Can you defame an entire religion? Delhi Courts say 'yes'

The extraordinary decision by a Delhi court to order websites such as Facebook, Google and Youtube to remove “anti-religious” or “anti-social” content is the latest attempt to close the internet stable door long after the horses have bolted. Additional Civil Judge Mukesh Kumar directed 22 social networking sites to remove photographs, videos or text which might promote hatred or communal disharmony. The judge said: “In my considered opinion the photographs shown by the plaintiff having content of defamation and derogation against the sentiments of every community. If the defendant will not be directed to remove the defamatory articles and contents from the social networking websites, not only the plaintiff but every individual who is having religious sentiments would suffer irreparable loss and injury and cannot be compensated in terms of money.” [caption id=“attachment_163072” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Can one person decide what will offend an entire religion? Reuters”] [/caption] No specific religion, community or individual, but everyone. Censors have sometimes stepped in before films are released, such as earlier this year in the United Kingdom when the British Board of Film Classification refused to give an age certificate to horror flick The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence). Decisions from censors often come in for question later, because they are choices based on the gut reactions of individual men and very occasionally women. But a court dictating that material could offend everyone makes it difficult to even question the material. So now an individual has decided what the world can or cannot see? We don’t know what the material in question in this case was. The phrasing of the judicial comments is vague  on whether actual violence was being incited. However, that is also a very different crime to defamation. There is plenty of offensive material online, and much could easily stray into the territory of defamatory, though there are issues of where the material was created and uploaded, national jurisdiction, etc. But it is almost always content that defames an individual, not a group, and certainly not “the planet”, which is a term almost as vague as Judge Kumar’s statements. The individual in this case might have been defamed, but the judgement went beyond that and warned against the offence to religion and society. Who determines whether a religion is “hurt”? And since it seems unlikely that a deity of choice will appear in a Delhi courtroom anytime soon to testify, then it’s not the religion being defamed, it’s religious leaders. Similarly, it’s societal leaders who can be defamed, not an intangible society at large. That would be blasphemy, not defamation. And there you get part of the problem. Individual human beings don’t want to answer any questions about their religion. As of this judgement, you could now, in theory, shut down all debate about religion or faith, on the grounds that someone might claim to be offended on behalf of the entire community. The test is no longer whether a statement or depiction lowers an individual in the estimation of right thinking people, it’s whether a group is offended. That is a potentially profound redefinition of the concepts of defamation. You could extend it to anything and shut down all free speech in advance, by simply claiming the statement or depiction COULD offend a group or society. It is prevention, in advance, of speech, that sounds more like censors in China, rather than a democratic India. The next stages of this court battle will be the key to who can say what, and when.