Athelstane Aamodt explores recent examples of blasphemy law in action & the human rights conflicts that arose
- Discusses recent, high-profile blasphemy cases.
- Looks at underlying human rights conflicts, relevant European Convention articles, serious harm and the Digital Single Market.
The law of blasphemy has been in the news a great deal recently. At the end of October the Republic of Ireland voted in a referendum to repeal the country’s blasphemy law (contained in s 36 of the Defamation Act 2009), the existence of which became something of a cause celebre when the comedian Stephen Fry in 2017 referred to God as a ‘maniac’ on Irish television prompting an investigation by Irish police. There has also been the recent case of Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani woman who has spent the last eight years on death row in Pakistan but whose conviction was quashed by the Pakistani Supreme Court last month. Laws against blasphemy might seem like a vestige of another time, but according to a report of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2017, 71 countries (now
