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Campaign to repeal the blasphemy law

Michael Nugent

There will be a public meeting at 3 pm this Saturday, 15th Sept, in Buswells Hotel Dublin, to shape the campaign for a Yes vote to repeal the blasphemy law from the constitution.

There will be a referendum on 26 October (along with the Presidential election) in which we can vote to repeal this anachronistic offence.

We support the right to freedom of religion or belief, the right to freedom of speech, and the separation of church and State. The Irish blasphemy law infringes all of these principles. It has no place in a modern democratic republic.

Our blasphemy law is harmful. In Ireland, it has caused media outlets to self-censor themselves. Globally, it has emboldened States with more authoritarian blasphemy laws, who have cited the Irish law at the UN to support theirs.

Please attend this public meeting on Saturday where you can help to shape the campaign to repeal this law. We will also hold other public meetings around the country, along with information tables, leaflets, canvasses, and a media campaign.

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The high horse brigade

smacl wrote: »

Link please? Don't see it either in AH or in the threads started by you in your profile.

I saw it, it was locked by a mod but most likely deleted since

Kidchameleon

smacl wrote: »

Link please? Don't see it either in AH or in the threads started by you in your profile.

I need to take care not to discuss mod actions but it appears to have been deleted.

Kidchameleon

smacl wrote: »

Any reason to think you wouldn't? No shortage of taking the mickey out of Allah and friends on the funnies thread here so couldn't see it being an issue on AH.

Just out of interest, would you have a link to an example?

smacl

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Just out of interest, would you have a link to an example?

One of my own posts from just a few weeks back on this very thread; https://touch.boards.ie/thread/post/107571627

Also check the funnies thread for anything on Mo (pbuh) who is regularly depicted as a paedo, or just do a search for Islam on this forum. The burqa thread also makes for some good reading. Islam is not treated with kid gloves here.

smacl

Kidchameleon wrote: »

I need to take care not to discuss mod actions but it appears to have been deleted.

I'm guessing that usually a mod would PM you with a reason for this, i.e. where your post specifically broke the charter for that forum. Difficult to know, but are you sure it was actually for criticising Islam? e.g. If I started a thread saying all Muslims are ****, I'd expect it to be deleted and get reprimanded. Same would be true if I said all Christians are **** or all Man United fans are ****. The offensive bit isn't criticism of Islam, Christianity or Man United, it is calling any group of people ****. Worth remembering there's a difference between criticism and unsupported slagging, even on AH.

Kidchameleon

It was a thread where I asked posters to draw a picture of Muhammad in MSPaint. I was not allowed to start one about Jesus either.

recedite

A person can be a mod on one forum, but only a regular poster on another. And different forums have different regimes. So you can challenge ancapailldorcha to back up an assertion on this forum, but if you made the same challenge on the after hours or politics forums, your post would disappear pronto.

smacl

Kidchameleon wrote: »

It was a thread where I asked posters to draw a picture of Muhammad in MSPaint. I was not allowed to start one about Jesus either.

This clearly shows that the issue isn't specifically about criticising Islam, more about inciting others to blasphemy which as per this thread, is currently illegal. It could also be seen as inciting religious discrimination which is against the charter. What it does illustrate (pardon the pun) is why repealing blasphemy laws are important, e.g. Allah, Jesus, Thor, Unicorns and the Wicked witch of the west, don't deserve protection under the law for pretty obvious reasons. At the same time, it isn't acceptable to discriminate against groups of people (or incite others to do so) based on their religious beliefs.

A core secular principal is balancing freedom of religion with freedom from religion.

smacl

recedite wrote: »

A person can be a mod on one forum, but only a regular poster on another. And different forums have different regimes. So you can challenge ancapailldorcha to back up an assertion on this forum, but if you made the same challenge on the after hours or politics forums, your post would disappear pronto.

Whereas if we challenge you to back up an assertion we don't hear squat :rolleyes:

Kidchameleon

When blasphemy is repealed, I will start a thread (with mods permission) asking people to draw any deity in ms paint, we will see how free we are then.

smacl

Kidchameleon wrote: »

When blasphemy is repealed, I will start a thread (with mods permission) asking people to draw any deity in ms paint, we will see how free we are then.

Excellent, I'll practice my rendition of Ah Pook*. I'm wondering if you'd said any deity to start with would it be allowed already, as in this case it would be neither discriminator or directly blasphemous.

*

Just waiting for someone to come along and say Ah Pook is ficticious and not a real god :pac:

Niska

Kidchameleon wrote: »

As discussed on this thread, the media are afraid to do it, I seemingly wrongly thought Boards would be afraid to host such content. Perhaps I will give it a try...

The Humour forum has both a Mohammed LOL and Jesus lol threads (both stickies):

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=225541

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054885222

Kidchameleon

smacl wrote: »

Excellent, I'll practice my rendition of Ah Pook*. I'm wondering if you'd said any deity to start with would it be allowed already, as in this case it would be neither discriminator or directly blasphemous.

*
Just waiting for someone to come along and say Ah Pook is ficticious and not a real god :pac:

I don't want to pester the mod so I'm not going to ask, but I believe it would not be OK at the moment. I'll wait until the referendum is done.

Kidchameleon

Michael Nugent wrote: »

For examples, feel free to go to my website and use the search box to search for the word Islam.

Hi I went to your website, it is great thank you, lots of great articles. I noticed in the "cartoons" section, there are no pictures of Muhammad, would you consider putting one there? Apologies, I'm not trying to derail the thread, I'm just wondering if we repeal blasphemy, then what is the point if we still have to sensor ourselves?

robindch

Kidchameleon wrote: »

In your opinion, would I be free to start a thread in After Hours, criticizing Islam?

Kidchameleon wrote: »

As far as I know, no person would be able to criticize Islam in this country.

Well, you yourself have made at least one uncivil, blanket assertion about muslims over in After Hours, the incivility of which was not only completely ignored by the mod team there, but by everybody else too:

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Op is very easily offended. Sounds more like a muslim actually...

As ever, it seems that the people telling us that everybody else is easily offended are actually the ones most easily offended themselves.

robindch

Kidchameleon wrote: »

I don't want to pester the mod so I'm not going to ask, but I believe it would not be OK at the moment. I'll wait until the referendum is done.

There are plenty of comments, articles and cartoons critical of islam, just as there are plenty of comments, articles and cartoons critical of other religions too - islam having fewer of them, since it's a much less pervasive religion here in Ireland.

You are entirely free to start whatever thread you like in A+A once you meet the forum charter. Your claim that you're frightened to open a thread because the constitution's provision for blasphemy remains in place is completely ridiculous.

Here, for your admiration, is an open thread with almost 300 posts on the topic of drawing Mohammed. I note that you haven't contributed to it:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=65838472

ancapailldorcha

Schrodinger's right winger. Constantly censuring Muslims and Islam while moaning about being unable to censure Muslims and Islam.

mcmoustache

Kidchameleon wrote: »

When blasphemy is repealed, I will start a thread (with mods permission) asking people to draw any deity in ms paint, we will see how free we are then.

I'll happily join in. I'll see if I can draw the "Mohamed with a bomb in his turbin" costume that I wore to a Halloween party 8 or 9 years ago.

Kidchameleon

robindch wrote: »

Your claim that you're frightened to open a thread because the constitution's provision for blasphemy remains in place is completely ridiculous.

I opened a thread and was warned I would be banned if I opened another one. Its not ridiculous, its literally happening. I asked the mod for the reason and I was not given one so I'm not sure what part of the charter I violated.

*EDIT* Also, where did I claim I couldn't open the thread because of what was in the constitution? I still have not been given a reason as to why the thread was closed and why I received a warning. I may have speculated as to that being the reason but to be clear, I don't know what the reason is.

Kidchameleon

robindch wrote: »

As ever, it seems that the people telling us that everybody else is easily offended are actually the ones most easily offended themselves.

I genuinely don't know what you mean or what a post I made * years ago has to do with it. Could you elaborate. If it helps, I'm pretty sure never said anyone was offended by my thread, if I did could you show me where.

* when was the post you quoted made?

nozzferrahhtoo

Kidchameleon wrote: »

When blasphemy is repealed, I will start a thread (with mods permission) asking people to draw any deity in ms paint, we will see how free we are then.

You could do that but I wonder if it would be useful. That is just being blasphemous for the sake of it.

While there is some argument for doing that to protest the law...... (and Atheist Ireland for example released a long list of blasphemous statements the day it came into effect, including ones related to Islam contrary to your earlier assertion that "no person would be able to criticize Islam in this country.")..... doing so in the absence of the law would appear to be nothing more than being an ass for the sake of being an ass.

You mentioned a thread that was locked within "half an hour" for example. And you are using this as evidence for your thesis on the freedom to critique Islam. I think you are wrong to do so. The mods of boards.ie, and especially After Hours, have an MO of locking down any thread they suspect to have been created purely for the purposes of inciting a reaction from people. I would think it infinitely more likely your thread was closed under that mandate, rather than some narrative about Islam you have going.

As counter evidence to your narrative therefore.....

Kidchameleon wrote: »

In your opinion, would I be free to start a thread in After Hours, criticizing Islam?

consider instead the thread "Is Islam right for Ireland" that existed recently on After Hours. This thread was REPLETE with negative comments, substantiated and merely asserted, against Islam and Muslims. It was only locked after 3300 posts, having run for three months before it was closed.

I entirely randomly just now opened a page on the thread. Page 165. And the first post I saw was "Islam needs to be eradicated.". Three other random posts I looked at just this minute were complaining about how "Apostacy is punishable by death.". While two users cited a murder in Scotland on the The Isle of Bute and how 24 Muslim Refugee families were housed there. Finishing the post with "Anyone want to bet on the last hours of this little girl or who murdered her? "

So to maintain a narrative that critique of Islam is not allowed in Ireland and/or on boards is one that could only be maintained under a regime of entirely ignoring the evidence.

However my advice is simply TRY it. Start a thread. Not one asking for offensive images just for the sake of it.

But maybe start a thread exploring the differences between Islam and other Monotheism, and why those differences specifically make Islam a worse and more dangerous religion than the other ones. Why we should not consider all of them under the single term "Religion" but acknowledge openly and explicitly how some are genuinely worse than the others.

Compare the contrast their founders and personalities too for example. How one big monotheism is based around an unemployed carpenters son turned moral hippy, who had a penchant for story telling and symbolism...... while another big one is based around the "writings" of in illiterate peasant warmonger who we may have good reason to suspect was a pedophile and a cynophobe.

Being offensive for the sake of it and essentially saying "Told you so" when people react will get you nowhere in terms of credibility. Starting a genuinely useful academic "compare and contrast" discussion and getting shut down for doing so however..... likely would. We can see for example what happened when Sam Harris collided with Ben Afleck. It was an example of what Sam Harris has often complained about which is that while he gets backlash, even from moderates and liberals, for his attacks on religion.......... he gets much more backlash, almost entirely from people identifying as liberal....... when he dares suggest one religion is actively and demonstrably worse than the rest of them.

nozzferrahhtoo

On a tangential but somewhat related note I quite liked this video.

It is a shame that the video maker, and the imam (sp?) he was talking to seemed to shut down conversation not because of offense but because one was clearly misunderstanding the other. (15:30 - 15:40 where it finally ended).

But overall the video I think was a nice one. And the closing message of the video owner was a positive take away. Rather than taking a negative message away from the conversation being ultimately shut down, he instead took a message of "After all I have done and said now and in the past, he was still willing to sit down and talk to me".

Odhinn

Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy has made an order appointing October 26 as the polling day for the referendum on blasphemy.
This is the same day as the Presidential election.

https://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/confirmed-the-blasphemy-referendum-will-take-place-next-month-37341625.html

expectationlost

Jim O'Callaghan said that Dermot Ahern's AG was responding to a 1999 case in his 2009 defamation bill, now bills like that do take a long time but jeez https://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2018-09-18a.401#g404

but then the previous AG said it wasn't necessary https://www.kildarestreet.com/sendebates/?id=2018-09-20a.143#g153

Michael McDowell 17 July 1999 6 June 2002
Rory Brady 7 June 2002 14 June 2007

expectationlost

Neither the Iona Institute, the Catholic think-tank, nor the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference will campaign for a “no” vote. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/catholics-will-not-defend-obsolete-law-on-blasphemy-cscrq6qmf media still need to do their job and explain the situation, they don't have to leave it to campaigners

thank gallagher,casey,freeman,niriadha and duffy that this referendum isn't happening on its own otherwise the turnout would be so low

Nick Park

Kidchameleon wrote: »

It was a thread where I asked posters to draw a picture of Muhammad in MSPaint. I was not allowed to start one about Jesus either.

That might be because there are already far too many crap pictures of Jesus.

ELM327

Nick Park wrote: »

That might be because there are already far too many crap pictures of Jesus.

Drawing pictures of Jesus is considered ok by the PC brigade, but drawing satirical photos of muhammad is not for some reason.

Here's an example, lets see if I get banned for this, because I know posting a similar caricature of Jesus would be fine.

nozzferrahhtoo

Man that looks like the Muslim version of the Wolverine. I can just imagine the Jackman abs under his man-burka and the claws.

smacl

ELM327 wrote: »

Drawing pictures of Jesus is considered ok by the PC brigade, but drawing satirical photos of muhammad is not for some reason.

As has been explained already and at length in this thread, that is just bollox. Taking this piss out of any religion or pretty much anything else in the public domain is fair game, but if its humour your aiming at, it kind of helps in you make it humorous. Anyway we all know that Jesus and Mo are great buddies IRL

TheChizler

expectationlost wrote: »

Neither the Iona Institute, the Catholic think-tank, nor the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference will campaign for a “no” vote. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/catholics-will-not-defend-obsolete-law-on-blasphemy-cscrq6qmf edia still need to do their job and explain the situation, they don't have to leave it to campaigners

thank gallagher,casey,freeman,niriadha and duffy htat this referendum isn't happening on its own otherwise the turnout would be so low

Who will be on the no side for "balance" in debates so?