“There were prophets of Allah other [than Mohammed], but there is no mention of them in human history. There is negligible mention of them. Moses is mentioned, but there is no mention of Jesus in history. But the entire life of Mohammed, who was Allah’s last prophet, is part of history.”

What makes it outrageous is not only the fact that it’s false, but the context in which it was made: Apparently, Khan believes freedom of speech to insult Christianity is fine. It’s just when it’s the other way around that the freedom is objectionable. Witness the fact that in the same speech, Khan launched into a diatribe against those who insult Islam and its prophet Mohammed, saying freedom of speech could not be used “as a cover for hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims around the world.” 

Continuing his breathtaking hypocrisy, Khan urged, “We want the countries of the world to sign a convention which will be called the International Convention on Preventing the Defamation of Religions [my emphasis].” Of course Khan is referring to the defamation of Islam — not necessarily “religions,” as evidenced by his remarks about Jesus. As he explained about the convention, “[This] means that freedom of speech cannot be used as a pretext to hurt the world’s 1.25 billion Muslims.” 

Khan is well on his way to seeing this convention enacted. The European Court of Human Rights recently set a precedent for this when it ruled that defaming the Islamic prophet Mohammed was prohibited and exceeds the permissible limits of free speech in Europe. (This is in contrast to a ruling by the same court which allowed the insulting of Christianity in 2012.) Khan cited this ruling, which significantly bolsters his program. “The European Union’s Human Rights Court said for the first time that you cannot hurt somebody’s religion under the pretext of freedom of speech, and especially it said that you cannot blaspheme against Mohammed’s honor,” Khan noted. 

So, it should not come as a surprise that Khan consistently upholds Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which are predominantly used to persecute and carry out vendettas against Christians and other minorities in the country. As reported by Breitbart, Pakistan was placed on a special watch list for “severe violations of religious freedom” less than a year ago. It made the list for “having engaged in or tolerated egregious violations of religious freedom.”