We often forget that many countries still have laws on the books against blasphemy, i.e., insulting religion. Some such countries are surprising as we’d consider them “progressive” in many ways. As I wrote in my foreword to the new Jesus and Mo collection:

. . . despite the value of constructive blasphemy, 69 of the world’s 195 countries have laws on the books against the act, though in places the laws are vestigial and unenforced relics of an earlier time. But you can still be fined for criticizing religion in Italy, Brazil, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, and the Philippines, jailed in Germany, Poland, El Salvador, India, Finland, Ireland, India, Turkey, Morocco, and Algeria, and put to death in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. That doesn’t count places where sharia courts can pronounce death sentences not enshrined in civil law, nor acts of murder committed by offended believers in countries like the Netherlands.

How did I forget Spain in the second sentence? In fact, Spain not only has blasphemy laws on the books, but tries to enforce them. As Wikipedia notes in its article on “blasphemy laws”:

The article 525 of the penal law in Spain considers “vilification” of religious “feelings”, “dogmas”, “beliefs” or “rituals”. This extension to “dogmas” and “beliefs” makes it very close to a blasphemy law in practice, depending on the interpretation of the judge.

For instance, in 2012 it was used to prosecute a famous artist, Javier Krahe, for a scene (shot 34 years ago, and lasting just 54 seconds) in a documentary about him. He was discharged the same year. [JAC: “discharged” means “found not guilty”).

In 2018, following the case of Willy Toledo and three feminist protesters accused of blasphemy, the governing PSOE and supportive party Unidas Podemos pledged an end to the “medieval laws on offending religious sentiments and insult to the Crown“. Legislation was suspended following the announcement of the 2019 Spanish general election. The government and its allies were subsequently returned to power, which means the proposals will now likely return to the national parliament.

And so on to the present trial, that of Spanish actor Guillermo Toledo, the “Willy Toledo” of the entry above.  Reader Dom informs me that after having been arrested last year for blasphemy, Toledo is now undergoing a “private prosecution”, and that’s what this clip, in Spanish, states (if I’m wrong, let me know). Dom also reports that there was just a clip on the BBC news about this, but he can’t find it online.

To see what Toledo’s “crime” was, we have to go to El País and The Daily Mail (click on screenshots), which reported when he was first arrested in 2018:

The Daily Fail:

What on earth did Willy do? A previous article in El País reports that he insulted not just God, but the Virgin Mary:

The origin of the case lies with a Facebook post that the actor and activist published regarding a court case relating to three women in Seville who organized a satirical religious-style procession, which, in place of an icon from the Catholic Church, featured an icon of female genitalia.

In his comments about the fact that the case had reached the courts, Toledo wrote: “I shit on God and have enough shit left over to shit on the dogma of the saintliness and virginity of the Virgin Mary. This country is unbearably shameful. I’m disgusted. Go fuck yourselves.”

The expression “shit on God” (cagarse en Dios) is often used by Spaniards in everyday discourse, along with a number of variations, many of them with other religious references.

. . .These comments drew a legal complaint from the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers on the basis that Toledo had offended their religious feelings.

But is such a thing punishable under Spanish law? Lawyer Borja Adsuara explains that the lawsuit has to be admitted by the court, given that the offense does indeed figure in Spain’s criminal code. “[The article] is wide-ranging enough that it doesn’t just include the Catholic religion, but also humiliation and ridicule of atheists for being atheists. Looking at it another way, the offense against religious feelings can be interpreted as a crime of intolerance of other people’s religious beliefs,” Adsuara tells Verne via a telephone interview.

According to the Daily Fail,

“The case stems from a July 2017 Facebook message in which he defended three women charged with blasphemy for staging a mock-religious procession wielding a giant vagina.  In his post Toledo said: ‘I s*** on God, and I have enough s*** left over to s*** on the dogma of the sanctity and virginity of the Virgin Mary.  ‘This country is unbearably shameful. I’m disgusted.’

El País adds that Toledo also said this: “Long live the Insubordinate Pussy.”

Here’s that Facebook post, which Toledo put up in these circumstances:

He posted this message shortly after the beginning of a trial in Seville against three women who had paraded a large model of a vagina around the city as though it were an Easter religious procession. The women called this event “the procession of the Insubordinate Pussy.”

LOL! Ceiling Cat bless those women!  Finally, El País adds this:

The Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers filed a complaint against Toledo “for shitting on the dogma, and because his words were an offense against religious sentiment,” said the group’s president, Polonia Castellanos, adding that this is a publicity stunt by Toledo because everyone has the obligation to appear in court when summoned.

It doesn’t look as if Toledo will go to jail for this, because, according to El País, the “blasphemy law”, Article 525, specifies that punishment is a monetary fine. Curiously, though, if you look up the Spanish Criminal Code, which appears in English in entirety here, you find this:

What on earth is “a fine from eight to twelve months”? This implies that there could be a jail sentence as well, but I’ll count on readers to clarify this. Note that you can get penalized for disparaging atheists as well! Well, at least the law is even-handed, but I’d like someone to prosecute a believer—or even the Catholic Church—for disparaging atheists. It’ll be a cold day in Seville when that happens!

Blasphemy laws are antiquated—no part of an enlightened country. You should be able to say what you want about religion. After all, does it pick your pocket or break your bones? Nope. All it supposedly does is hurt the feelings and bruise the delusions of believers.

Let’s hope the Spanish government uses this case to overturn the blasphemy laws, as Ireland just did. And let’s also hope that Toledo goes free.

 

There is no rational excuse to have blasphemy laws on the books anywhere, yet, as I wrote in my Jesus and Mo foreword, they’re prevalent:

69 of the world’s 195 countries have laws on the books against [blasphemy], though in places the laws are vestigial and unenforced relics of an earlier time. But you can still be fined for criticizing religion in Italy, Brazil, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, and the Philippines, jailed in Germany, Poland, El Salvador, India, Finland, Ireland, India, Turkey, Morocco, and Algeria, and put to death in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan.  That doesn’t count places where sharia courts can pronounce death sentences not enshrined in civil law, nor acts of murder committed by offended believers in countries like the Netherlands.

One of the most notorious blasphemy laws was in Ireland, as it was enacted in a Western country and was clearly on the books to protect the Catholic Church from being criticized. Grania used to complain about it at length, and I’m very sad she’s not here to celebrate the overturning of that law. Further, unlike “vestigial” blasphemy laws that are on the books but not enforced, Ireland’s was enforced, at least nominally. In 2017 I reported on how author and polymath Stephen Fry was investigated by the Irish police for simply criticizing religion in general (see the “incriminating” video here). The investigation was dropped, but only on the grounds that no identifiable party had complained.

At the time blasphemy was still a crime; as I wrote then:

Blasphemy [as the criticism of religion] is a crime in Ireland; the Constitution of 1937 (see here) says the following:

ARTICLE 40

6. 1° The State guarantees liberty for the exercise of the following rights, subject to public order and morality:  i. The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions. The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State. The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.

Wikipedia has a good article on the blasphemy law, its history, and its implementation in Ireland. The upshot is that it’s been contested, especially by the organization Atheist Ireland, and a referendum on the issue of blasphemy was proposed in 2014 but has yet to take place. No offenses have been prosecuted since 2009, but the law remains on the books.

The promised referendum was finally held in 2018, and voters rejected the law by a vote of 65% to 35%.  Atheist Ireland (of which Grania was once secretary) has an article on the repeal. (Click on screenshot. On the left is Michael Nugent, head of AI clad in his trademarked red polo shirt, but I’m not sure who the others are, though readers will certainly identify them for us.) Atheist Ireland was the most vociferous organization urging repeal of the bill, and its repeal took effect on January 1. They’re a happy group, and I congratulate them.

Here’s the organization’s summary of what was achieved:

The Blasphemy (Abolition of Offences and Related Matters) Act does three things:

• For the avoidance of doubt, it declares that the common law offence of blasphemy is abolished.
• It repeals Sections 36 and 37 of the Defamation Act 2009, which described what the offence of blasphemy consisted of.
• It amends the Censorship of Films Act 1923, and the Censorship of Films (Amendment) Act 1925, to remove references to blasphemous matter.

So finally, after more than a decade of campaigning, we have removed the medieval crime of blasphemy from both our constitution and our statute laws. This means that:

• Our laws can now protect people from harm, not protect ideas from criticism, and our media outlets no longer have to self censor themselves.
• We are no longer breaching our international human rights obligations, as we have been told by the United Nations 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 United Nations, 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. Thank you to everybody who is helping to make this happen.

Here are the two articles which were just repealed: 36 and 37; note the emphasis on religion:

Hate speech is apparently still illegal in Ireland, but not “hate speech” that mocks religion. Note that “blasphemy” is defined as speech that is “grossly abusive or insulting in matters held sacred by any religion”, and so for a long time religion was singled out: one feature of a religious country. But The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989 remains on the books, prohibiting speech that stirs up hatred against “a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community [the Roma] or sexual orientation.” (I’m not sure if the “religion” bit remains in there, but it’s superceded by the new repeal of the blaphemy law.) As of 2017, there had been five convictions for violating this Act.

Although this is a bit off topic, my own view is that there should be no laws prohibiting hate speech, save those adhering to the U.S. courts’ interpretation of the First Amendment that such speech can be illegal if it intends to and is likely to incite immediate violence. Hate speech laws are widespread, but not useful in an enlightened society since they are subject to a third party’s interpretation of what is considered “hateful”. For example, Holocaust denialism is illegal in 16 European countries as well as Israel, but I think it’s quite useful to have a public airing of arguments for and against the Holocaust—if for no other reason than that all of us should know that evidence to best defend the truth. And this needs to be done constantly, for each generation needs to learn the facts anew.

Hate crimes are something I’m still pondering, as I can see arguments on both sides about whether you should get an extra penalty for committing a crime motivated by hatred of a group rather than just a person. If you have views on that, please set them out in the comments.