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Legal Limits of a Permissible Criticism of Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Christian Hillgruber

Abstract

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In its present state, Article 166 StGB does not satisfactorily achieve its purpose of ensuring the effective enforcement of the ban on insulting of religious beliefs and religious communities. This is largely because of the difficulty satisfying the “disturbance of the public peace” requirement. In this paper, I first refer to the legal limits of the freedom of opinion in consideration of religion and then argue with regard to Article 166 StGB that the disturbance of peace criterion ought to be eliminated because abuse of religion, in itself, already disturbs the public peace.

Type
Developments
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , 01 April 2016 , pp. 265 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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