ABSTRACT
In this book, the central question has been whether legal prohibitions of religious hate speech violate the speaker’s or author’s right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by article 10 of the ECHR. In examining this question, a number of premises were made: first, freedom of expression, freedom of speech and free speech were used interchangeably; second, the same is true for the terms ‘hate speech’ and ‘incitement to hatred’ which have also been used interchangeably; third, the analysis was confined to religious hate speech that targets people because of their religion or belief, and speech motivated by the religion of the speaker or author against other than religious groups was not addressed; and, fourth, the focus was on the use of anti-Muslim rhetoric by politicians and others contributing to the public debate all over Europe, which meant that the freedom of expression as guaranteed by the ECHR and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights was examined rather than the free speech guarantees under global human rights instruments. Because the focus was on religious hate speech, the right to freedom of religion as guaranteed by article 9 ECHR was also analysed.
