Free speech upheld

The BBC reports:

The editor of a satirical French magazine accused of insulting Muslims by reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad has been acquitted. A French court has ruled in favour of weekly Charlie Hebdo, rejecting accusations by Islamic groups who said it incited hatred against Muslims.

This is certainly good news. I commented on the case in this post, and particularly commended the stand taken by Nicolas Sarkozy in defence of free speech. Note, however, one apect of the judgement, according to the BBC report, that troubles me: "The cartoons were covered by freedom of expression laws and were not an attack on Islam, but fundamentalists, it said."

Do freedom of expression laws not cover an attack on Islam? It is essential that they should. There is nothing wrong with an attack on Islam (or any other sacred belief). There is nothing wrong with giving offence to religious groups. The judgement appears implicitly to reject these principles. Defenders of a free society must assert them militantly. I have an article arguing this point in the excellent and essential Index on Censorship magazine next month, and will be returning to the subject here.

UPDATE: You can listen (in French, from the website of Le Monde) here to the magazine's lawyer comment aptly on "good news for freedom of expression". So it is. Despite my initial suspicion of the notion of tempering speech in the interests of civility, I'm sure the importance lies in the judgement that free speech must be upheld. Those who claim that the state of their religious sensibilities is a justification for punishing speech have been rightly rebuffed.