Iceland makes blasphemy legal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33378778

by teh_klev • 11 years ago

104 35 11 years ago

bbc.co.uk

austenallred• 11 years ago

Kind of crazy that it wasn't already legal, to be honest

mineshaftgap• 11 years ago

They are coming along, soon you will be able to name your child whatever you like.

kzhahou2• 11 years ago

Not the same thing, but I'm always perplexed that the normally free-expression country of Germany prohibits Nazi symbols and salutes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

You'll even go to jail if your DOG does a nazi salute!! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dogs-nazi-sal...

astrobe_3• 11 years ago

When something can't do any good to anyone, but rather the contrary, it makes sense to forbid or restrict it.

freehunter• 11 years ago

You'll go to jail if you name your dog Adolf and teach him to do a Nazi salute. The dog didn't do it accidentally.

baddox2• 11 years ago

Don't forget Holocaust denial, which is illegal to various extents in Germany and many other countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial#...

ams6110• 11 years ago

The USA is getting pretty close to doing the same for the so-called "Confederate Flag"

reagency• 11 years ago

If you Bing [Nazi Holocaust] , it may unperplex you. Free speech is never an absolute right, and recent massacre of millions of people and losing a huge war is pretty much a textbook compelling national concern.

hebdo• 11 years ago

It is a common thing in many legal systems in Europe. Nazi/Soviet/Other victims and their descendants consider it defamation to deny various genocides or to promote particular symbols. The law you have mentioned is essetially a short-cut for legal defense against slander, and also an honorable and a fair way close the sad chapter of WWII.

This is on a certain level very similar to positive discrimination regulations in the US. One could say - declare a law that states it is illegal to discriminate basing on race, gender or sexual orientation. The problem is that such a law is too weak - it does not serve its purpose in practice. Similarly, the generic and good anti-defamation law needs support in the most extreme cases.

sliverstorm• 11 years ago

I was confused by your comment until I remembered that blasphemy is different from slader and libel.

s_dev• 11 years ago

In Ireland blasphemy was made a crime in 2009! There was a provision in the constitution that mandated it be defined but politicians never got around to it which kind of left it an open ended question but decided it would be a good idea to follow through on the provision and define it.

Atheist Ireland campaigned against it as Ireland as it was being introduced as Ireland was clearly becoming more secular and non religious and yet we were introducing religious laws and leaving its Catholic past behind.

It was controversial internationally because Ireland is an advanced Western country and then Pakistan literally lifted the wording straight from Irish law and implemented in their own law which granted the action some legitimacy.

That said the law actually has no teeth and was challenged by Michael Nugent of AI who released 25 blasphemous statements to show that he'd never be convicted. http://atheist.ie/2010/01/25-blasphemous-quotations/

Its an interesting selection as Jesus and Mohammed, the Pope and a slew of comedians, politicians and creatives are quoted.

gjm11• 11 years ago

Ireland held a "Constitutional Convention" to consider this and a bunch of other changes. They decided to introduce referenda on some of them, including removing the requirement for blasphemy to be illegal. So far they've held referenda on reducing the age at which a person becomes eligible to be president (result: rejected by a large majority) and on permitting same-sex marriage (result: accepted by a sizeable majority). There is not likely to be a referendum on blasphemy until after the general election in 2016.

_stephan• 11 years ago

In Germany we have this law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law#Germany

sker• 11 years ago

Meanwhile New Zealand will put you in jail for offending someone on the Internet:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...

veb• 11 years ago

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I've lived here all my life and I didn't realise this had been passed.

"A new offence will now be created of sending messages or posting material online that were intended to cause harm, and did so."

Really worrying, that. If I were to say, "NZ's National Party government is really shitty, and everyone reading this should not ever come to NZ, ever!" and people listened, does that mean I just caused... harm to a political party? It's so vague and stupid it's not funny! Ahhhhh!

EDIT: If anyone is interested in a write up about this; http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2015/0702.shtml

sorokod• 11 years ago

Shouldn't it be "Iceland abolished blasphemy" ?

mryan• 11 years ago

No. The act of blasphemy has not been abolished, but it is no longer a crime.

Blasphemy is subjective. What is blasphemy to one person is common sense to another.

ommunist• 11 years ago

Aha, Britain demonizes Iceland because it allowed to hunt for banksters in 2013. And UK banksters are the most notorious.

Iceland makes blasphemy legal

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