{"id":204,"date":"2009-05-19T13:03:43","date_gmt":"2009-05-19T19:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/?p=204"},"modified":"2009-05-19T15:40:21","modified_gmt":"2009-05-19T21:40:21","slug":"blasphemers-beware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/blasphemers-beware-204.htm","title":{"rendered":"Blasphemers Beware!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/network.nationalpost.com\/np\/blogs\/holy-post\/archive\/2009\/05\/19\/ireland-s-religion-law-flouts-freedom-of-speech-watchdog.aspx\">National Post <\/a>reports<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">Europe\u2019s top security and human rights watchdog is urging Ireland not to preserve \u201cblasphemous libel\u201d as a crime in a draft media law, saying this would flout international free speech covenants. Reuters reports that the Irish justice minister is changing a law that provides prison sentences for blasphemous libel and instead making it an offence that carries a fine of 100,000 euros. However, Milos Haraszti, the media freedoms overseer in the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said a blasphemy law violated international standards upholding the right to freely discuss issues of religion. \u201cIt is clear that the government\u2019s gesture of passing a new version of the \u2018blasphemy article\u2019, even if milder than the dormant old version, might incite new court cases and thereby exercise a chilling effect on freedom of expression,\u201d Mr. Haraszti said. In 1977 in England \u2014 which got rid of its blasphemy law last year \u2014 a gay newspaper was convicted of blasphemy libel for printing a poem suggesting Jesus was gay. The editor was given a suspended prison sentence and the paper fined \u00a31,000. There have also been unsuccessful attempts to bring private prosecutions against Salman Rushdie&#8217;s book The Satanic Verses and the musical Jerry Springer: The Opera. Canada still has blasphemy libel on its book.<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">An atheistic government could have a blasphemy law, because such laws may be necessary to preserve public order. It does not matter whether the ruler believes in God (or the gods); if some of his subjects believe in God enough to cause violence over blasphemy, the ruler might well prohibit it. However such laws should be evenly enforced, and Christianity is regarded as fair game for blasphemers in Europe who would not dare insult Islam.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-204\" data-postid=\"204\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-204 themify_builder themify_builder_front\">\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<!-- \/themify_builder_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Post reports\u00a0\u00a0 Europe\u2019s top security and human rights watchdog is urging Ireland not to preserve \u201cblasphemous libel\u201d as a crime in a draft media law, saying this would flout international free speech covenants. Reuters reports that the Irish justice minister is changing a law that provides prison sentences for blasphemous libel and instead [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[252],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blasphemy","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}