Blasphemy Law in Ireland

Cabaal

Ok so the law has been in place since 2009,

The question is given the amount of "Blasphemy" posted in The Funny Side of Religion thread and other types of threads, what exactly would have to be said or done to be prosecuted under the law?

Has anyone been prosecuted with this law yet?, I'm guessing people have tried to say/do something that might lead to the law being used.

nozzferrahhtoo

Cabaal wrote: »

what exactly would have to be said or done to be prosecuted under the law?

My understanding of it.... which is almost none to be honest... is that no one really knows.

For example the wording of this law suggests that a "significant number" of adherents to a religion must be offended. No one knows what significant number means however.

For example if it is a % then you would only need a handful of Wiccans to be offended at something in order to proceed with the law. You would need a really relatively large number of catholics however. Pretty discriminatory against catholics

If it is a quantity however... say 100 people.... then the law discriminates against the smaller religions in that you would be hard pushed to find 100 wiccans, let alone manage to offend all 100 of them.

But as I said my knowledge on this "law" is low and there are people posting here like Micheal Nugent who have invested a lot of time in it so perhaps they will post too and clarify the current position.

Cabaal

But surely saying "there is no god and anybody that believes in skyfairy's are silly" would offend pretty much any practicing catholic (so not 80% of Ireland then :P ).

Seems its on the books just to please somebody, also if significant number is true then yeah it could be used more by the smaller belief systems then larger one's like Catholicism

o1s1n

Cabaal wrote: »

But surely saying "there is no god and anybody that believes in skyfairy's are silly" would offend pretty much any practicing catholic (so not 80% of Ireland then :P ).

Just because someone disagrees with something it doesn't mean they're automatically offended.

the_syco

Cabaal wrote: »

But surely saying "there is no god and anybody that believes in skyfairy's are silly" would offend pretty much any practicing catholic (so not 80% of Ireland then :P ).

I'm offended that you think I'd be offended by you implying that skyfairys are silly, and thus implying the Lock Ness Monster doesn't exist :pac:

=-=

If someone claims I was blasphemous against their religion, could I claim by default, that they were blasphemous against my religion?

Peregrinus

Cabaal wrote: »

Ok so the law has been in place since 2009,

The question is given the amount of "Blasphemy" posted in The Funny Side of Religion thread and other types of threads, what exactly would have to be said or done to be prosecuted under the law?

Has anyone been prosecuted with this law yet?, I'm guessing people have tried to say/do something that might lead to the law being used.

No prosecutions yet, and I wouldn't hold my breath.

Nobody has been prosecuted for blasphemy in Ireland since 1855, and the new law is set up to ensure, so far as possible, that nobody is likely to be.
They didn't adopt this law because they wanted to prosecute blasphemy; they adopted it because the alternative was holding a referendum to amend the constitution to elminate references to blasphemy. It reflects no credit on them that they chose to adopt the law rather than to hold the referendum, but I think fears of a police crackdown on religious controversy would be a bit exaggerated.

Peregrinus

Cabaal wrote: »

But surely saying "there is no god and anybody that believes in skyfairy's are silly" would offend pretty much any practicing catholic (so not 80% of Ireland then :P ).

Practising Catholic here.

I'm not offended by your claim that "there is no god".

I'm not really offended by your claim that "anyone that believes in skyfairies are silly". (I'm offended by your grammar - "anyone" is singular - but that's another story). If I were offended, it would be because I would understand you to be calling me silly. But by no stretch of the imagination can calling me silly be considered to be a blasphemy.

Cabaal wrote: »

Seems its on the books just to please somebody . . .

It's on the books because the Constitution requires it, and the Supreme Court has pointed this requirement out. Adopting a blasphemy law was judged to be less politically costly that holding a referendum to amend the Constitution to remove the requirement. Not that the electorate is devoted to keeping the crime of blasphemy, but they really hate referendums.

(Not that I'm defending the decision to adopt the blasphemy law; it was a totally gutless way to deal with the problem. Nevertheless, it remains the fact that there is absolutely no political will to prosecute anyone for blasphemy, and the setup of the law reflects this.)

Doctor DooM

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm not really offended by your claim that "anyone that believes in skyfairies are silly". (I'm offended by your grammar - "anyone" is singular - but that's another story). If I were offended, it would be because I would understand you to be calling me silly. But by no stretch of the imagination can calling me silly be considered to be a blasphemy.

Everyone's silly about something. It would be very silly, indeed, to not accept your thoughts on some topics are silly!

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's on the books because the Constitution requires it, and the Supreme Court has pointed this requirement out. Adopting a blasphemy law was judged to be less politically costly that holding a referendum to amend the Constitution to remove the requirement. Not that the electorate is devoted to keeping the crime of blasphemy, but they really hate referendums.

(Not that I'm defending the decision to adopt the blasphemy law; it was a totally gutless way to deal with the problem. Nevertheless, it remains the fact that there is absolutely no political will to prosecute anyone for blasphemy, and the setup of the law reflects this.)

I'm no expert either but I believe the law is so delibrately ill defined that any statement deemed "of artistic worth" is exempt from it. I think it'd actually be difficult to make a blasphemous statement without being able to argue it's of artistic worth to someone (it's intended to shock! It's intended to make people think! It's intended to make people confront their own preconceptions... and so on).

I too think it was a cowardly way to deal with the problem.

oldrnwisr

Peregrinus wrote: »

They didn't adopt this law because they wanted to prosecute blasphemy; they adopted it because the alternative was holding a referendum to amend the constitution to elminate references to blasphemy.

I'm sorry Peregrinus but as much as I've seen this line of argument used before, I don't buy it.

The thing is the problematic section of the constitution is 40.6.1:

The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.

provides for the offences of blasphemy, sedition and indecent publication.

However, in 1999, the judge in Corway v. Independent Newspapers held that since the offences weren't sufficiently precise in their definition that they were essentially unusable and were effectively scrapped as offences.

While the government have attempted to rectify this by codifying the offence of blasphemy under Section 36 of the Defamation Act 2009, why then did they scrap the offences of sedition and indecent libel under Section 35 of the same act. Why attempt to fill one constitutional void and leave another untouched? That's the real question here.

Banbh

There may have been an attempt by the Fianna Fail/Green Party government to curry favour with Islamic states for financial gain. (Shocking, I know.) At that time there was a document circulated explaining to Revenue officials sharia law and Islamic bank loans. Also, DCU ran a course in Islamic business in Ireland.
It was feared that decriminalising blasphemy would send the wrong signal.
The law was welcomed in Islamic countries at the time and was used by Pakistan to justify its own, barbaric laws in this area.

Peregrinus

oldrnwisr wrote: »

I'm sorry Peregrinus but as much as I've seen this line of argument used before, I don't buy it.

The thing is the problematic section of the constitution is 40.6.1:

The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.

provides for the offences of blasphemy, sedition and indecent publication.

However, in 1999, the judge in Corway v. Independent Newspapers held that since the offences weren't sufficiently precise in their definition that they were essentially unusable and were effectively scrapped as offences.

While the government have attempted to rectify this by codifying the offence of blasphemy under Section 36 of the Defamation Act 2009, why then did they scrap the offences of sedition and indecent libel under Section 35 of the same act. Why attempt to fill one constitutional void and leave another untouched? That's the real question here.

There’s two issues here.

First, the Supreme Court in Corway went a little bit further than you suggest. They didn’t just declare that the common law offence of blasphemy was inconsistent with the Constitution; they also said that the Constitution required that there be an offence of blasphemy and that it was for the legislature to define that offence. And in making those last points, the Court was reiterating points made by the Law Reform Commission some years earlier.

The result was that, constitutionally, there were only two options; amend the Constitution by referendum, or enact a blasphemy law. I wish they had chosen the former, but they chose the latter. That’s regrettable; deplorable, even, but it’s doesn’t arise out of any desire to prosecute unpopular opinions about religion, and the suggestion that it does is not very convincing. It suggests a bit of a persecution complex, to be honest.

Second issue; why have they legislated about sedition and indecency? Because we already have laws in place criminalising sedition and indecency, and the Supreme Court has not struck them down on constitutional grounds. Contrary to what you suggest, Corway said nothing about sedition or indecency, and the reasons the court advanced for striking down common law blasphemy would not apply to sedition or indecency.

Banbh

https://www.constitution.ie/OnlineStreaming.aspx
Today the Constitutional Convention will be discussing the blasphemy clause with submissions from all your favourite organisations. It could make for interesting television.

Gordon

Starts at 09:30, nice one.

Gordon

Just switched it on quickly and heard a mention of the recent blasphemy incident on Boards.ie!

Delirium

what incident was that?

Gordon

Probably this one but I didn't hear the full sentence.

RangeR

Gordon wrote: »

Probably this one but I didn't hear the full sentence.

Down with that sort of thing.

Turtwig

1% majority voted to get rid of the current law. Not exactly sure what to think of the 'incitement to religious hatred proposal' surely incitement to hatred would have be enough. Why tack on 'religious'?

Hotblack Desiato

Special treatment for religion again :rolleyes:

Amirani

Here's the press release on the result for those interested: https://www.constitution.ie/AttachmentDownload.ashx?mid=b7d9c660-a044-e311-8571-005056a32ee4

I really would've hoped for more unanimity in the results.

Akrasia

Ah ****e
'incitement to religious hatred' could be even worse than the Blasphemy law because
A) It's more likely that it would be invoked
It would be much less messy for the courts to prosecute

There is no hope that this legislation would be drafted to prevent religiously inspired hatred (example, hatred of homosexuals, hatred of unmarried mothers, hatred of women, hatred of women who seek to be independent and educate themselves)

Instead it would be drafted so that hatred is ok as long as it is a part of a religious doctrine, and make it illegal to hate that religion for it's hateful doctrines.

Banbh

This will be an even more restrictive law. At the moment if I say that Islam is an evil movement, its members would have to prove that this causes them offence. With the provision envisaged by the Convention, if I say Islam is an evil movement then a Garda can come knocking on my door and charge me on foot of a complaint by any individual.

RangeR

Banbh wrote: »

This will be an even more restrictive law. At the moment if I say that Islam is an evil movement, its members would have to prove that this causes them offence. With the provision envisaged by the Convention, if I say Islam is an evil movement then a Garda can come knocking on my door and charge me on foot of a complaint by any individual.

To be fair, that's taking what we said out of context. In all of our conversations we were not talking abut individuals but a substantial majority being offended.

Zillah

No no no no no no no no no

This is why we can't have nice things. We're morons. They're making it worse. They're making it worse. Sometimes I really hate this country. They're going more UK than US, which is horrible considering the UK essentially removed freedom of speech over the last decade.

EDIT:
Actually, we already have hate speech provisions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitement_to_religious_hatred#Ireland

The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989, proscribes words or behaviours which are "threatening, abusive or insulting and are intended or, having regard to all the circumstances, are likely to stir up hatred" against "a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community or sexual orientation."

Is that not good enough? Do they need additional redundant legislation just for religion?

Banbh

RangeR: In all of our conversations we were not talking abut individuals but a substantial majority being offended.

There is a church of Pentecostal Salvation of Brazil in a town near me that has about 10 members. Thirteen would be a substantial majority. If I offend Catholicism, a substantial majority would be in millions.
If it becomes a crime to offend religions - and let's be clear that this is exactly what is proposed - then any individual can make a complaint to the Gardai and they must act upon it, just as if a complaint was made regarding a theft or assault.
No law could be enforced that includes 'a substantial majority'. Either something is an offence or it is not; numbers cannot come into it.
I am sorry to see progressively minded people and democrats falling for such a simple ploy from the reactionaries in the Catholic Church and Islam.

RangeR

Banbh wrote: »

There is a church of Pentecostal Salvation of Brazil in a town near me that has about 10 members. Thirteen would be a substantial majority. If I offend Catholicism, a substantial majority would be in millions.
If it becomes a crime to offend religions - and let's be clear that this is exactly what is proposed - then any individual can make a complaint to the Gardai and they must act upon it, just as if a complaint was made regarding a theft or assault.
No law could be enforced that includes 'a substantial majority'. Either something is an offence or it is not; numbers cannot come into it.
I am sorry to see progressively minded people and democrats falling for such a simple ploy from the reactionaries in the Catholic Church and Islam.

I did not say religious majority. I'm done with being defensive on what we discussed over the weekend. You are grosly mis interpreting what we discussed, to your own ends. You come across as just looking at the outcome and not having viewed the plenary sessions over the weekend.

Look, I consider myself an Atheist. I'm against blasphemy being in our constituion. I voted for its removal from our good book as the book is a book of principle, not specifics. I also don't agree with it being a crime either and voted accordingly.

Banbh

You misjudge me. I have attended one of the public consultations and I watched as much as I could of the session on Saturday. I think those privileged to be part of the Convention should take the opportunity to discuss the issues raised wherever possible.
I'm sorry you find me blunt but then forum discussion has to be to the point.
If you wish to continue, I would be interested to know what the concept of giving offence involves - or what it was understood to mean at the weekend.

RangeR

Banbh wrote: »

You misjudge me. I have attended one of the public consultations and I watched as much as I could of the session on Saturday. I think those privileged to be part of the Convention should take the opportunity to discuss the issues raised wherever possible.
I'm sorry you find me blunt but then forum discussion has to be to the point.
If you wish to continue, I would be interested to know what the concept of giving offence involves - or what it was understood to mean at the weekend.

Sorry. Uber busy and ....sick

Fair enough.

I think those privileged to be part of the Convention should take the opportunity to discuss the issues raised wherever possible.

I would tend to agree, except for those who would like to remain anonymous. I will also be at the Dublin roadshows to have a chat. Bear in mind, I'm am socially inept and don't talk much I'll be at DCU.

Just in case you missed them, I discussed every CCVEN item on boardsie, since well before it started. They may have been missed by most as they are in the Political forum.

Not going to spam the list here as it's OT but the one on Blasphemy is here. It didn't get a lot of traffic, unfortunately.

I'll be honest. I didn't give my best, for a change, this weekend. I was in a very bad car crash [thankfully everyone walked away] the bank holiday Monday and had to retire at 2:30pm on Saturday, so I'm not sure what was said after. I believe there was some Islamic guy on.

The guy on, name escapes me, early on Saturday gave [what appeared to be] a balanced view on the current situation and why it wouldn't be workable, in both the Constitution and the Defamation Act 2009. It's not a long talk, maybe 10 or 15 minutes. It was the bald guy, who did powerpoint karaoke. A good bit of it related to proportionality of crime vs punishment. The guy who spoke before him had some good insight too.

They are good viewing, and I'm sure they are on YouTube ccven channel. YT is blocked here in work so I can't search and link them.

Banbh

Thanks for that and look after yourself. I think it is being well teased out in the media now.
Regards,
B

robindch

A guy from the mosque in Clonskeagh ruminates about the provision for blasphemy in the Constitution.

There more facepalm in his prose than anybody should ever have to read through.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/blasphemy-offence-is-vital-to-our-peaceful-coexistence-29994418.html

Ali Selim wrote:

THE Convention on the Constitution recommendation that the offence of blasphemy should be abolished is an unwelcome upheaval inconsistent with the Irish heritage of religiosity. This convention is sometimes based on similar situations in other countries, and sometimes it is because blasphemy legislation is abused in other countries. Every country is different and Ireland should remain unique.

Religion promotes peaceful co-existence in society, as most religions promote peace and harmony. Religions are pro-life since life has a sound doctrinal value. Religion dictates how one is expected to live with others in harmony. It sets the basic norms and customs of society. Religion teaches us about God. Religion reinforces the collective conscience. In a world where tragedy is the norm, religion gives us a reason and a purpose.

Nevertheless, the place of religion in society has become increasingly contentious in recent years. Despite the divergence when it comes to the definition of religion and despite the existence of various religions, believers of all faiths consensually state that certain aspects of their religion are holy and hence should be respected by others. This respect, deemed a fundamental component of co-existence and social mutuality and reciprocation, does not entail sharing others' beliefs but of simply not offending such believers in this regard.

According to Islam, God, angels, holy scriptures, prophets, disciples or companions and places of worship are to be protected by the state against any publication or utterance of blasphemous matter. Islam advocates freedom of expression. Nonetheless, there is a big difference between the way Islam advocates freedom of expression and today's advocates of freedom of expression, since the former promotes the uniting of mankind and cultivating love and understanding among mankind and thus creating a healthy atmosphere for co-existence, whereas the latter advocates individualism.

In order to achieve this, Islam instructs Muslims to be truthful. Islam instructs Muslims to do good. Islam guarantees to all people, regardless of their faith and race, the right of disagreement. In fact, it encourages people to make up their own minds applying their mental faculties. Islam is pro-freedom of expression but it pre-empts frictions by prescribing certain rules of conduct, which guarantees for all people freedom of expression as well as justice and the right to disagree. Unlike today's advocates of unrestrained freedom of expression, who cultivate confrontation and antagonism leading to provocation of every kind, Islam instructs Muslims to refrain from inappropriate speech.

Islam does not criminalise academic papers and scientific works provided that they are not generated by prejudice and do not apply offensive language. Mocking at religious values should not be tolerated. Hence, we should be grateful to the Irish constitution that protects peaceful co-existence. Article 40.6.1° of the Constitution protects freedom of expression, and at the same time protects religion by providing for an offence of blasphemy in the following terms: "The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law."

The above-mentioned philosophy of Islam gave rise to a phalanx who accuse Islam of being anti-freedom of expression or state that Islam censors freedom of expression. This is a fallacy. Islam preaches responsible freedom of expression. The Danish cartoon, for instance, created a rift domestically and internationally. Members of the same country became enemies. What common good did the Danish cartoon achieve? In Ireland, the 1999 case of Corway vs Independent Newspapers concerned a cartoon that depicted three politicians walking away from a priest offering Holy Communion, and in a play on the wording of a particular "No" campaign in the 1995 divorce referendum slogan, it stated: "Hello Progress – Bye-Bye Father?"

The applicant sought leave to mount a prosecution for blasphemous libel on the basis that the cartoon was calculated to insult the feelings and religious convictions of Catholic readers by treating the sacrament of the Eucharist and its administration as objects of scorn and derision. What common good did this cartoon achieve? Many may argue that it is the privilege of freedom of expression. We argue that the right of freedom of expression, just like all other rights, should be expressed responsibly. Your freedom ends where mine starts. Our society should be a society of principles and then privileges, and not privileges and then principles.

While many may argue that the blasphemy article is a microcosm of the current religious climate in Ireland, we, despite the fact that we accept that it is a matter of perspectives, perceive it as a fundamental component of the harmony spread all over Ireland.

Zillah

Shut the fuck up, Ali.

Turtwig

Isn't that Ali guy the same guy who was on Pat Kenny a few years back and claimed there was no such thing as gay muslims? I might of course be mistaken.

Nodin

Jernal wrote: »

Isn't that Ali guy the same guy who was on Pat Kenny a few years back and claimed there was no such thing as gay muslims? I might of course be mistaken.

*cough splutter....

Rrright.

"Seven Pillars Of Wisdom" by TE Lawrence is an interesting read...all I'm saying.