Sweden criticises Ireland

RonMexico · 18-08-2009 12:06PM #1

A Swedish MP says he has lodged a complaint with the European Commission over Ireland's new blasphemy law.

Karl Sigfrid, a conservative member of the Swedish Parliament, says he is concerned that Swedish citizens travelling in Ireland 'could be punished for merely expressing a view on a religion or religious symbol'.

Mr Sigfrid said it was bad legislation that could spread to other EU member states.

Writing in the EU Observer, the Swedish MP said the new law was inconsistent with human rights laws under existing EU treaties.

He said that defining blasphemy as speech that offends a substantial number of religious followers gives the churches the power to gradually expand the application of the law.

Mr Sigfrid said: 'A not too far-fetched guess is that statements threatening the power of religious leaders will awaken the strongest reactions and therefore be considered the most offensive ones, resulting in punishment by the state.'

He also said the new law contravened the European Convention on Human Rights.

Hopefully the Swedes will help banish this ridiculous law, and I thought they were only good for the pron :pac:

_blank_ · 18-08-2009 12:07PM

About god-damn time

phasers · 18-08-2009 12:10PM

Oh yeah?

well IKEA sucks

andrew · 18-08-2009 12:10PM

Sheesh, it's not as if they ever intend to enforce this law you know. The chances of anyone being prosecuted are slim to none, it's just some law they had to throw on the books as a legal formality.

Long Onion · 18-08-2009 12:12PM

Mohammad, Jesus and Buddha walk into a bar ....

AnonoBoy · 18-08-2009 12:13PM

Good for Sweden.

Next!

major bill · 18-08-2009 12:15PM

This law is a load of sh1t anyway talking about getting arrested for slagging someones invicible friend!!!!

Lux23 · 18-08-2009 12:18PM

andrew wrote: »

Sheesh, it's not as if they ever intend to enforce this law you know. The chances of anyone being prosecuted are slim to none, it's just some law they had to throw on the books as a legal formality.

Then why waste money introducing it? Why does it need to be on the books as a legal formality?

Jumpy · 18-08-2009 12:21PM

Lux23 wrote: »

Then why waste money introducing it? Why does it need to be on the books as a legal formality?

So the mohammed cartoon issue doesnt happen over here. Its just to stop people getting Ireland into ****e with the Muslim hardcores. It prevents people doing it just to get a rise.

LadyJ · 18-08-2009 12:22PM

Lux23 wrote: »

Then why waste money introducing it? Why does it need to be on the books as a legal formality?

Isn't it illegal to tape stuff off the tv/radio? That's never really enforced either.

ShooterSF · 18-08-2009 12:23PM

Jumpy wrote: »

So the mohammed cartoon issue doesnt happen over here. Its just to stop people getting Ireland into ****e with the Muslim hardcores. It prevents people doing it just to get a rise.

Why shouldn't the mohammed cartoon thing happen? It's the fundamentalists that should be punished if anything happens.

RonMexico · 18-08-2009 12:24PM

I think we should invite Sweden to test the validity of this law by sending over two of their finest underwear models to cavort in front of the Holy Tree Stump in Rathkeale.

Riskymove · 18-08-2009 12:25PM

so one swedism MP criticised one law we are bringing in?...therefore "sweden criticises ireland"......do you work for the indo?

Jumpy · 18-08-2009 12:27PM

ShooterSF wrote: »

Why shouldn't the mohammed cartoon thing happen? It's the fundamentalists that should be punished if anything happens.

Back to the real world now... There are crazy people on the planet that take things more seriously than us. Its easier to prevent the antagonists than it is to stop the reaction.

ShooterSF · 18-08-2009 12:30PM

Jumpy wrote: »

Back to the real world now... There are crazy people on the planet that take things more seriously than us. Its easier to prevent the antagonists than it is to stop the reaction.

So if I threaten to stab anyone that looks at me should a law be brought in to stop people looking at me "in case"?

sbsquarepants · 18-08-2009 12:31PM

There's no such thing as a formality law. There's too much of this protecting peoples beliefs **** going on in the world today, if your religion is so shaky it can't withstand a few questions or disparaging remarks then quite obviously it is (like all religion in my humble opinion) a pile of ****e. However to bring this to it's logical conclusion, to speak (good or bad) about any religion is by definition blasphemous to someone elses, so maybe this law is a good thing after all. No more talk about religion? It's almost like an answered prayer!!:D

Mr.Obvious · 18-08-2009 12:32PM

hahaha.

He should look at his own country.

Sweden cares less about freedom than Ireland.

Manach · 18-08-2009 12:33PM

Considering we lack the basics of the US First amendment on Freedom of speech, it is a bit rich for critics of this law to carp when we live in such a PC society.

confused-dazed · 18-08-2009 12:35PM

RonMexico wrote: »

A Swedish MP says he has lodged a complaint with the European Commission over Ireland's new blasphemy law.

Karl Sigfrid, a conservative member of the Swedish Parliament, says he is concerned that Swedish citizens travelling in Ireland 'could be punished for merely expressing a view on a religion or religious symbol'.

Mr Sigfrid said it was bad legislation that could spread to other EU member states.

Writing in the EU Observer, the Swedish MP said the new law was inconsistent with human rights laws under existing EU treaties.

He said that defining blasphemy as speech that offends a substantial number of religious followers gives the churches the power to gradually expand the application of the law.

Mr Sigfrid said: 'A not too far-fetched guess is that statements threatening the power of religious leaders will awaken the strongest reactions and therefore be considered the most offensive ones, resulting in punishment by the state.'

He also said the new law contravened the European Convention on Human Rights.

Hopefully the Swedes will help banish this ridiculous law, and I thought they were only good for the pron :pac:

fair play to the swedes. why the **** should we change our laws to suit other religions. this is worse than the other ****e that was going around. the jist of it was that the muslims wanted the statue of mary taken down from the taxi rank in the middle of o'connell street because it offended their religious beliefs. bollox to that i say. you dont see the governments in the muslim world changing their laws to suit us. e.g. allowing kissing in public, holding hands with someone other than your partner ,wearing certain types of clothes. jasus if your caught doing any of the fore mentioned your locked up and proabably flogged. yet we're expected to change our laws to suit these.
to those that want these stupid changes in. **** off and get a life. i'm irish and proud of it.

Jumpy · 18-08-2009 12:37PM

ShooterSF wrote: »

So if I threaten to stab anyone that looks at me should a law be brought in to stop people looking at me "in case"?

If there was 100 million of you doing that, then yes.

Cookie_Monster · 18-08-2009 12:41PM

Writing in the EU Observer, the Swedish MP said the new law was inconsistent with human rights laws under existing EU treaties.

So because of this we'll probably get repeated fined by the EU for having a stupid law but the Gov will not remove it "because we need it"

Fair play to the guy too, none of the Opposition over here had the balls to do anything about it!

wes · 18-08-2009 12:42PM

confused-dazed wrote: »

fair play to the swedes. why the **** should we change our laws to suit other religions. this is worse than the other ****e that was going around. the jist of it was that the muslims wanted the statue of mary taken down from the taxi rank in the middle of o'connell street because it offended their religious beliefs. bollox to that i say. you dont see the governments in the muslim world changing their laws to suit us. e.g. allowing kissing in public, holding hands with someone other than your partner ,wearing certain types of clothes. jasus if your caught doing any of the fore mentioned your locked up and proabably flogged. yet we're expected to change our laws to suit these.
to those that want these stupid changes in. **** off and get a life. i'm irish and proud of it.

Any proof tha that the law was changed for the sake of Muslims? I am personally aware of no such reasoning. I take it you have some evidence to back up you assertion, right? You aren't just making stuff up, to excuse our piss poor government coming up with a silly law and have just decided to blame someone else instead? Can't possibly be that!

sbsquarepants · 18-08-2009 12:43PM

Jumpy wrote: »

If there was 100 million of you doing that, then yes.

Eh, NO! That's just stupid

Long Onion · 18-08-2009 12:45PM

I worked in a venue in Dublin and we had a band called Cradle of Filth playing there for a couple of nights. On the merchandising stand they had T-Shirts with a crucified Nun on the front and, in bold letters, the immortal words "Jesus is a cnut"

How does it leave them?

On an aside, the sound engineers cadged two and wore them the following week at a born again christian fundraiser:D

Also, we went down to the dressing room after the gig to see if Cradle of filth had trashed the place - It was immaculate, filled with Pantene products and mineral water - ROCK N ROLL!!!!

Nate--IRL-- · 18-08-2009 12:49PM

Have any of you read the law? The blasphmey part of it was a Red-herring. The Law was brought in to get sedition on the statute books.

Nate

sbsquarepants · 18-08-2009 12:50PM

Let's call a spade a spade, there's not much you can do or say that doesn't offend certain religious groups, so instead of repeatedly bending over ackward to appease them, surely the time has come to say "f*ck this, you're too easily offended, now get your head out of your arse and your mindset out of the 13th century and see the world for what it is today" I for one am sick to the back teeth of these idiots and even more sick of the spineless politicians who haven't got the bottle to tell them to put up and shut up or f*ck off back to where they're more comfortable, but this is how we live and we intend to stay this way, with or without you.