Danish law does prohibit certain kinds of criticism of religion and religious groups, but the prosecutor concludes that these cartoons didn’t qualify. I’m on the road right now (up at Stanford for a conference on the jurisprudential legacies of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O’Connor), so while I’ve read the ruling I don’t have the time to blog more about it. But for now, the ruling suggests to me that (1) Danish prosecutors are willing to read Danish speech restrictions fairly narrowly, which is to their credit, but (2) despite this, Danish law does on its face bar a good deal of speech that’s critical of religion, and in many cases it will be quite hard for publishers or speakers to tell up front how this law will be applied.
Thanks to Peter Herngaard for the pointer.