Blasphemy

Arresting a girl for burning a Koran ostensibly for inciting religious hatred, underlines a worrying development. We have essentially created a blasphemy law that grants Islam protections from the normal expression of free speech. Furthermore extremist Muslims have been granted the final say over what is allowed to be said- because it is the implicit threat of violence from those sources that gives the police the incentive to arrest blasphemers in order to keep the peace.