Is blasphemy press freedom or crossing the line?

Following the International Press Institute (IPI) world congress in Belgrade, where a session focused on the limits of tolerance and the issue of publishing blasphemous content, such as the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark, IPI will make a programme-length video about the issue of blasphemy.

This is a good initiative in the wake of the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed by 17 Danish newspapers, three years after the initial row.

"Deciding where to draw the line, or whether there should be a line, would be a major step forward, if it's done in a sensitive and sensible way," wrote the Guardian's Roy Greenslade.

The debate between proponents of unrestricted press freedom and those who advise cautious self-censorship will undoubtedly drag on, but IPI's initiative may help to throw light on these issues.

UPDATE: A Danish appeals court rejected today a suit filed by seven Muslim organizations against the editors of the Jyllands-Posten, which first published the Mohammed cartoons in 2005. The court found that the most controversial of the cartoons, depicting the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, was "of a satirical nature" and "does not refer to Muslims in general or to the (plaintiff) organisations or their members," reported the AFP. The court also stated "that terrorist acts have been committed in the name of Islam, and it is not illegal for these acts to be made the object of satirical representation."

Source: Roy Greenslade