Opinionsfrihet och religion

(Freedom of opinion and religion.) This volume is the result of a conference in November 2016 in commemoration of the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act of 1766. The Act was remarkably liberal and is considered an important national heritage in concordance with cherished values in modern Sweden. Usually, stress is laid upon the political significance of the Act. The conference, however, focused on the freedom of opinion in relation to religion, an important issue in the 18th century, and increasingly so today.

Jonas Nordin gives a profiled outline of the conflict between religion and freedom of opinion from antiquity to modernity. Gustav Björkstrand looks into the dramatic discussion of religious censorship in the committee preparing the Act of 1766; it appears to have been on the verge of being abolished. Stig Strömholm relates the fate of freedom of opinion in Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic France, highlighting the role of Benjamin Constant. Mohammad Fazlhashemi provides a Muslim aspect of the topic, describing various strategies vis-à-vis religion of Muslim rulers in the past; he also accounts for contemporary discussions among theologians and philosophers. Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg discusses the relation between freedom of opinion, religion and the rights of women, with examples from the practice of Swedish authorities. Susanne Wigorts Yngvesson compares freedom of opinion to the more ethically coloured concept of conscience. Hans Ingvar Roth deals with the limits of the freedom of opinion, referring to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948. Ove Bring accounts for a number of cases involving the freedom of opinion tried by the European Court. Finally, Ludvig Beckman discusses the possibility of making freedom of opinion, usually considered a collective right motivated by public utility, an individual right.