In Ireland blasphemy was made a crime in 2009! There was a provision in the constitution that mandated it be defined but politicians never got around to it which kind of left it an open ended question but decided it would be a good idea to follow through on the provision and define it.
Atheist Ireland campaigned against it as Ireland as it was being introduced as Ireland was clearly becoming more secular and non religious and yet we were introducing religious laws and leaving its Catholic past behind.
It was controversial internationally because Ireland is an advanced Western country and then Pakistan literally lifted the wording straight from Irish law and implemented in their own law which granted the action some legitimacy.
That said the law actually has no teeth and was challenged by Michael Nugent of AI who released 25 blasphemous statements to show that he'd never be convicted. http://atheist.ie/2010/01/25-blasphemous-quotations/
Its an interesting selection as Jesus and Mohammed, the Pope and a slew of comedians, politicians and creatives are quoted.
Ireland held a "Constitutional Convention" to consider this and a bunch of other changes. They decided to introduce referenda on some of them, including removing the requirement for blasphemy to be illegal. So far they've held referenda on reducing the age at which a person becomes eligible to be president (result: rejected by a large majority) and on permitting same-sex marriage (result: accepted by a sizeable majority). There is not likely to be a referendum on blasphemy until after the general election in 2016.
Atheist Ireland campaigned against it as Ireland as it was being introduced as Ireland was clearly becoming more secular and non religious and yet we were introducing religious laws and leaving its Catholic past behind.
It was controversial internationally because Ireland is an advanced Western country and then Pakistan literally lifted the wording straight from Irish law and implemented in their own law which granted the action some legitimacy.
That said the law actually has no teeth and was challenged by Michael Nugent of AI who released 25 blasphemous statements to show that he'd never be convicted. http://atheist.ie/2010/01/25-blasphemous-quotations/
Its an interesting selection as Jesus and Mohammed, the Pope and a slew of comedians, politicians and creatives are quoted.