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.Blasphemy Merriam Webster (July 2013); 1. great disrespect shown to God or to something holy2. irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolableBlasphemies, in Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed,1. profane or contemptuous speech, writing, or action concerning God or anything held as divine.2. any remark or action held to be irreverent or disrespectful 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 Humanists International publishes the annual Freedom of Thought Report, which compiles country-by-country material on the treatment of non-religious people and related freedoms of expression and belief.
Christian-majority 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 as common law offences in some states and territories. Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia have abolished their blasphemy laws along with the common law offences, while blasphemy or blasphemous libel remain common law offences in the other jurisdictions, including New South Wales (section 49 of the Defamation Act 1974 (NSW)), South Australia, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.
Austria In Austria, Section 188 of the criminal code relates to acts against "religious peace" and the degradation of religious teachings. It prohibits blasphemy with a penalty of a fine or up to six months in prison.
Austria was the birthplace of the famous European Court of Human Rights 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.
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 [of Justice] and her officials".Petition e-382 – House of Commons E-petitions online service, as accessed 11 February 2017Response to Petition No. 421-01047 – House of Commons of Canada 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.Bill C-51 | access-date = 6 June 2017 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.
Cyprus Articles 141 and 142 of the Cyprus Criminal Code criminalise "wounding religious feelings" and publishing material that insults or vilifies a religion.
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.
Denmark reinstated blasphemy laws in 2023. It bans improper treatment of a significant religious writing in public or with intent to spread such act publicly.
El Salvador El Salvador is a mostly Catholic country, where freedom of religion is protected 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 convicted of "insulting religion" are given a penalty of 6 months to 8 years in prison.
Finland In Finland, Section 10 of Chapter 17 of the Criminal Code prohibits blasphemy with a penalty of a fine or up to six months in prison. The section is titled "Breach of the sanctity of religion," and the law explicitly prohibits "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, who later became a Member of the Parliament of Finland, 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 highly committed to his fight against heretics, Jews and Muslims, and set the punishment for blasphemy to mutilation of the tongue and lips.Olivier Bobineau, "Retour de l'ordre religieux ou signe de bonne santé de notre pluralisme laïc ? " [archive], Le Monde.fr, 8 décembre 2011 (consulté le 15 janvier 2015) 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)Temperman & Koltay, p. 25. 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 the 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.