Dutch decide to scrap blasphemy law

[ludwig]

Is anyone else surprised that they still have one?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20530428

[naomi24]

Yes, me. I would have thought they'd have moved on years ago.

[NOX]

And my good old medieval home country has recently upped it's blasphemy laws- you can now be fined 25,000 euros for saving something nasty about the Pope or some other religio0us nuttery. I truly despair of Ireland .

[LazyGun]

I must admit I was surprised the Dutch still had a blasphemy law on the statute books.

@Nox - I remember the fuss a few years ago regarding the bolstering of blasphemy laws in Ireland, and there was a campaign by atheists to challenge it by publishing comments and quotes that would be considered blasphemous. I never heard whether they were fined, or their protests ignored, or indeed whether it still remains an issue. Is it still something that is protested. out of curiosity?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8437460.stm

[Snafu03]

is the dutch muslim community inline with this?

[FredPuli43]

No. And it appears that we are in the same position; the law still exists but is not used.

[emmie]

can't insult their Queen though, oh well..

[LazyGun]

@Fred I thought blasphemy law had been abolished in the UK? ]
"On 5 March 2008, an amendment was passed to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 which abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in England and Wales. (Common law is abolished, not repealed.) The Act received royal assent on 8 May 2008,[75][76] and the relevant section came into force on 8 July 2008.[77][78]"

The above from wiki -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law#United_Kingdom

[FredPuli43]

LG, I suspected it had been abolished but carefully said 'appears' to be in force because I looked in the criminal lawyers' 'bible' , Archbold's Criminal Pleading and Practice 2013, published a few weeks ago (lawyers think in the future, evidently) under blasphemy and could find no reference to it being abolished . Indeed, there were learned citations of fairly recent cases of Muslims being not protected by the law, it being only applicable to Christians, and references to Human Rights legislation !

Mind, it's not the first time Archbold has been misleading. Years ago,one of their specimen indictments was wrong, an error repeated so often in ensuing editions that, by the time anyone persuaded the authors to change it, it had become an accepted version!

[LazyGun]

@Fred - Thanks for the info. Never heard of that Archbolds tome you mention -always good to learn new stuff ;)

So on balance, would you think wiki is correct in this instance, or would Archbold be more likely to be correct?

[FredPuli43]

Hang on. I'll find the statute!

[DTCwordfan]

Good on them.

Remember the Dutch have a strict Christian faith sector in the Calvinists - some Dutch villages are almost like being in Ireland on a Sunday afternoon, where the only thing you see in the village is a stray dog. So I am surprised that they haven't been up in arms about this, alliancing with the Muslims perhaps - but then there is the majority.....

[FredPuli43]

LG, right, if the learned editors did what I did to start with and trawl through all the 14 separate statutory instruments ;The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act (Commencement Order No 1) and so on; giving the commencement dates of the sections (some of them intriguing; there's one dealing only with violent behaviour on NHS premises, but why that needed a separate date is not clear), they'd have concluded that s79 (blasphemy) did not appear and so was not in force.

However, if they'd read the original Act, they might have noticed s 153 (2) sneakily lurking in the bowels of it. It provides that s79 is to come into force in two months starting with the day on which this Act is passed. It follows that s79 is in force now and the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel are abolished.

Shall I write to the editors of Archbold or will you? Why they cited cases to show that blasphemy only applies to protect Christians if they knew that such cases are now irrelevant, only they can say. I suspect they have no answer!

[LazyGun]

@Fred - Heh, I will leave communications with Archbolds down to you - too much comment about acts, amendments and numbers, and my eyes start to glaze over :)

[naomi24]

^^ Me too. So have we concluded that the blasphemy laws in the UK have indeed been scrapped, as I thought they had?

[FredPuli43]

Yes, naomi, they have been scrapped and with some quaint extras. Somebody had to find every reference to blasphemy in the statutes and have it deleted. We are all pleased, I'm sure, that The Seditious and Blasphemous Libel Act of 1819 is now the Seditious Libel Act. Now that is definitely a law which should have been repealed altogether, long ago..

[wildwood]

The most popular swear word in the dutch language is 'godverdomme' literally translated to goddammit - this is technically blasphemy, although it is in everyday used by most and is nowhere near as badly regarded as the english 'fukc'. They are just updating in line with popular opinion.

[beso]

I have nothing against blasphemy laws per se..... provided God Himself turns up personally in court to give evidence. ;)

[naomi24]

^^ Ha ha! That reminds me of the movie 'The Man who sued God'. Good film. :o)

[naomi24]

Thanks Fred.

[jomifl]

/they cited cases to show that blasphemy only applies to protect Christians/ how does that work? does it prevent spontaneous combustion?