>"Hate Speech", defined essentially as any form of discrimination whatsoever, has been made illegal in Europe following the growth of the anti-immigration far right.
You are mixing up hate speech laws and blasphemy laws. While hate speech laws are pretty common in EU, blasphemy laws are vestige of the past, and in just few EU members (e.g Austria and Germany).
I mean what is the functional difference between a hate speech law and a blasphemy law? Seems it's just a subset of hate speech and is relevant to the conversation.
But legally they are two different things. Just because you feel it's a subset of hate speech that doesn't mean it is.
In a lot of countries with hate speech laws, but no blasphemy laws, this would be allowed. She did not say anything about the people following Islam but about a religious figure, these are not the same thing.
They have distinct targets. Hate speech laws forbid speech against groups of people, not against ideas and religious characters. Verbally attacking christians or muslims may fall under hate speech laws, while verbally attacking Christianity, Islam, Jesus or Mohammad does not. But it would fall under blasphemy laws.
In this case it is useful to carefully read what I have said and to take stock of the definitions. "Illegal hate speech" is currently defined as inciting violence or hatred against specific people based on some characteristics. In the larger context which I have mentioned, there is a correspondence between various EU multi-national and national governmental agencies, hundreds of NGOs and "The IT Companies"(Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, etc..) that establishes more specifically how these rules are implemented in the context of "hate".
In many countries “hate speech” is illegal, the US is one of the few with truly free speech. Pro Nazi and racial incitement speech is illegal in France, Germany and Austria AFAIK. Here in South Africa too. Even though I’m for free speech, I feel this is understandable and defendable.
Source? This is not true in my experience.