blocked.