Sir, – Ireland no longer has a blasphemy law. We start the new decade with the good news that we have finally removed this medieval crime from our statute books.
Over the Christmas period, President Michael D Higgins signed the Blasphemy (Abolition of Offences and Related Matters) Bill 2019 into law. Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has politically led this important change.
Atheist Ireland has spent more than a decade lobbying for repeal of the blasphemy law with the Government and Department of Justice, as well as at the United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Council of Europe.
We had three tours of public meetings around Ireland about the need to repeal the blasphemy law, in 2009, 2012, and 2018. We also worked with, and we gratefully thank, our friends and colleagues in atheist and secular groups around the world.
The new law does three things. It abolishes the common law offence of blasphemy. It repeals sections 36 and 37 of the Defamation Act, which described the offence of blasphemy. And it removes references to blasphemy from the Censorship of Films Act.
This means that we have finally removed the medieval crime of blasphemy from both our Constitution and our statute books.
Our laws can now protect people from harm, not protect ideas from criticism. Our media outlets no longer have to censor themselves.
We are no longer breaching our international human rights obligations, as we have been told by the UN Human Rights Committee and the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission. States that execute people for blasphemy can no longer cite the Irish law at the UN, to justify their repression of religious minorities.
Ireland was once a Catholic country. Today it is a pluralist country, which still has Catholic laws that we are gradually changing. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL NUGENT,
Chairman,
JANE DONNELLY,
Human Rights Officer,
Atheist Ireland,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.