Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Blasphemy law
Summary
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.
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".
Blasphemy law in Australia
Emerging as a British colony in the 1780s, Australia received English common law, including the Blasphemy Act 1697.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.