Friday, May 30, 2014

The Countries I Would Not Want To Visit

... or live in, for that matter.

Here is an interesting article in the Washington Post, that shows what countries in the world have apostasy laws (you get prosecuted for leaving your religion) and blasphemy laws (NO freedom of speech):

MAP: Where offending a religion could get you executed

Unfortunately, my native Poland is on the list of countries with an active blasphemy laws. Not only it has that law on the books, but it is used pretty often to silence people from expressing their views. The cases are numerous: here, here and here (in Polish).

Blasphemy laws are just a way to limit free speech, and there are no excuses for them in civilized countries. We all should have complete freedom of discussion of any topic, as that's the only way to ensure that all ideas have a chance to be heard. Bad ideas and crazy beliefs should be eliminated from the public forum, buy showing their weaknesses, not by legislating them out of existence.

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