Campaign to repeal the blasphemy law

Pero_Bueno

Well it will be a criminal offence to criticise Muhammed under the European Court of human rights
https://twitter.com/ShoaibMKhan/status/1055392526323073024
So will this supercede the Irish law if it's voted out tomorrow ?

Peregrinus

Pero_Bueno wrote: »

Well it will be a criminal offence to criticise Muhammed under the European Court of human rights
https://twitter.com/ShoaibMKhan/status/1055392526323073024
So will this supercede the Irish law if it's voted out tomorrow ?

All that the ES case says is that a state may make it a crime to disparage religious doctrines in the terms that Austria does, and that making it a crime does not infringe the European Convention on Human Rights. It doesn't say that states must or should make it a crime.

Hector Savage

BabyCheeses wrote: »

People can probabaly look at an issue and weigh up the pros and cons.

At first I was going to ask if you'll be sticking it to the libs or muslims but then I remembered when it comes to women's and gay rights you probably always side with Islam already so why would it be different this time. You should consider converting, you would likely agree with a lot of it.

?? what are you basing that on ?

Hector Savage

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Came across this Twitter post via a Facebook friend.
The point in it is that seemingly at least one minority religious group (a womens Muslim group) are going to vote No on the blasphemy referendum as they feel that the blasphemy legislation is the only thing to protect themselves against hate speech.
Now I know that the blasphemy law doesn't actually give any protection from hate speech, but I haven't really followed any of the debates or reports coming up to the referendum so I am wondering has this point been made by anyone in the media and if it has been responded to?

Whats the definition of hate speech though ?
It's a slippery slope, mere criticism of Islam is classed as "hate speech" by some.

Hector Savage

Pero_Bueno wrote: »

Well it will be a criminal offence to criticise Muhammed under the European Court of human rights
https://twitter.com/ShoaibMKhan/status/1055392526323073024
So will this supercede the Irish law if it's voted out tomorrow ?

Unreal.
just no words ...

recedite

recedite wrote: »

Low turnout usually means a higher % of pensioners at the polls, and they tend to be more conservative.
I suspect the repeal will pass, but not by as wide a margin as might be expected.

People over a certain age have always been more conservative. Why do we suppose that is?

robindch

Strawberry1975 wrote: »

Drug driving

Post deleted.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Peregrinus wrote: »

All that the ES case says is that a state may make it a crime to disparage religious doctrines in the terms that Austria does, and that making it a crime does not infringe the European Convention on Human Rights. It doesn't say that states must or should make it a crime.

true I suppose but that’s a case waiting to happen.

seamus

Pero_Bueno wrote: »

Well it will be a criminal offence to criticise Muhammed under the European Court of human rights

No. I don't know if you're deliberately misrepresenting or just completely misreading that.

The ECHR has simply said that in this case that there was no breach of the person's human rights, taking everything into account.

The ECHR has not said that criticising Mohammed is, or will be, or should be, a criminal offence. Or that blasphemy, is, will be, or should be a criminal offence.

We have an "incitement to hatred" crime here, which can already be invoked in these instances.

Hotblack Desiato

Pero_Bueno wrote: »

Well it will be a criminal offence to criticise Muhammed under the European Court of human rights
https://twitter.com/ShoaibMKhan/status/1055392526323073024
So will this supercede the Irish law if it's voted out tomorrow ?

Mohammed was a paedophile, though, that's not in dispute.

*holds out arms in handcuff-me gesture*

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

Mod:Any more trolling from you, young Hector, and you'll be feeling the lash of a moderator's whip.

Ooh Matron!

Is it as good as a MkII Opus Dei cilice, that's what I want to know.

Franz Von Peppercorn

seamus wrote: »

No. I don't know if you're deliberately misrepresenting or just completely misreading that.

The ECHR has simply said that in this case that there was no breach of the person's human rights, taking everything into account.

The ECHR has not said that criticising Mohammed is, or will be, or should be, a criminal offence. Or that blasphemy, is, will be, or should be a criminal offence.

We have an "incitement to hatred" crime here, which can already be invoked in these instances.

Bit disingenuous since the ECHR mentioned keeping the religious peace.

In short we could remove blasphemy from the constitution and keep our blasphemy laws and not be in breach of the ECHR.

TheChizler

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Mohammed was a paedophile, though, that's not in dispute.

*holds out arms in handcuff-me gesture*

Only if you use the red-top definition of paedophile though. [/pedant]

Mark Hamill

Hector Savage wrote: »

Whats the definition of hate speech though ?

It's here in the legislation.

Hector Savage wrote: »

It's a slippery slope, mere criticism of Islam is classed as "hate speech" by some.

But not necessarily by the law, so that's irrelevant like all slippery slope fallacies.

Mark Hamill

TheChizler wrote: »

Only if you use the red-top definition of paedophile though. [/pedant]

Didn't he consummate his marriage to Aisha when she was 10/11? Doesn't that make him a paedophile?

Hector Savage

Mark Hamill wrote: »

It's here in the legislation.


But not necessarily by the law, so that's irrelevant like all slippery slope fallacies.

From the link

if the written material, words, behaviour, visual images or sounds, as the case may be, are threatening, abusive or insulting and are intended or, having regard to all the circumstances, are likely to stir up hatred.

This is left ambiguous, could be anything - if someone says the statement "Islam is a dangerous" ideology can stir up hatred - then thats it.
Hate Speech.

I work in the AI/linguistics tech - and the statement "Islam is not a real religion" is classed as hate speech.
Insert any other religion in there and it's not.
Twitter/facebook/all the big SM companies would use a similar classifier algorithm - that's why I am always so skeptical when I hear these stats and headlines about the rise of "hate" speech against Islam on social media.

The key here is how is hate speech defined.

98q76e12hrflnk

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Didn't he consummate his marriage to Aisha when she was 10/11? Doesn't that make him a paedophile?

I think its actually 9 years of age!

Hector Savage

Aubree Howling Memo wrote: »

I think its actually 9 years of age!

6 apparently , and marriage not consummated till 9.

So, if that's not peadophilia then I just don't know where to start.

Mark Hamill

Hector Savage wrote: »

From the link



This is left ambiguous, could be anything - if someone says the statement "Islam is a dangerous" ideology can stir up hatred - then thats it.
Hate Speech.

I work in the AI/linguistics tech - and the statement "Islam is not a real religion" is classed as hate speech.
Insert any other religion in there and it's not.
Twitter/facebook/all the big SM companies would use a similar classifier algorithm - that's why I am always so skeptical when I hear these stats and headlines about the rise of "hate" speech against Islam on social media.

The key here is how is hate speech defined.

It has to be somewhat ambiguous as, thanks to social media, normally neutral terms can become hate speech quite quickly. But that's why we have courts and judges to interpret all of this in cases that are actually brought forward. That Act is from 1989, so we have been on this so called "slipper slope" for 29 years.

seamus

Hector Savage wrote: »

This is left ambiguous, could be anything - if someone says the statement "Islam is a dangerous" ideology can stir up hatred - then thats it.

It's actually less ambiguous than it sounds.

The "hatred" has to be directed towards a group.

So you can say things that make other people hate you.
You can (obviously) say things that make you hate others.
You can say things that make an individual hate a group ("John, your car was stolen by travellers")
Or things that make a group hate an individual, ("Travellers, John wants to burn your homes").

But if you say something that will make a group of people hate another group, ("Travellers are driving around your town looking for babies to steal"), then you're veering into incitement to hatred territory.

And honest belief is generally a defence. If your intention is not to incite hatred, then that's a fairly basic defence.

"Islam is a dangerous ideology", would not fall into the classification.

"Muslims are coming to our country to rape our women and impose Sharia law, so we need to rise up and kick them out" - Now there's some incitement to hatred.

Hector Savage

^^ very good points lads, great to find common ground here.

RandomName2

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I can have a look once I see proof for the assertion that Islam can't be criticised.

You simultaneously believe there is a blasphemy law, which in your words 'is real', and believe that a particular religion is open to public criticism ? Your proof for the latter is supposedly 'anti-islam marches' that have been 'facilitated by the police' but when asked for evidence of this you ask people to prove a negative?

And then, somewhat ironically, you say that your opponents are contradicting themselves (by pointing out that people criticize religion anonymously).

I mean, someone point out anything that I've got wrong there. I'm actually lost for words.

Hotblack Desiato

TheChizler wrote: »

Only if you use the red-top definition of paedophile though. [/pedant]

I think having sex with a nine-year-old would meet most people's definition.

TheChizler

Hector Savage wrote: »

6 apparently , and marriage not consummated till 9.

So, if that's not peadophilia then I just don't know where to start.

Stories seem to vary from 6 up to late teens when they got married, and IIRC from when I last looked into it the marriage wasn't consummated until she hit puberty. So if that's to be believed it doesn't fit the definition for paedophilia of having an exclusive or primary attraction to prepubescent children. His first wife was in her forties and there were several more of various ages inbetween, so if he was attracted to them it wasn't a primary or exclusive attraction either.

So by modern standards it was serious child abuse, but not paedophilia, technically. Which is a worse label IMO since you can be a paedophile but have never harmed a child.

Charmeleon

seamus wrote: »

It's actually less ambiguous than it sounds.

The "hatred" has to be directed towards a group.

So you can say things that make other people hate you.
You can (obviously) say things that make you hate others.
You can say things that make an individual hate a group ("John, your car was stolen by travellers")
Or things that make a group hate an individual, ("Travellers, John wants to burn your homes").

But if you say something that will make a group of people hate another group, ("Travellers are driving around your town looking for babies to steal"), then you're veering into incitement to hatred territory.

And honest belief is generally a defence. If your intention is not to incite hatred, then that's a fairly basic defence.

"Islam is a dangerous ideology", would not fall into the classification.

"Muslims are coming to our country to rape our women and impose Sharia law, so we need to rise up and kick them out" - Now there's some incitement to hatred.

What kind of rationalisation do people have to work through when they don’t consider ‘teach men not to rape’ as incitement to hatred?

robindch

The Irish Times manages to find somebody willing to put pen to paper in support of Blasphemy. Enter, stage right, one David Thunder, a research fellow at the University of Navarra’s Institute for Culture and Society in Pamplona, Spain (incidentally, the same place which hosted John Waters claiming that the Tuam babies was all a "hoax).

Anyway, David doesn't say much about blasphemy but does conclude that the main problem is self-described liberals silencing conservatives:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/vote-no-in-blasphemy-poll-fake-progressive-agenda-is-real-threat-to-freedom-1.3673253

Mark Hamill

TheChizler wrote: »

Stories seem to vary from 6 up to late teens when they got married, and IIRC from when I last looked into it the marriage wasn't consummated until she hit puberty. So if that's to be believed it doesn't fit the definition for paedophilia of having an exclusive or primary attraction to prepubescent children. His first wife was in her forties and there were several more of various ages inbetween, so if he was attracted to them it wasn't a primary or exclusive attraction either.

So by modern standards it was serious child abuse, but not paedophilia, technically. Which is a worse label IMO since you can be a paedophile but have never harmed a child.

Going by wikipedia, the vast majority of muslim sources put her at 9-11 years when she consummated the marriage (the belief is that the consummation of the marriage didn't happen until her first menstruation).
I don't think most, if any, people would seriously argue that a 9-11 year old stops being a child simply because the have just had their first period. And while strictly speaking speaking there is a medical term for attraction to pubescent children rather than pre-pubescent children, Hebephilia, it's not used to differentiate sexual crimes against children and I'm not even sure it's used to differentiate treatment for people with that particular attraction over pre-pubescent paedophilia.

And saying that he only had sex with one child and is therefore not a paedophilia is pedantry to a meaningless extreme. He had sex with a child, she hardly raped him, therefore he wanted to do it.
Do you think if it happened today in Ireland that he would get anywhere with that defence?

smacl

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I don't think most, if any, people would seriously argue that a 9-11 year old stops being a child simply because the have just had their first period.

It would be interesting to know if this was typical for people in that time and place or specific to Mo. AFAIK, average life expectancy in Egypt at that time was ~30 give or take. To give a bit of context, according to this link Mary was apparently 13-14 when she gave birth to Jesus. Just a guess, but it's seems likely that starting to have sex after a girl had her first period might not have been that unusual back then.

Franz Von Peppercorn

smacl wrote: »

It would be interesting to know if this was typical for people in that time and place or specific to Mo. AFAIK, average life expectancy in Egypt at that time was ~30 give or take. To give a bit of context, according to this link Mary was apparently 13-14 when she gave birth to Jesus. Just a guess, but it's seems likely that starting to have sex after a girl had her first period might not have been that unusual back then.

Sam Pepys married a 14 year old although in England marriages were getting later at that time.

However the ECHR ruling is a definite acceptance of a blasphemy law as the ruling is clear that criticising the prophet was considered a criminal act.

On today’s ruling, the ECHR said it “found in particular that the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant’s statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.”

The court held “that by considering the impugned statements as going beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate and classifying them as an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam, which could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace, the domestic courts put forward relevant and sufficient reasons.”

There’s no hatred towards Muslims as a group in her statement. The courts are protecting religious feelings

smacl

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

The court held “that by considering the impugned statements as going beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate and classifying them as an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam, which could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace, the domestic courts put forward relevant and sufficient reasons.”

There’s no hatred towards Muslims as a group in her statement. The courts are protecting religious feelings

My take on that is the ECHR took the position was that Austria didn't violate any human rights in this case in how its domestic courts acted. I think the issue you're finding with the ECHR is actually one with the Austrian government, i.e. the case related to freedom of speech versus incitement to hatred as interpreted by the Austrian government. Full article relating to it here.

More specifically

The statement also added that there had been no violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, covering freedom of expression. "Relying on Article 10 (freedom of expression), E.S. complained that the domestic courts failed to address the substance of the impugned statements in the light of her right to freedom of expression."

ES' statements "were not phrased in a neutral manner aimed at being an objective contribution to a public debate concerning child marriages," the ECtHR held, adding that the moderate fine imposed on her could not be considered disproportionate.

The Austrian courts had drawn a distinction between pedophilia and child marriage, which was also a common practice historically in European ruling families.