The ECHR ruling on “defaming” Mohammed is of course absurd and pathetic. But a few points are getting missed:
Austria and many other European nations have had these de facto blasphemy laws for a long time, and in the vast majority of cases they’re enforced against people allegedly insulting Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular. So this isn’t new and it’s not really about Islam per se. Spain and Italy and Austria and others routinely bring cases against people for likewise saying mean things about the Pope, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, etc.
The ECHR isn’t part of the EU and the UK won’t be leaving it with Brexit. It’s tied to the broader Council of Europe, which includes non-EU members. Most notably Russia, which should tell you how truly useless it is.
This is an odd case for Eurosceptics / “anti-globalists” / nationalists to invoke, since this was an instance of an international institution not overriding a law made and enforced at the nation-state level. Their reasoning was ridiculous and wrong, but the result is one of “respecting national sovereignty” if that’s what you care about.
All that said... thank your insult-able deity of choice that here in the United States both our free speech law and the court tasked with enforcing it aren’t nearly as toothless. The First Amendment continues to be the most protective rule of its kind in the world, by far, even compared to other more-or-less liberal democracies.
