Blasphemy is not a crime -- and should not be classified as such.
Blasphemy laws are simply tools to restrict free speech and silence dissent.
Nevertheless, the legal codes of many countries -- including Canada -- criminalize it.
Canada
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Pakistan
United Kingdom
Germany
UN: Human Rights
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Our Goals
- The repeal of article 296 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which criminalizes so-called "Blasphemous Libel". (View article 296)
- To oppose all legislation and all measures which would limit freedom of expression in the name of religion.
All blasphemy laws carry inherent flaws that make them especially likely to lead to human rights abuses. They inevitably fail to address the issue of what exactly constitutes blasphemy, leaving enormous discretion in the hands of prosecutors, judges, and accusers who may be influenced by political or personal priorities. They also vary considerably in the punishments they prescribe, since unlike other crimes, the victims of and damage caused by blasphemy are uncertain or intangible; acts covered by blasphemy laws can be interpreted as relatively mild offenses against individual feelings, offenses against the beliefs of an entire community, or grave attacks on a deity. These weaknesses leave blasphemy laws open to selective, arbitrary, or discriminatory enforcement, which worsens existing problems in countries with shaky institutions and mars the human rights credentials of otherwise well-functioning democracies. No matter what the political environment, however, blasphemy laws lend the power of the state to particular religious authorities and effectively reinforce extreme views, since the most conservative or hard-line elements in a religious community are generally the quickest to take offense and the first to claim the mantle of orthodoxy.