Gardaí launch blasphemy probe into Stephen Fry

diomed

The Garda will get around to this in four or five years.
Stephen Fry should join the Garda just to be safe.

please helpThank YOU

Ireland and the Irish people in power who are in control of us brainwashing us . with man made laws there is no Justice in Ireland we have now showed the world how backwards where going and if you speak out in Ireland you could be the next Garda Maurice McCabe.

The Rape of Lucretia

Beyondgone wrote: »

Relax -the Tuam babies thing barely got a mention. This'll be grand. Someone roar "Guinness!" while someone else holds up a picture of U2. Be grand.

The world is having a good laugh at the backwardness of the Irish this morning :

https://www.publico.pt/2017/05/06/mundo/noticia/actor-stephen-fry-investigado-na-irlanda-por-blasfemia-1771254

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/may/07/stephen-fry-investigated-by-irish-police-for-alleged-blasphemy

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/05/07/13/50/stephen-fry-investigated-by-police-for-blasphemy-over-god-comments

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/92303279/Blasphemy-complaint-against-Stephen-Fry-over-2015-Irish-TV-interview

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/stephen-fry-investigated-for-blasphemy/

Galwayguy35

It's a stupid law and Dermot Ahern should have his pension taken off him for bringing it in but he is no more of a fool than the idiots on various forums screaming about how "they are ashamed to be Irish".

Yeah the Brits are having a good laugh at us but nothing new there, who gives a fook what they think anyway.

Erik Shin

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

It's a stupid law and Dermot Ahern should have his pension taken off him for bringing it in but he is no more of a fool than the idiots on various forums screaming about how "they are ashamed to be Irish".

Yeah the Brits are having a good laugh at us but nothing new there, who gives a fook what they think anyway.

It's made it all over the world...not just the Brits laughing at us I'm afraid

whisky_galore

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Yeah the Brits are having a good laugh at us but nothing new there, who gives a fook what they think anyway.

Oh God forbid the British laughing at us...there's only a thread started every second day here on what we think of the "Brits" and what they think of us.

Galwayguy35

Erik Shin wrote: »

It's made it all over the world...not just the Brits laughing at us I'm afraid

whisky_galore wrote: »

Oh God forbid the British laughing at us...there's only a thread started every second day here on what we think of the "Brits" and what they think of us.

I think we all know this "investigation" isn't going to go anywhere, in fact I don't know how the guards kept a straight face when this tool went in to make a complaint.

volchitsa

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

I think we all know this "investigation" isn't going to go anywhere, in fact I don't know how the guards kept a straight face when this tool went in to make a complaint.

Which is why it's so embarrassing that we can't just get rid of the damn law.

It's a discredit to the whole country, because we throw up our hands and act like we're stuck in the flipping Middle Ages and can't do anything about it.

It's like having a law banning witches, and then telling someone who's charged with witchcraft not to worry, the investigation won't go anywhere. Way to go to miss the point. :rolleyes:

whisky_galore

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

I think we all know this "investigation" isn't going to go anywhere, in fact I don't know how the guards kept a straight face when this tool went in to make a complaint.

Its f**king farcical real life Fr Ted stuff, why wouldn't they laugh?

What makes it worse is its not a legacy law from 100s of years ago but one cooked up by a knobhead quite recently.

Galwayguy35

volchitsa wrote: »

Which is why it's so embarrassing that we can't just get rid of the damn law.

It's a discredit to the whole country, because we throw up our hands and act like we're stuck in the flipping Middle Ages and can't do anything about it.

It's like having a law banning witches, and then telling someone who's charged with witchcraft not to worry, the investigation won't go anywhere. Way to go to miss the point. :rolleyes:

I missed no point so less of the eye roll.

You seem bothered what other countries think, me less so.

I usually agree with nothing you say but in this case I do, it's like something from the 16th century.

volchitsa

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

I missed no point so less of the eye roll.

You seem bothered what other countries think, me less so.

I usually agree with nothing you say but in this case I do, it's like something from the 16th century.

Where did I mention other countries?
My point is completely relevant without any reference to what other countries may think. It's a shame for us as a country that we have a law in force that nobody including our justice system can take seriously.

With your poor level of reading comprehension it's probably a good sign for me that you apparently don't agree with my posts (I'm happy to take your word for that, as I've never noticed you until just now).

FYI the Middle Ages ended in the 15th century.

Galwayguy35

volchitsa wrote: »

Where did I mention other countries?
My point is completely relevant without any reference to what other countries may think. It's a shame for us as a country that we have a law in force that nobody including our justice system can take seriously.

With your poor level of reading comprehension it's probably a good sign for me that you apparently don't agree with my posts (I'm happy to take your word for that, as I've never noticed you until just now).

FYI the Middle Ages ended in the 15th century.

Play the ball not the man, no need for the personal insults.

edanto

This complaint is great news. The ridiculous law needs to be ridiculed.

It's 3yrs since the govt announced a referendum to remove blashphemy from constitution and of course no action since.

This attention will speed things up, the complaint to Gardai was genius.

Erik Shin

edanto wrote: »

This complaint is great news. The ridiculous law needs to be ridiculed.

It's 3yrs since the govt announced a referendum to remove blashphemy from constitution and of course no action since.

This attention will speed things up, the complaint to Gardai was genius.

Will make boards a fun place once it's removed

volchitsa

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Play the ball not the man, no need for the personal insults.

You misunderstood my post, and told me you always disagreed with me.
How is it a personal insult to you if I link those two things?

You're confusing me destroying your point with me calling you a rude name.
It's not the same thing. Not to mention that it was you who personalized things, not me. I don't remember a single one of your posts in the past, never mind whether I've ever engaged with you so why would I.

DanMurphy

edanto wrote: »

This complaint is great news. The ridiculous law needs to be ridiculed.

It's 3yrs since the govt announced a referendum to remove blashphemy from constitution and of course no action since.

This attention will speed things up, the complaint to Gardai was genius.

This complaint is nothing more than a Trojan horse designed to highlight this ridiculous 'law.'

iDave

Democracy cannot function effectively without freedom of speech. This is a huge wake up call for Ireland and the world in general. Freedom of speech trumps religious sensibilities and PC authoritarians.

Kev1nDonn

Stephen Fry is simply putting his point across if people don't agree with him that is their right but to report him is crazy. The Gardai would be better served chasing and catching criminals, investigating crimes, sorting out their many (apparently) internal wrong doings, etc i.e. behaving like real policemen rather than worrying about comments concerning a God that may or may not exist.

The Rape of Lucretia

Kev1nDonn wrote: »

The Gardai would be better served investigating crimes.

Blasphemy is a crime.

greenflash

DanMurphy wrote: »

This complaint is nothing more than a Trojan horse designed to highlight this ridiculous 'law.'

I read that the complaint was filed by Brendan O'Regan, a serial complainer to the broadcasting authority and media reviewer for Irish Catholic. Not sure how true this is though.

Kev1nDonn

"Blasphemy is a crime".

Only in countries where the law is backward.

gctest50

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Blasphemy is a crime.

that god is a sexist racist murderous c*nt


according to tim minchin

Harry Palmr

Guardian article which is open to comments

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/may/07/stephen-fry-investigated-by-irish-police-for-alleged-blasphemy

Should be a laugh.

Annasopra

Phoebas wrote: »

Yes. He isn't.

He isn't not Irish? Does that make him Irish?

eviltwin

We invite an outspoken atheist over here to talk about religion. What did people expect him to say?

I'm sure the complaint is someone trying to highlight how farcical the law is but if you remember the fuss over his comments when the episode first aired, we still have people here who think religion should be above criticism.

Annasopra

please helpThank YOU wrote: »

Minister for justice today look at laws she has brought in. you can not have sexual intercourse with your Wife/ long term Girlfriend if the have Consumed alcohol as this is now Rape in law 2017.

What are you sh?teing on about?

Annasopra

please helpThank YOU wrote: »

Islamic State ISIS Want Laws Like Ireland.:o

How is the hangover this morning?

CeilingFly

please helpThank YOU wrote: »

Stephen Fry did nothing wrong in my opinion I watched the Video of Mr Fry and Gay Byrne. This to me show how backwards Ireland is and it show the how the Garda waste our tax payers money on malice investigation of non criminal incidents. This must go on all the Time in Garda Stations across Ireland wasting tax payers money no wonder the IMF had to bailout Ireland.

I don't think you understand the story - but understandable considering how the indo's second-rate journalist wrote it.

Eejit made complaint to gardai, gardai basically see it as a waste of time and set it aside not wanting to waste time on it. Eejit follows up asking for update, gardai fob eejit off. Eejit ups the ante and takes it to a higher level and probably sent details into the media.

Indo falls for the trap and asks gardai. Gardai say investigation is ongoing - read that as "piss off"

It will go nowhere, no time will be spent on it. Its pure indo click bait due to people's fascination with anything "religious"

Mr.Micro

If such a complaint is allowed to proceed, we will be the laughing stock of Europe. Backward, it is embarrassing. RTE will have to be prosecuted as well, along with free speech.

sunny2004

Stephen Fry at his best, Gay Byrne, well, Gay Byrne being himself

dark crystal

I despair at how backward this makes us look as a country.

osarusan

I haven't kept up with this - is there any suggestion that was a test case designed to show just how stupid the law is, or is it actually somebody who wants to see a prosecution for blasphemy?

BlinkingLights

It's getting plenty of international news coverage this weekend - making us look like complete knuckle dragging morons but then again, you all voted for this stuff in some way by not holding FF to account for introducing such a stupid piece of legislation in 2009 and for not pushing FG to do something to deal with it in the years that followed.

Complacency on these issues gets us into these messes!

It's very easy to forget that just a few short decades ago Ireland was pretty much the Catholic version of modern Russia or Turkey in terms of where it was going with social policy.

No condoms, no access to information about abortion, pregnant woman incarcerated by nuns for breech of social mores, books banned, films edited, and so on.

We've come a long way but we still suffer the odd touch of Stockholm Syndrome, particularly at officialdom level.

If people don't demand change, it won't happen though.

You need to write to your local TD or ring them up and tell them that this will influence how you vote. otherwise, the charade just continues.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

BlinkingLights

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Damage is done now. It doesn't matter whether anything comes of it or not. The reputation is utterly destroyed.

Everyone's just heard Irish police go after major intellectual celebrity for blasphemy - whether or not we actually prosecute him or not won't ever be heard.

Ireland already has a reputation for backward social policies, so all this does is reaffirm a lot of people's beliefs that we are a bit like Alabama or Louisiana.

If you're looking at places to invest as an IT company that has a media publishing aspect , this instantly raises red flags too.

You don't have free speech with this law in place. It's as simple as that.

I mean what's next? Trace all the IP addresses of the Atheist forum on here ?

Prosecute everyone who says anything negative about the nuns?

maudgonner

BlinkingLights wrote: »

Damage is done now. It doesn't matter whether anything comes of it or not. The reputation is utterly destroyed.

You're massively overreacting. More than likely this case will quietly go away. The articles will be forgotten by tomorrow and Stephen Fry will continue to go about his business, as he should.

Hopefully we will get a referendum, which will then allow the law to be abolished, but there's a bit of a queue for issues requiring referenda and this is hardly the most pressing.

Erik Shin

maudgonner wrote: »

You're massively overreacting. More than likely this case will quietly go away. The articles will be forgotten by tomorrow and Stephen Fry will continue to go about his business, as he should.

Hopefully we will get a referendum, which will then allow the law to be abolished, but there's a bit of a queue for issues requiring referenda and this is hardly the most pressing.

If it didn't need a referendum to pass into law, it doesn't need one to be wiped out

maudgonner

Erik Shin wrote: »

If it didn't need a referendum to pass into law, it doesn't need one to be wiped out

I might be wrong, but I think the 2009 law was brought in because the existing law (which was required by the constitution) was only applicable to Catholicism, and needed to be extended to cover all religions.

If we want to get rid of the blasphemy law altogether I believe it does require a referendum.

BlinkingLights

The existing law didn't define blasphemy at all and basically without establishing a state religion it was a dead letter law and couldn't be prosecuted.

The 2009 act redefined blasphemy as an intent to provoke outrage amongst the followers of a religion.

So technically, you could be done for blasphemy for outraging any religion.

We could have just left it alone and covered it with law on incitement to hatred, which we already had.

This was pointed out ad nausium in 2009 but fell on deaf ears.

I personally emailed various people in the green party and got all sorts of wishy washy responses and it was the reason why i opt never to vote for them again as a result.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

BlinkingLights

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

There's a defence for academic, political, artistic and similar discussion which would probably exempt one religion being blasphemous to another.

The issue is that it is all subject to the whim of a court and could easily go against someone if they got a particularly conservative judge.

I would doubt that the DPP would waste their time bringing a case, but there's nothing to say the Gardai wont escalate this to the DPP as they won't be able to make a decision not to prosecute.

Irish Guitarist

The blasphemy law is something people like to whine about and use as an example of how backwards Ireland is. In reality it has no effect on anyones lives. And there are worse laws regarding freedom of speech in other countries. For instance holocaust denial laws in many European countries.

As for Stephen Fry; he's a pompous arrogant prick. He comes out with crap about how people who take offence at things are idiots but as soon as someone leaves a comment on one of his tweets he doesn't like he threatens to delete his account in an attempt to get all his followers to lick his arse and tell him not to leave. He's too think skinned to handle someone saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "you're good on telly but your tweets are boring" but he loves to sneer at other people.

gctest50

maudgonner wrote: »

You're massively overreacting. More than likely this case will quietly go away..... .

It might be in Googles best interests to quietly pack up and leave Dublin

- before someone tries to link search engines results with providing blasphemous sites

Dempsey

I hope this case ends up killing the law. We are being embarrassed as a country by it for as long as it exists

Academic

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

The blasphemy law is something people like to whine about and use as an example of how backwards Ireland is. In reality it has no effect on anyones lives. (1) And there are worse laws regarding freedom of speech in other countries. For instance holocaust denial laws in many European countries.

(2) As for Stephen Fry; he's a pompous arrogant prick. He comes out with crap about how people who take offence at things are idiots but as soon as someone leaves a comment on one of his tweets he doesn't like he threatens to delete his account in an attempt to get all his followers to lick his arse and tell him not to leave. He's too think skinned to handle someone saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "you're good on telly but your tweets are boring" but he loves to sneer at other people.

(1) The fact that things are worse in other countries is wholly irrelevant. Things are always worse in Somalia, for example, but so what? This is just an attempt at suppressing all criticism.

(2) But the point is, Fry is correct.

Gbear

lawred2 wrote: »

I'm not sure blasphemy laws fall anywhere near the category of politically correct.

Course they do.

They're just politically correct to a different set of politics to the ones we expect these days.

Christy42

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

The blasphemy law is something people like to whine about and use as an example of how backwards Ireland is. In reality it has no effect on anyones lives. And there are worse laws regarding freedom of speech in other countries. For instance holocaust denial laws in many European countries.

As for Stephen Fry; he's a pompous arrogant prick. He comes out with crap about how people who take offence at things are idiots but as soon as someone leaves a comment on one of his tweets he doesn't like he threatens to delete his account in an attempt to get all his followers to lick his arse and tell him not to leave. He's too think skinned to handle someone saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "you're good on telly but your tweets are boring" but he loves to sneer at other people.

Aka I don't like him therefore In have no issue with this bull law.

If it really has no effect on there is no issue getting rid of it.

Really Interested

The bit I love about the law:

(4) In this section “ religion ” does not include an organisation or cult—

(a) the principal object of which is the making of profit, or

(b) that employs oppressive psychological manipulation—

(i) of its followers, or

(ii) for the purpose of gaining new followers.

bnt

whisky_galore wrote: »

Its f**king farcical real life Fr Ted stuff, why wouldn't they laugh?

I thought that new police officers, all over the world, underwent radical humourectomies the day after joining the force? :cool:

py2006

Ironically religion is just a long established cult.

A cult is merely a new religious movement.