A woman shows a banner reading I am Charlie for the victims of the shooting at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Martin Meissner, Associated Press

Freedom of speech has taken center-stage in the wake of last weeks shooting at the headquarters of Paris based satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo. The attack is assumed to be a response to Hebdo printing caricaturized images of Mohammad, according to the New York Times.

The hashtag #JeSuisCharlie, a movement aimed to show solidarity for the victims of the shooting and their families, the weekly, and the Parisian community and its right to freedom of expression, continues to trend on Twitter. The Daily Mail reported the hashtag was tweeted over 250,000 times within four hours of the incident.

Few issues have so successfully united both the left and the right in American politics, with almost universal outrage over what most commentators believe to be an attack on the basic human right of freedom of speech.

But freedom of speech, and blasphemy in particular, isnt universally protected around the world, even among many liberal democracies. According to a 2011 study published by the Pew Research Center, 47 percent of the worlds countries have laws against blasphemy, apostasy and/or defamation of religion, including religious hate speech.

These laws are not limited to the countries one might typically expect. European countries such as Ireland, Germany and Denmark, among others, currently have laws against blasphemy and defamation of religion.

Even America has shown discomfort with certain expressions of blasphemy.

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Too much freedom of speech?