Blasphemy law

A blasphemy law is a law prohibiting blasphemy, which is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. According to Pew Research Center, about a quarter of the world's countries and territories (26%) had anti-blasphemy laws or policies as of 2014.

In some states, blasphemy laws are used to protect the religious beliefs of a majority, while in other countries, they serve to offer protection of the religious beliefs of minorities.

In addition to prohibitions against blasphemy or blasphemous libel, blasphemy laws include all laws which give redress to those insulted on account of their religion. These blasphemy laws may forbid: the vilification of religion and religious groups, defamation of religion and its practitioners, denigration of religion and its followers, offending religious feelings, or the contempt of religion. Some blasphemy laws, such as those formerly existing in Denmark, do not criminalize "speech that expresses critique," but rather, "sanctions speech that insults."

Human rights experts argue for laws which adequately distinguish between protection of individuals' freedoms and laws which over-broadly restrict freedom of speech. Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights obliges countries to adopt legislative measures against "any advocacy of national racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence." However, they also note that such protections must be carefully circumscribed, and do not support prohibition of blasphemy ''per se''.

By country

Christian and historically Christian countries

In a number of states with a majority-Christian or formerly majority-Christian population blasphemy laws may criminalize abusive or scurrilous speech about Christianity, and oftentimes, other religions and their adherents, as such offenses "have the tendency to lead to a breach of peace".

Australia

Emerging as a British colony in the 1780s, Australia received English common law, including the Blasphemy Act 1697. The first colonial laws were the Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act 1827 for New South Wales (repealed in 1898), and legislation that governor Arthur Phillip enacted in Van Diemen's Land in the same year that regulated printing and publishing and prohibited 'blasphemous and seditious libels' as part of a law to maintain public order.

The last attempted prosecution for blasphemy by the Crown occurred in the State of Victoria in 1919.

Australia abolished and repealed all blasphemy laws at the federal level with the Australia Criminal Code Act 1995, but blasphemy laws remain in some states and territories. The states, territories, and the Commonwealth of Australia are not uniform in their treatment of blasphemy. Blasphemy is an offence in some jurisdictions, including New South Wales (section 49 of the Defamation Act 1974 (NSW)), Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia, but is not in others. The present legal situation regarding blasphemy in the Australian Capital Territory, Western Australia and Queensland is unclear.

Austria

In Austria, a section of the penal code relates to blasphemy:
* § 188 : Vilification of Religious Teachings

Austria was the birthplace of the famous European Court of Human Rights test case '' E.S. v. Austria (2018)'' on blasphemy, which narrowly upheld Austria's blasphemy law by suggesting the state had a legitimate aim in maintaining it, and demurred on whether or not the Prophet Mohammed could be factually described as a pedophile even if he is attested to have had sex with a prepubescent girl.

Brazil

Art. 208 of the penal code states that "publicly vilifying an act or object of religious worship" is a crime punishable with one month to one year of prison, or fine.

Canada

Blasphemous libel was a crime in Canada under section 296 of the Criminal Code R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46. Subsection (1) read:
: "Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years".
Subsection (3) read:
: "No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious subject".
Over the summer of 2016, a petition to Parliament asking that the blasphemous libel law be repealed was circulated by several Canadian humanist groups. The petition was presented to the Government in December 2016. It responded in January 2017, stating that "blasphemous libel, along with numerous other provisions of the Criminal Code, are presently under review by the Minister f Justiceand her officials". On 6 June 2017, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould introduced Bill C-51 in the House of Commons, an Act to Amend the Criminal Code including repeal of section 296 of the Criminal Code relating to blasphemous libel and various other provisions of the Criminal Code which have been ruled or may be unconstitutional. The Bill passed both the House of Commons and the Senate on 11 December 2018. On 13 December 2018, the Governor General formally granted Royal Assent, making the repeal official.

Denmark

In Denmark, Paragraph 140 of the penal code was about blasphemy. Since 1866, this law has only led to two convictions, in 1938 and in 1946. A further charge was brought to court in 1971, but led to acquittal. In 2017, a man was charged with blasphemy for posting a video of himself burning the Quran on social media under the slogan ''Yes to freedom - no to Islam''. In 2012, a survey indicated that 66% of Denmark's population still supported the blasphemy law, which made it illegal to "mock legal religions and faiths in Denmark". Before 2017, abolition of the blasphemy clause was proposed several times by members of the parliament, but failed to win a majority vote. The law was repealed on 2 June 2017 several days before the 2017 charge was due to come to trial. While public insults of a religion are no longer forbidden, speech and actions threatening or demeaning certain groups of people because of their religious beliefs continued to be punishable pursuant to §266(b) of the penal code.

El Salvador

Even though El Salvador is a mostly Catholic country, the constitution still protects freedom of religion under the constitution, with the Catholic Church receiving some privileges. El Salvador's penal code bans "insulting" religion and is punishable from 1-3 years in prison. People who frequently are accused of "insulting" religion are given a maximum penalty of 3-8 years in prison.

Finland

In Finland, section 10 of chapter 17 of the Criminal Code relates to blasphemy. The section is titled "Breach of the sanctity of religion", but the text of the law explicitly includes "publicly blaspheming against God" as well as defaming what is held sacred by a religious community. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to remove the particular reference to the Christian God in 1914, 1917, 1965, 1970, and most recently in 1998, when the Finnish Parliament unexpectedly voted to retain it.

This prohibition has given rise to a number of highly publicized cases in recent Finnish history. The author Hannu Salama was convicted of blasphemy for his 1964 novel ''Juhannustanssit''. In 1969, artist Harro Koskinen was prosecuted and fined for works including his painting ''Pig Messiah'', a crucified pig; the works were later displayed in art galleries. Writer and politician Jussi Halla-aho, was fined for insinuating connections between pedophilia and Islam in a 2008 blog text.

France

The definition of "blasphemy" was introduced into French law in the 13th century (after great debate among the French Moralists), based on the definition given by St. Thomas Aquinas: a sin of language, "a failure to declare one's faith", thus representing an attack on the purity of religion. This justified punishment by law, which became extreme during the reign of Louis IX. Later canonized by the Catholic church as Saint Louis, he became obsessed in his fight against heretics, Jews and Muslims, and set the punishment for blasphemy to mutilation of the tongue and lips. Louis IX passed this law against blasphemy in 1254 after his return home from the Seventh Crusade.Temperman & Koltay, p. 26.

At the beginning of the French Revolution, articles 10 and 11 of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen) motivated the 1791 elimination of the notion of blasphemy from French law, but it continued to prohibit the use of abusive language or disturbance of the peace. Sacrilege actions towards cultural objects became a crime in 1825 during an extreme phase of the Bourbon Restoration (1814), to be revoked under the less conservative Louis Philippe in 1830. "Religious insult" ("''outrage à la morale religieuse'' ") was introduced by the Act of 17 May 1819, and definitively removed from French law by th
Act of 29 July 1881
which instituted freedom of the press.Temperman & Koltay, p. 38. , and since the 1972 ratification of the European Convention of Human Rights, French law proscribed hate or violence against, and slander or libel against, people due to their membership of a religious group, nationality, ethnic group, race, sexual orientation or handicap (Art.23, 24, 32). The Act of 1881 protects individuals and groups of individuals against defamation or insult ("''injure'' " and "''outrage'' " for foreign ambassadors), but not the divinities
like Jesus Christ
and their doctrines as for blasphemy.

The Alsace-Moselle region was a specific exception, as it was annexed to Germany from 1871 to 1918 and therefore not part of France when the "religious insult" law was repealed. The German penal code replaced the pre-1871 French law between 1871 and 1918, and the local law in Alsace-Moselle retained some elements of both the German penal code and pre-1871 French law when the regions reverted to France in 1919, like the religious legislation and the articles 166 and 167. This long included a ban of "blasphemy" (as translated from the German word ''lästerung'') against Christianity and Judaism, without mention of Islam which at the time had very few followers in Alsace. Since the dispositions of article 166 were not among those finally transposed officially in French law since the Act of 1 June 1924, whose article 1 and 1 s) introduced as well in Alsace-Moselle the generally referred to Act of 29 July 1881, then translated into French in 2013 by the decrees n•2013-395 and particularly n•2013-776, they received no application since then, as the appeal court of Colmar refused to apply this article in 1954, contrary to article 167 (obstacle to the exercise of worship). The minister of justice replied to some senators that article 166 was already implicitly repealed because contrary to the French fundamental law. Its validity could have also been questioned by a court since 1975 and by a prioritary question of constitutionality since 2008. In response to the ''Charlie Hebdo'' attack and with the full support of the Alsatian churches, an October 2016 vote of the French parliament symbolically repealed this long-dormant Alsace-Moselle "blasphemy" law which was long implicitly unenforceable.

Germany

In Germany, religious defamation is covered by Article 166 of the Strafgesetzbuch, the German criminal law. If a deed is capable of disturbing the public peace, defamation is actionable. The article reads as follows:

::§ 166 Defamation of religious denominations, religious societies and World view associations
::(1) Whoever publicly or by dissemination of writings (§ 11 par. 3) defames, in a manner suitable to disturb the public peace, the substance of the religious or world view conviction of others, shall be fined or imprisoned for up to three years.
::(2) Whoever publicly or by dissemination of writings (§ 11 par. 3) defames, in a manner suitable to disturb the public peace, a church established in Germany or other religious society or world view association, or their institutions or customs, shall be punished likewise.

In 2006, the application of this article received much media attention when a Manfred van H. (also known as "Mahavo") was prosecuted for defamation for distributing rolls of toilet paper with the words "Koran, the Holy Koran" stamped on them. The defendant claimed he wanted to protest the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004 and the London bombings of 2005. Beyond the sentence he also received death threats from Islamists and needed a police bodyguard.

Greece

Until 2019, articles 198, 199, and 201 of the Greek Penal Code created offenses which involved blasphemy. Article 198 "Malicious Blasphemy" provided:
:''1. One who...blasphemes God shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than two years''.

:''2. e who...manifests a lack of respect for the divinity shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than three months''.

Article 199 "Blasphemy Concerning Religions" restated most of Article 198, and criminalized blasphemy against the Greek Orthodox Church.

Article 201 criminalized acts committed "blasphemously and improperly toward a grave".

Greece had not used its laws about blasphemy to protect any religion other than the Greek Orthodox Church, which is the state church of Greece. In December 2003, Greece prosecuted for blasphemy Gerhard Haderer, an Austrian, along with his Greek publisher and four booksellers. Haderer is the author of an illustrated, humorous book entitled ''The Life of Jesus''. The prosecutor contended that the book's depiction of Jesus as a hippie was blasphemous. On 13 April 2005, the Court of Appeal of Athens, reversed the judgment of the Court of First Instance, and acquitted Haderer.

Greece complemented its laws against blasphemy with laws against "religious insult". The laws forbade the creation, display or trade in work that "insults public sentiment" or that "offends people's religious sentiments".

The new Criminal Code, which came into force in July 2019, under the Syriza government, removed articles 198 and 199, thus ending its ban on blasphemy.

The conservative New Democracy government initially announced in November its intention to reintroduce the criminalization of blasphemy, with punishment up to two years in jai

https://www.news247.gr/politiki/poiniko-kodikas-poini-fylakisis-gia-kathyvrisi-ton-theion-aystiroteres-poines-gia-paiderastia-diakinisi-metanaston.7530560.html] but backtracked on the announcement following a domestic and international outcr

Iceland

The Icelandic blasphemy law was repealed on 2 July 2015, after a strong push by the Icelandic Pirate Party and a number of associations including Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association (Siðmennt), the bishop of Iceland, the Icelandic priesthood, the Association of Publishers, PEN Iceland, IMMI (The International Modern Media Institute) an Icelandic-based international organization of information and freedom of expression, and an atheist group called Vantrú. Formerly, blasphemy was forbidden with a fine or prison sentence up to three months (Article 125 of the General Penal Code of Iceland, enacted on 12 February 1940). The constitution also mentions the state religion and religion in general.

Ireland

In Ireland, blasphemy against any form of religion was prohibited by the 2009 Defamation Act until its repeal on 17 January 2020.https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=jil Blasphemy against Christianity was prohibited by the constitution and carried a maximum fine of €25,000; however, the offence of blasphemous libel, last prosecuted in 1855 in connection to an alleged Bible-burning, was ruled in 1999 to be incompatible with the Constitution's guarantee of religious equality. A controversial law was passed on 9 July 2009 and went into effect on 1 January 2010. The law prohibited publishing or uttering "matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion".

The Irish Constitutional Convention in 2013 recommended, and the Government endorsed, the repeal of the constitutional prohibition on blasphemy (Article 40.6.1.i.), but the Taoiseach indicated to postpone the issue. Calls for repeal resurged after the January 2015 ''Charlie Hebdo'' shooting.

The law had not been invoked until in February 2015 English comedian Stephen Fry, when asked during an RTÉ programme what he might say to God at the gates of heaven, responded, without specifying any religion,

An allegation of blasphemy was made to police at the time, and in 2017 police contacted Fry to inform him that the incident was being investigated. News of the investigation caused a big stir, but a few days later it was reported that the police, the Garda Síochána, had dropped the case as there was no injured party. The Garda Síochána could not find enough people outraged over the actor's anti-God remarks. One individual complaint alone cannot result in a prosecution under the legislation and only one viewer made a formal complaint against Fry's comments. The complainant said that he was not personally offended by the programme but simply believed that the comments made by Fry on RTÉ were criminal blasphemy and that he was doing his civic duty by reporting a crime.

In June 2018, the Irish government agreed to a referendum to remove the offense of blasphemy from the Constitution. The referendum, which took place on 26 October 2018, abolished the constitutional ban on blasphemy by a margin of 64.85% to 35.15%. In January 2020, Minister of Justice and Equality Charles Flanagan signed an order commencing an amendment to the law. Until then, blasphemy had been prohibited by sections 36 and 37 of the Defamation Act 2009, for which offenders could face a fine of up to €25,000.

In 2021, the Irish government proposed legislation criminalizing hate speech. Previously, Irish politicians Mattie McGrath and Keith Redmond stated that hate speech legislation was "secular blasphemy law" in their unsuccessful attempts to oppose it.

Italy

In Italy, under article 724 of the Penal Code, blasphemy in public is considered an "administrative offense" and punished with a fine ranging from €51 to €309.
First introduced in 1930 under Mussolini, blasphemy was decriminalized as per art.57, d.lgs. n.507 of 30 December 1999.
Following a ruling of the Corte Costituzionale in sentence n.440 of 18 October 1995, the law punishes only blasphemy against the "Deity". Article 404 of the penal code also punishes public offenses to religion, and has been invoked against artists using religious imagery in satirical art.

At the end of July 2019, public blasphemy was also made illegal on the local level in the Italian town of Saonara, punishing alleged blasphemers with a fine of €400.

Malta

Instead of a law against blasphemy, Malta had laws against the vilification of religion, and against immorality. Enacted in 1933, Article 163 of Malta's Criminal Code prohibited "vilification of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion", which is Malta's state religion. Vilification of Malta's religion made the vilifier liable to imprisonment for a term from one to six months. By Article 164, vilification of any cult "tolerated by law" made the vilifier liable to imprisonment for a term from one to three months. Article 338(bb) imposes liability upon anyone who, "even though in a state of intoxication, publicly utters any obscene or indecent words, or makes obscene acts or gestures, or in any other manner not otherwise provided for in this Code, offends against public morality, propriety or decency". Article 342 provides:
:In respect of the contravention under article 338(bb), where the act consists in uttering blasphemous words or expressions, the minimum punishment to be awarded shall in no case be less than a fine (''amenda'') of eleven euro and sixty-five cents (11.65) and the maximum punishment may be imprisonment for a term of three months ...
In 2008, criminal procedures were initiated against 162 people for blaspheming in public.

In July 2016, the parliament of Malta repealed articles 163 and 164 of the criminal code, the country's blasphemy laws.

Nigeria

Nigeria prohibits blasphemy by section 204 of its Criminal Code and by permitting Sharia courts to operate in some states. Vigilantism frequently usurps the jurisdiction of the courts.

Netherlands

With the introduction of the Dutch Criminal Code of 1881, in force since 1886, the Netherlands obtained its first law against blasphemy. The Minister of Justice argued that, although God would be perfectly capable of protecting his own rights, the Dutch legislator had to 'protect the rights of society'.Temperman & Koltay, p. 620.

In 1932, a bill was proposed to tighten the 1886 law. Parliament was divided between confessional and non-confessional parties, but also between different confessional parties on the question whether the purpose of the bill was protecting God or religion, or religious people. The bill passed on 1 June 1932 with 49 against 44 votes in the House, 28 against 18 votes in the Senate, and was adopted on 4 November 1932.Temperman & Koltay, p. 623.

Article 147 punished (by up to three months in jail or a fine of the second category (i.e. up to €3,800)) anyone who publicly, orally or in writing or depiction, offends religious feelings by scornful blasphemy. Furthermore, article 429bis prohibited displaying blasphemous material at places visible from the public road. The law came into being in the 1930s after the Communist Party called for Christmas to be dropped from the list of state holidays. The last successful conviction under Article 147 took place in the early 1960s when a student newspaper was fined 100 guilders for satirizing the ''New Testament''. The law against blasphemy complements laws against racial discrimination and incitement to violence.

In 1966, the Public Prosecution Service prosecuted writer Gerard Reve under Article 147. In his novel ''Nader tot U'' ("''Nearer to Thee''"), Reve describes the narrator's sexual intercourse with God, who is incarnated in a donkey. The court of first instance convicted Reve, but he appealed. In April 1968, an appeals court quashed the conviction. This effectively made the Dutch blasphemy law dead letter.

In November 2008, Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin expressed the country's coalition government's intent to repeal Article 147. He said the government would strengthen the legislation against discrimination to prohibit any insult to any group of people. In May 2009, the government decided to leave the law as it is. The decision followed a high court ruling in which a man who had put up a poster that read "stop the tumour that is Islam" was found not guilty of insulting a group of people on the grounds of their religion. The decision not to abolish the ban on blasphemy was partly motivated to ensure the support of the orthodox Christian SGP for the minority government in the senate. After a general election in 2012, a new coalition government was formed and a majority of parliament pledged to support a proposal to repeal the blasphemy law.

In November 2012, parliament decided to overturn the blasphemy laws. It would pass with support from the VVD, but the fundamentalist Christian group SGP were strongly opposed to the measure. According to the SGP, the decision to lift the ban on blasphemy is a "painful loss of a moral anchor and a symptom of a spiritual crisis".

On 1 February 2014, the law on blasphemy was officially abolished.Temperman & Koltay, p. 619.

New Zealand

In New Zealand, Section 123 of the Crimes Act 1961 allowed for imprisonment of up to one year for anyone who published any "blasphemous libel". Cases were only prosecuted at the discretion of the New Zealand Attorney-General, who usually cited overriding free speech objections so as not to pursue such a case. The only prosecution for blasphemous libel in New Zealand was the case of John Glover, publisher of the newspaper ''The Maoriland Worker'', in 1922. Glover was acquitted.

The British comedy film '' Monty Python's Life of Brian'' (1979) about a fictional Jewish man living at the same time and neighbourhood as Jesus Christ, generated significant international controversy and was banned in several countries including Ireland and Norway. Hundreds of letters were sent to the Film Censor's Office to have the film banned in New Zealand as well on the grounds of it being 'blasphemous' against the Christian faith, but the Chief Censor of Films responded by stating that they had found no evidence of blasphemy or sacrilegiousness in the film.

In March 2018, Justice Minister Andrew Little ( Labour Party) introduced a Crimes Amendment Bill that included repeal of Section 123, the crime of blasphemous libel. The bill passed the third reading on 5 March 2019 with the unanimous support of parliament, received the royal assent on 11 March and came into force on 12 March 2019. An earlier Labour repeal attempt in 2017 was blocked by the then governing National Party.

Norway

In 2009, the Norwegian Parliament voted to remove the dormant law against blasphemy (§ 142 in the penal code). It was, however, removed from the penal code of 2005, which did not come into force until October 2015. Therefore, blasphemy was illegal until 2015 under the old Penal Code of 1902.

The famous writer and social activist Arnulf Øverland was the last to be tried by this law, in 1933, after giving a speech named "Kristendommen – den tiende landeplage" ("Christianity – the tenth plague"), but was acquitted. The last person sentenced for blasphemy in Norway was Arnfred Olsen in 1912, and he had to pay a fine of 10 Norwegian krone.

The British comedy film '' Monty Python's Life of Brian'' (1979) was briefly banned in Norway by the authorities in early 1980, because it 'was believed to commit the crime of blasphemy by violating people's religious feelings'. However, the ban was lifted in October 1980 after a group of theologians who had seen the film produced a statement saying that there was no good reason for a total ban. ''Life of Brian'' was allowed on the big screen, provided with a poster at the beginning which stated that Brian was not Jesus. It was then marketed in Sweden as "The film so funny that it was banned in Norway".

Philippines

"Crimes against religious worship" are stated under section four of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines. Under article 132 and 133, respectively, "interruption of religious worship" and "offending the religious feelings" are punishable by law. "Interruption of religious worship" is defined as "preventing or disturbing the ceremonies or manifestations of any religion" and "offending the religious feelings" is defined as "performing acts notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful" in a place devoted to religious worship or during the celebration of any religious ceremony.

Penalties range from imprisonment of four months and a day to six months; crimes that involve violence or threats can carry a penalty of up to six years in jail.

Poland

While Poland's penal code makes no reference to any sort of blasphemy law, it states that "Whoever offends religious feelings of other people by publicly insulting an object of religious cult or a place for public holding of religious ceremonies, is subject to a fine, restriction of liberty or loss of liberty for up to 2 years". The article has been used by pro-Church politicians and activists on numerous occasions, whenever they felt their religious feelings had been offended in any way. Opponents of the article maintain that due to its vagueness it is abused by seriously limiting the freedom of speech and effectively preventing any kind of debate on Church's sexual crimes and the Church's widespread influence on social, sexual and political life of Poland.

A notable conviction on the basis of this law was that of the pop singer Dorota "Doda" Rabczewska who in 2012 was fined for the amount of 5,000 złotych for saying in an interview that the Bible was written by people 'drunk on wine and smoking some kind of herbs'. Her complaint was rejected by the Constitutional Tribunal, which confirmed that the law did not violate the Constitution. In March 2019, a notable Polish journalist Jerzy Urban was fined 120,000 złotych (around US$30,000) and additional 28,000 PLN of court costs for publishing an image of ''christ astonished'' in his newspaper " NIE".

In 2022 United Poland part of the ruling government called for tougher blasphemy laws in Poland, such as three-year jail terms for insulting church or interrupting mass.

In October 2022, they submitted a citizens' legislative initiative for the tougher blasphemy laws with close to 400,000 signatures to parliament.

Romania

Romania does not have any blasphemy laws in force. According to Romanian law, "cults, religious associations and religious groups ... must not infringe upon ... fundamental human rights and liberties", which, according to the Constitution of Romania, include freedom of conscience and freedom of expression.

In May 2011, a National Liberal deputy proposed a bill for the prevention of religious intolerance, which would have criminalized blasphemy. The bill was withdrawn, however, later that month.

Russia

After the Pussy Riot incident, Russian lawmakers started considering a bill proposing prison sentences for desecration. The State Duma investigated "the situation of sacrilegious acts against Church property and proposed amendments to the Russian Penal Code" in their 2012 Autumn Session. The Union of Orthodox Citizens and MP of United Russia supported the proposal, the latter stating: "We really should make some amendments to the Penal Code in order to cool down these outcasts who have nothing else to do in their lives other than commit such offenses."

The bill was accepted 11 June 2013. According to art.148 of Russian Criminal Cod
1
it is declared a federal crime to conduct "public actions clearly defying the society and committed with the express purpose of insulting religious beliefs". Part 2 of the same article establishes stricter punishments for the aforementioned actions when coupled with desecration of holy symbols and (or) religious texts.

South Africa

Blasphemy is a common law offence in South Africa, defined as "unlawfully, intentionally and publicly acting contemptuously towards God." Several legal writers have suggested that the illegality of blasphemy has become unconstitutional as a result of the adoption in 1994 of the Bill of Rights, which includes the right to freedom of expression. It has also been suggested that it is unconstitutional because the criminal prohibition only applies to blasphemy against Christianity, and therefore discriminates on the basis of religion.

Blasphemy prosecutions have been rare since the start of the twentieth century, to the point that writers in the early part of the century suggested that the crime had been abrogated through disuse. However, in 1934 a newspaper editor was convicted of blasphemy for publishing a story in which a nun has a vision of a sexual relationship with Jesus Christ, and the validity of the conviction was affirmed by the Appellate Division. In 1962 Harold Rubin was prosecuted for a painting depicting Christ naked on the cross along with inversions of Biblical sayings, but he was acquitted. In 1968 the editor of '' Varsity'' was prosecuted for publishing a report of a symposium on the topic "Is God Dead?", which quoted statements that "We must write God off entirely" and " odis beginning to stink". He was convicted, but at sentencing received only a caution and discharge.

The Equality Act of 2000 forbids hate speech, which is defined as "words based on one or more of the prohibited grounds, against any person, that could reasonably be construed to demonstrate a clear intention to: (a) be hurtful; (b) be harmful or to incite harm; (c) promote or propagate hatred." The "prohibited grounds" include religion, and thus some blasphemous speech falls within the scope of hate speech. The prohibition of hate speech is, however, not a criminal prohibition, and only civil penalties would result.

Spain

In 1988, the Spanish Parliament removed the blasphemy law from their legal system. However, article 525 of the Penal Code in Spain considers "vilification" of religious "feelings", "dogmas", "beliefs" or "rituals". This extension to "dogmas" and "beliefs" is considered by some as very close to a blasphemy law in practice.

For instance, in 2012 it was used to prosecute a famous artist, Javier Krahe, for a scene (shot 34 years earlier, and lasting just 54 seconds) in a documentary about him. He was discharged the same year.

In 2018, following the case of Willy Toledo and three feminist protesters accused of blasphemy, the governing PSOE and supporting party Unidas Podemos pledged an end to the "medieval laws on offending religious sentiments and insult to the Crown". Legislation was suspended following the announcement of the 2019 Spanish general election. The government and its allies were subsequently returned to power, which means the proposals will now likely return to the national parliament.

Sweden

Swedish laws do not prohibit blasphemy. In Sweden the 20th century saw the public adoption of the principle that religion was a personal matter. King Erik XIV had introduced a law in 1563 that specifically protected religion. That was followed by similar Acts until 1949, when they were replaced by an Act on "Peace of Faith" which was a milder form of restriction. In 1970, the 1949 Act was repealed and a new Act was introduced on "agitation against a specific group of people". The new Act protects minority groups who share "race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, faith or sexual orientation". Thus, the Act does not protect any religion as such, but instead can protect the religion's practitioners. The new Act has most often been enforced when Jews and homosexuals have been attacked.''eurel'' Sociological and legal data on religions in Europe, Sweden, Blasphemy
16 May 2014 Retrieved 6 June 2017

Switzerland

In Switzerland, Article 261 of the penal code titled "Attack on the freedom of faith and the freedom to worship" (Störung der Glaubens- und Kultusfreiheit) is defined as:

Any person who publicly and maliciously insults or mocks the religious convictions of others, and in particularly their belief in God, or maliciously desecrates objects of religious veneration,

any person who maliciously prevents, disrupts or publicly mocks an act of worship, the conduct of which is guaranteed by the Constitution, or

any person who maliciously desecrates a place or object that is intended for a religious ceremony or an act of worship the conduct of which is guaranteed by the Constitution,

shall be liable to a monetary penalty.

Tanzania

The Constitution of Tanzania defines it as a secular state (Article 3), and protects freedom of expression (Article 18), freedom of conscience, faith and choice in matters of religion (Article 19). However, these provisions are not always upheld in practice. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous island of Tanzania with its own constitution and a separate judicial system of ''Khadi's'' courts that may apply sharia in certain cases.

On mainland Tanzania, the Penal Code criminalises acts of sacrilege (destroying, damaging or defiling buildings or objects 'held sacred by any class of persons') and acts of uttering words with intent to wound religious feelings of any person under Articles 125 and 129 respectively; both count as misdemeanours that may be punished with imprisonment for up to one year. No information is available regarding whether or to what extent this provision is enforced. In Zanzibar, Section XIV of the Penal Decree Act of 2004 similarly criminalises acts of sacrilege (Article 117); Article 21 clarifies that this offence is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding two years and/or a fine. Uttering words with the intent to wound the religious feelings of any other person is punishable by imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year (Article 121).

In July 2012, Eva Abdulla was sentenced to two years' imprisonment on charges of blasphemy after she was accused of having urinated on a Quran. Abdullah was acquitted on appeal and released in January 2013.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is made up of four distinct parts and several legal jurisdictions. In criminal justice matters, these jurisdictions are England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Blasphemy laws dating back to the medieval times were abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and Scotland in 2021. Equivalent laws remain in Northern Ireland but have not been used for many years.

English blasphemy laws were historically defended with the following reasoning: the " lasphemylaw is needed to uphold the national law, which is based on Christianity. Thus, targeting Christianity is targeting the very foundation of England."

The last attempted prosecution under these laws was in 2007 when the evangelical group Christian Voice sought a private prosecution against the BBC
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