Blasphemy Memes. Updated daily, for more funny memes check our homepage. Blasphemous Memes. Updated daily, for more funny memes check our homepage.
Welcome toCommunity Icon bydefinition of a meme / memetics. a way of describing cultural information being shared.
an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation. Please note, Moderators reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.Memes of the Week!.Rules: 1. ALL POSTS MUST BE MEMES. All posts must be memes and follow a general meme setup.
No titles as meme captions. No unedited webcomics. No memes that are text only.
Pictures without captions may be removed by a moderators discretion. Someone saying something funny on twitter/tumblr/reddit/etc. Is not a meme.2. ALL MEMES SHOULD BE GENERAL. NO SPECIFIC PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.
Please make posts general rather than specific personal experiences. This helps make posts more relatable. This means no selfies, SMS screenshots, personal stories, chats, emails, etc. Do not post 'memes' of you or your friends IRL. No creepshots either.3.
NO SPAM/WATERMARKS, NO CHAINPOSTING/SPLIT POSTS, NO UNMARKED NSFW.Do not spam this sub. Linking to your social media, or spamming links with it watermarked can result in a ban.No Chainposting.No 'split' or 'linked' posts - either between yourself or other users.Posts about being banned or having a post removed from any subreddit will be removed and subject to ban.5 or less posts per day please.Mark NSFW posts as such or it risks being removed.No watermarks or shilling your favourite YouTube star.No spam bots.No brigading4. NO RACISM/HATE SPEECH/TROLLING/HARASSMENT OR SUBREDDIT/SITE RAIDING.
Please do not troll, harass, or be generally rude to your fellow users. Do not post raid messages or encourage others to flood or spam another subreddit or website. Keep comments civil and be respectful of your fellow users. Don't post racist or bigoted memes.
Those belong elsewhere. Racist and bigoted memes, harassment, and raiding other subreddits/sites can lead to a permanent ban at the moderators discretion.5. PLEASE DO NOT POST OR REQUEST PERSONAL INFORMATION.Please do not post or request personal information, yours or others.All posts containing social media IDs/usernames will be removed.Do not post images with watermarks to other sites users.6. DIRECT IMAGE LINKS ONLY + NO GIF/VIDEO POSTS.Please link to images directly.
Direct links make browsing easier for those using RES or a mobile device.No videos/GIFs.7. NO META-REDDIT REFERENCES, SUCH AS:. All meta memes should be made over.
Please do not mention upvotes/downvotes/cake days/karma/awards/followers/coins/etc. In your post in any form.No 'Upvote in.' Or 'Upvote if.' Type titles or memes.No memes about votes, likes etc.This includes (but is not limited to) karma-adjacent words/phrases like 'front page' or 'sort by new'.Begging for karma in the comments may earn you a lengthy (perhaps infinite) ban.8. NO REPOSTS.Please avoid re-posting memes.We want original content.
Serial reposters may be banned.Seriously.9. NO FORCED MEMES/OVERUSED MEMES/BAD TITLES/PUSHING AGENDAS.No forced memes, overused memes, bad titles, or pushing agendas.Be creative but memes must come naturally.Memes that have been overused/played out to the point of being spammy will be removed.No petitions10. NO MEMES ABOUT DEATHS/TERROR ATTACKS/WAR/VIOLENT TRAGEDIES/RAPE/MASS SHOOTINGS/ETC.No memes about violent tragedies or anything that could be seen as glorifying violence. Absolutely no school shooter memes. Posts or comments that can be seen as glorifying violence will result in a ban. This also includes (but is not limited to) memes regarding: Deaths, terrorist attacks, rape, sexual assault, pedo, murder, war, bombings, and school shootings.Breaking this rule may result in a permanent ban.We have zero tolerance for this behavior.11. NO MEMES ABOUT POLITICS.Absurd memes featuring politicians are allowed, but this sub does not allow content more suited for.No NPC memes, or memes about how libtards or magats are so wrong.
Take it somewhere else, thanks.Queue flooding is not allowed in this subreddit. Limit your posts to five or less per dayWe reserve the right to moderate at our own discretion.Related subreddits:.(SFW).
Death sentencesA blasphemy law is a prohibiting, where blasphemy is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of to a, or things, or toward something considered sacred. According to, about a quarter of the world's countries and territories (26%) had anti-blasphemy laws or policies as of 2014.In some states, blasphemy laws are used to protect the religious beliefs of a majority, while in other countries, they serve to offer protection of the religious beliefs of.In addition to prohibitions against blasphemy or, blasphemy laws include all laws which give redress to those insulted on account of their religion. These blasphemy laws may forbid: the vilification of religion and religious groups, defamation of religion and its practitioners, denigration of religion and its followers, offending religious feelings, or the contempt of religion. In some jurisdictions, blasphemy laws include laws that extend beyond prohibiting the imminent incitement of hatred and violence, including many European countries that are included in but not yet in this article. Some blasphemy laws, such as those formerly existing in, do not criminalize 'speech that expresses critique,' but rather, 'sanctions speech that insults.' Article 20 of the obliges countries to adopt legislative measures against 'any advocacy of national racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.'
However, they also note that such protections must be carefully circumscribed, and do not support prohibition of blasphemy per se. Main article:Emerging as a colony in the 1780s, received, including the. The first colonial laws were the Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act 1827 for (repealed in 1898), and legislation that governor enacted in in the same year that regulated printing and publishing and prohibited 'blasphemous and seditious libels' as part of a law to maintain public order.The last attempted prosecution for blasphemy by the Crown occurred in the in 1919.Australia abolished and repealed all blasphemy laws at the federal level with the Australia, but blasphemy laws remain in some. The states, territories, and the Commonwealth of Australia are not uniform in their treatment of blasphemy. Blasphemy is an offence in some jurisdictions, including New South Wales (section 49 of the Defamation Act 1974 (NSW)), Victoria, Tasmania, and, but is not in others.
The present legal situation regarding blasphemy in the, and is unclear. Austria In, a section of the penal code relates to blasphemy:.
§ 188: Vilification of Religious TeachingsBrazil Art. 208 of the penal code states that 'publicly vilifying an act or object of religious worship' is a crime punishable with one month to one year of prison, or fine.
See also:was a crime in Canada under section 296 of the Criminal Code R.S.C., 1985, c. Subsection (1) read:'Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years'.Subsection (3) read:'No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious subject'.Over the summer of 2016, a petition to asking that the blasphemous libel law be repealed was circulated by several Canadian groups. The petition was presented to the Government in December 2016.
It responded in January 2017, stating that 'blasphemous libel, along with numerous other provisions of the Criminal Code, are presently under review by the Minister of Justice and her officials'. On 6 June 2017, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould introduced Bill C-51 in the, an Act to Amend the Criminal Code including repeal of section 296 of the Criminal Code relating to blasphemous libel and various other provisions of the Criminal Code which have been ruled or may be unconstitutional. The Bill passed both the House of Commons and the on 11 December 2018. On 13 December 2018, the formally granted, making the repeal official. Kisses a donkey (1969). Found guilty of 'blasphemy' in 1966 for describing a sex scene with God-turned-donkey in his novel Nader tot U, he successfully appealed in 1968.With the introduction of the of 1881, in force since 1886, the obtained its first law against blasphemy. The Minister of Justice argued that, although God would be perfectly capable of protecting his own rights, the Dutch legislator had to 'protect the rights of society'.In 1932, a bill was proposed to tighten the 1886 law.
Parliament was divided between confessional and non-confessional parties, but also between different confessional parties on the question whether the purpose of the bill was protecting God or religion, or religious people. The bill passed on 1 June 1932 with 49 against 44 votes in the House, 28 against 18 votes in the Senate, and was adopted on 4 November 1932.Article 147 punished (by up to three months in jail or a fine of the second category (i.e. Up to €3,800 )) anyone who publicly, orally or in writing or depiction, offends religious feelings by scornful blasphemy. Furthermore, article 429bis prohibited displaying blasphemous material at places visible from the public road. The law came into being in the 1930s after the Communist Party called for Christmas to be dropped from the list of state holidays.
The last successful conviction under Article 147 took place in the early 1960s when a student newspaper was fined 100 guilders for satirizing the. The law against blasphemy complements laws against racial discrimination and incitement to violence. In 1966, the Public Prosecution Service prosecuted writer under Article 147. In his novel Nader tot U (' Nearer to Thee'), Reve describes the narrator's sexual intercourse with God, who is incarnated in a donkey. The court of first instance convicted Reve, but he appealed. In April 1968, an appeals court quashed the conviction.
This effectively made the Dutch blasphemy law dead letter.In November 2008, Ernst expressed the country's coalition government's intent to repeal Article 147. He said the government would strengthen the legislation against discrimination to prohibit any insult to any group of people. In May 2009, the government decided to leave the law as it is.
The decision followed a high court ruling in which a man who had put up a poster that read 'stop the tumour that is Islam' was found not guilty of insulting a group of people on the grounds of their religion. The decision not to abolish the ban on blasphemy was partly motivated to ensure the support of the orthodox Christian for the minority government in the senate. After a in 2012, a new was formed and a majority of parliament pledged to support a proposal to repeal the blasphemy law.In November 2012, parliament decided to overturn the blasphemy laws. It would pass with support from the, but the fundamentalist Christian group SGP were strongly opposed to the measure.
According to the SGP, the decision to lift the ban on blasphemy is a 'painful loss of a moral anchor and a symptom of a spiritual crisis'.On 1 February 2014, the law on blasphemy was officially abolished. New Zealand. Main article:The United Kingdom is made up of four distinct parts and several legal jurisdictions. In criminal justice matters, these jurisdictions are,. Blasphemy laws dating back to the medieval times were abolished in England and Wales in 2008. Equivalent laws remain in Scotland and Northern Ireland but have not been used for many years.English blasphemy laws were historically defended with the following reasoning: the 'blasphemy law is needed to uphold the national law, which is based on Christianity.
Thus, targeting Christianity is targeting the very foundation of England.' The last attempted prosecution under these laws was in 2007 when the evangelical group sought a against the over its broadcasting of the show (which includes a scene depicting Jesus, dressed as a baby, professing to be 'a bit gay'). The charges were rejected by the magistrates court. Christian Voice applied to have this ruling overturned by the, but the application was rejected.
The court found that the blasphemy offences specifically did not apply to stage productions (s. 2(4) of the ) and broadcasts (s. 6 of the ).The last successful blasphemy prosecution (also a private prosecution) was in 1977, when, the editor of, was found guilty. His newspaper had published 's poem ', which allegedly vilified and his life. Lemon was fined £500 and given a of nine months' imprisonment. It had been 'touch and go', said the judge, whether he would actually send Lemon to jail. In 2002, a deliberate and well-publicized public repeat reading of the poem took place on the steps of church in, but did not lead to any prosecution.In 1696, a Scottish court sentenced to death for blasphemy. The last prosecution for was in 1843.The last person in Britain to be imprisoned for blasphemy was on 9 December 1921.
He had three previous convictions for blasphemy when he was prosecuted for publishing two pamphlets which satirized the biblical story of Jesus entering Jerusalem (:2–7), comparing Jesus to a circus clown. He was sentenced to nine months' hard labour. In 1985, the published a report, Criminal Law: Offences against Religious and Public Worship, that concluded that the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel should be abolished without replacement. On 5 March 2008, an amendment was passed to the which abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in England and Wales. (Common law is abolished, not repealed.) The Act received royal assent on 8 May 2008, and the relevant section came into force on 8 July 2008.Blasphemy remains an offence under the common law in Scotland (last prosecuted in 1843) and in Northern Ireland.The 1989 film was the only film ever banned in the UK for blasphemy.
Following the abolition of the blasphemy laws in England and Wales in 2008, the film was eventually classified by the BBFC for release as 18-rated in 2012. United States. 'An Act against Atheism and Blasphemy' as enacted in 1697 in 'His Majesty's PROVINCE of the MASSACHUSETTS-BAY in NEW-ENGLAND' (1759 printing)A prosecution for blasphemy in the United States would be a violation of the, and no blasphemy laws exist at the federal level. The (adopted in 1791) provides:'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.' Before from the in the late 18th century, some of the such as the had blasphemy laws.
The 1791 First Amendment effectively put an end to them in the new American republic.Because of the First Amendment's protection of free speech and religious exercise from federal interference, and the Supreme Court's extension of those protections against state regulation, the United States and its constituent state governments may not prosecute blasphemous speech or religious insults and may not allow civil actions on those grounds. Supreme Court ruled in 1952 that could not enforce a censorship law against filmmakers whose films contained 'sacrilegious' content. The opinion of the Court, by Justice Clark, stated that:'From the standpoint of freedom of speech and the press, it is enough to point out that the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views. It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches, or motion pictures.'
The United States and some individual state jurisdictions provide for stronger criminal penalties for crimes when committed against a person because of that person's religious or some other affiliations. For instance, Section 3A1.1 of the 2009 United States Sentencing Guidelines states that: 'If the finder of fact at trial or, in the case of a plea of guilty or, the court at sentencing determines beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally selected any victim or any property as the object of the offense of conviction because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person,' the sentencing court is required to increase the standard sentencing range. Muslim-majority countries In a number of countries where Islam is the state religion, Islamic law is the principal legislation, or affects the laws of the country. Is impious utterance or action concerning God, Muhammad or anything considered sacred in Islam. The Islamic holy book, the, admonishes blasphemy, but does not specify the punishment.
The, which are another source of sharia, suggest various punishments for blasphemy.Afghanistan. Main article:Bangladesh forbids blasphemy by a provision in its penal code that prohibits 'hurting religious sentiments', and by other laws and policies that attack freedom of speech.In April 2013, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina rejected calls for new laws from radical Islamist groups, notably Hefajat-e Islam, demanding death penalty for people involved in blasphemy. She described Bangladesh as a 'secular democracy, where every religion had a right to be practiced freely and fairly', and that 'if anyone was found guilty of hurting the sentiments of the followers of any religion or its venerable figures, there was a law to deal with it'. Main article:Article 98(f) of the Egyptian Penal Code, as amended by Law 147/2006 states the penalty for blasphemy and similar crimes:Confinement for a period of not less than six months and not exceeding five years, or a fine of not less than five hundred pounds and not exceeding one thousand pounds shall be the penalty inflicted on whoever makes use of religion in propagating, either by words, in writing, or in any other means, extreme ideas for the purpose of inciting strife, ridiculing or insulting a heavenly religion or a sect following it, or damaging national unity. Indonesia. Main article:prevents insult to religion and to the religious by education, by restrictions upon the broadcasting and publishing media, and by the legal system.
Some states in the Malaysian federation operate Sharia courts to protect Islam, and, when Sharia is not applicable, the Malaysian Penal Code provides penalties for offenses against religion. Mauritania The crime of apostasy is defined in section IV (entitled Act of Indecency toward Islam) of the Mauritanian Penal Code, established under the order of 9 July 1983.
Article 306, paragraph 1 of the criminal code indicates, 'Every Muslim guilty of the crime of apostasy, either by word or by action of apparent or obvious, will be invited to repent within three days.' Pakistan. Protest to repeal Pakistan's blasphemy law in (2014)More people are on death row or serving life sentences for blasphemy in Pakistan than in any other country in the world.The anti-blasphemy laws in are quite complicated. Offenders may be vigorously prosecuted. Chapter XV of deals with 'offences relating to religion':. §295. Injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class.
§295-A. Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting Its religion or religious beliefs.
§295-B. Defiling, etc., of Holy Qur'an.
§295-C. Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet.
§296. Disturbing religious assembly. §297. Trespassing on burial places, etc. §298.
Uttering words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings. §298-A. Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of holy personages. §298-B. Misuse of epithets, descriptions and titles, etc., reserved for certain holy personages or places. §298-C.
Person of group, etc., calling himself a Muslim or preaching or propagating his faith:There is a death penalty for blasphemy in Pakistan (only under section 295 c). Those prosecuted are usually minorities such as and but it seems that they are also increasingly other Muslims. Persons accused of blasphemy as well as police, lawyers, and judges have been subject to harassment, threats, attacks, and murders when blasphemy is the issue.In November 2008 Pakistan's government appointed as Federal Minister for Minorities and gave him cabinet rank. Bhatti had promised that the government would review Pakistan's blasphemy laws.
Pakistan has been an active supporter of the campaign by the to create global laws against.Minister Bhatti was shot dead on 2 March 2011 in, the capital of Pakistan. On 19 March 2014, Pakistani English-language newspaper, The Nation, conducted a poll of its readers that showed 68% of Pakistanis believe the blasphemy law should be repealed.In September 2016 a sixteen-year-old Christian teenage boy, Nabeel Chohan, was arrested in Pakistan after he 'liked' a Facebook post that was allegedly blasphemous. According to Punjab Police the teenager, was jailed and was awaiting trial for sharing the post on social media.In November 2017 an obscure Islamist group Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah Pakistan in Pakistan staged a sit-in in the capital Islamabad.
They forced the government to abandon an amendment to the oath sworn by election candidates that allowed for a variation in the oath because of the candidates religious beliefs. They also caused the law minister Zahid Hamid to resign. Palestine. Signs a copy of The Blasphemer in 2015The has several provisions in civil and military law against blasphemy. An infamous 2010 case, in which these were employed to attempt a prosecution, was that of, a young man from the West Bank town of who had to become an, and openly challenged and ridiculed religion online. He was arrested without charges and jailed in October 2010, after which the alleged Al-Husseini had committed blasphemy on the Internet. A Palestinian human rights expert at the time expected Al-Husseini to be tried according to a 1960 Jordanian law against defaming religion, which was still in force in the West Bank.
Instead, Al-Husseini was charged with three counts of indictment according to the Palestine Military Code of Justice, namely: 'inciting religious hatred' (Article 177), 'insulting religious leaders' (Article 225 and 226/B), and 'offending religious views' (Article 230/A). He was eventually released after 10 months in prison due to heavy international diplomatic pressure, primarily exerted by France. Qatar The penalty for committing blasphemy in Qatar is a jail sentence of up to 7 years.
Additionally, the law stipulates a 1-year prison sentence or QR1,000 fine for defamation of Islam by producing or promoting defamatory imagery.Religious criticism on websites is censored in Qatar. The censorship office of the monitors imported foreign broadcasting for sensitive religious content.
Saudi Arabia. Main article:Islam is Saudi Arabia's. The country's monarchy follows. The country's laws are an amalgam of rules from Sharia, royal edicts, and from the Council of Senior Religious Scholars; they prescribe penalties up to the death penalty for blasphemy.
Sudan Sunni Islam is the of Sudan. Before received independence, about seventy percent of the country's population was Muslim. The next largest group—about twenty-five percent of the population—was.
Section 125 of the Sudanese Criminal Act prohibits 'insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs'. The section includes as penalties: imprisonment, a fine, and a maximum of forty. In November 2007, the section gave rise to the. In December 2007, the section was used against two Egyptian booksellers. They were sentenced to six months in prison because they sold a book that the court deemed an insult to Aisha, one of 's wives.In May 2005, the authorities arrested Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, and charged him with violating section 125. Ahmed was the editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper Al-Wifaq.
The paper had published an article about a 500-year-old Islamic manuscript which says the real name of Mohammed's father was not Abdallah but Abdel Lat, or Slave of Lat, an idol of the pre-Islamic era. A court fined Al-Wifaq eight million Sudanese pounds—the paper was shut down for three months—but acquitted Ahmed. Ahmed was found decapitated in September 2006. During rehearsals in 2011Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code ('Provoking people to be rancorous and hostile') criminalizes blasphemy and religious insult, as well as hate speech. The article, which is in the fifth section of the Turkish Penal Code ('Offenses Against Public Peace') is as follows:Article 216.
– Provoking people to be rancorous and hostile (1) Any person who openly provokes a group of people belonging to different social class, religion, race, sect, or coming from another origin, to be rancorous or hostile against another group, is punished with imprisonment from one year to three years in case of such act causes risk from the aspect of public safety. (2) Any person who openly humiliates another person just because he belongs to different social class, religion, race, sect, or comes from another origin, is punished with imprisonment from six months to one year. (3) Any person who openly disrespects the religious belief of a group is punished with imprisonment from six months to one year if such act causes potential risk for public peace.On 1 June 2012, pianist came under investigation by the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office over statements made on, declaring himself an atheist and retweeting a message poking fun at the conception of. On 15 April 2013, Say was sentenced to 10 months in jail, reduced from 12 months for good behavior in court.
The sentence was suspended, meaning he was allowed to move freely provided he did not repeat the offence in the next five years. On appeal, Turkey's reversed the conviction on 26 October 2015, ruling that Say's Twitter posts fell within the bounds of freedom of thought and freedom of expression. United Arab Emirates. This section does not any. Unsourced material may be challenged and.Find sources: – ( May 2013) Accusations of blasphemy in are often aimed at religious minorities, intellectuals and artists, reporters, and opponents of the ruling party. Vigilantism or abuse by the authorities can kill an accused or force them into exile.
The accused in Yemen is subject to Islamic law (Sharia). Sharia, according to some interpretations, prescribes death as the proper punishment for blasphemy.Atheist states China China, officially an, banned a book titled ' Xing Fengsu' ('Sexual Customs'), which had allegedly insulted Islam, and placed its authors under arrest in 1989, after protests in Lanzhou and Beijing by Chinese Muslims, during which the Chinese police provided protection to the Hui Muslim protestors, and the Chinese government organized public burnings of the book. The Chinese government assisted them and gave into their demands because Hui do not have a separatist movement, unlike the, Hui Muslim protestors who violently rioted by vandalizing property during the protests against the book were let off by the Chinese government and went unpunished while Uyghur protestors were imprisoned.In 2007, anticipating the coming 'Year of the Pig' in the, depictions of pigs were banned from 'to avoid conflicts with ethnic minorities'.
This is believed to refer to China's population of 20 million (to whom pigs are considered ').In response to the 2015 Chinese state-run media attacked Charlie Hebdo for publishing the cartoons insulting Muhammad, with the state-run advocated limiting freedom of speech, while another state-run newspaper said the attack was 'payback' for what it characterized as Western colonialism and accusing Charlie Hebdo of trying to incite a clash of civilizations. Jewish state Israel In, blasphemy laws were enacted by the pre-State in an attempt to suppress the.Blasphemy is covered by Articles 170 and 173 of the penal code as enacted by the British Mandate:Insult to religion 170.
If a person destroys, damages or desecrates a place of worship or any object which is held sacred by a group of persons, with the intention of reviling their religion, or in the knowledge that they are liable to deem that act an insult to their religion, then the one is liable to three years' imprisonment. Injury to religious sentiment 173. If a person does any of the following, then the one is liable to one year's imprisonment: (1) One publishes a publication that is liable to crudely offend the religious faith or sentiment of others; (2) One voices in a public place and in the hearing of another person any word or sound that is liable to crudely offend the religious faith or sentiment of others. Hindu and Buddhist-majority countries India. Main article:In 1860, laws were created in that made it a 'crime to disturb a religious assembly, trespass on burial grounds, insult religious beliefs or intentionally destroy or defile a place or an object of worship, punishable by up to 10 years in jail.' Section 295A of the has been used as a blasphemy law to prevent insulting Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.The British-era section 295A of the penal code which was created by Christians who ruled India is extant and has not been repealed; it contains an anti-blasphemy law. Section 295A was introduced in 1927 to prevent hate speech that insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of any class of citizen with deliberate and malicious intention to outrage their religious feelings but the main purpose of this law has been to maintain 'public order in a multireligious and religiously sensitive society.'
An important difference between the offence in the Indian Penal Code and English common law is that the defendant must have a 'deliberate and malicious intention of outraging religious feelings' in the Indian code while English common law had no such inclusion. Section 295A has, nevertheless, been used a number of times to prevent free and honest discussion on religious issues and remains a threat to freedom of expression. The same section 295A appears in the penal codes of Pakistan and Myanmar where it is used as a blasphemy law. There have been widespread calls in India from Hindus to repeal the regressive British code.In India, many people are arrested in accordance with the above-mentioned laws. Cases include those of:,. Many for blasphemous content.Myanmar Section 295A and 298 of the Myanmar Penal Code are used to prosecute people for blasphemy.
The Myanmar Penal Code shares a common origin with the penal codes of Pakistan and India and other British colonies in the Penal Code of 1860. The offences are:Chapter XVOF OFFENCES RELATING TO RELIGION.
295. Injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class.
295A. Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs. 296. Disturbing religious assembly. 297. Trespassing on burial - places, etc.
298. Uttering words, etc; with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings.Section 295 and 295A carry a maximum penalty of two years' imprisonment, a fine, or both, and sections 296, 297 and 298 a maximum of one year's imprisonment, a fine, or both.
Section 295A was added to the Penal code by a legislative amendment in 1927 and was intended to protect religious minorities. It was a response to a perceived need to prohibit incitement against Muslim minorities by Hindu nationalists in India, but is now used in Myanmar to protect Buddhist nationalists against prosecution for incitement against Muslim minorities.In December 2014, bar owner Tun Thurein and bar managers Htut Ko Lwin and New Zealander Philip Blackwood who ran the VGastro Bar in were arrested and sentenced in March 2015 to two-and-a-half years of hard labour after posting a psychedelic image of the Buddha wearing headphones to promote their bar on the internet. In June 2015, writer and former National League for Democracy information officer, Htin Lin Oo was sentenced to two years of hard labour for violating section 295A. The charge resulted from a speech in which he accused several prominent Buddhist organisations of extreme nationalism with particularly reference to, who has been accused of hate speech and incitement of violence against Muslims by international observers many times since anti-Rohingya violence erupted in 2012. Nepal Section 9.156 of a new criminal code act passed by parliament on 8 August 2017 serves as a blasphemy law.
It criminalised for the first time the ‘hurting of religious sentiment’ and carries a penalty of up to two years imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 Rupees. The new law came into force on the 17 August 2018 Thailand Despite 's constitution declaring freedom of religion and the lack of an official religion, still plays a very important role in Thai society, both legally and culturally.
The constitution declares that the must be Buddhist and a defender of Buddhism. The 1962 Sangha Act outlaws insults or defamation of Buddhism and Buddhist clergy. These include damaging statues of Buddha, stealing, buying or taking them out of Thailand, taking photos of them, sitting with your feet facing them, touching them on the head, and wearing tattoos depicting the Buddha.Travelers coming into Thailand from a foreign country are sternly warned not to do the aforementioned acts when entering the country. The 1956 penal code sections 206 and 208 also outlaws insulting or disrupting places and services of any religion recognized by the Thai government. Violations range from 1 to 7 years imprisonment to a 2,000 to 14,000 fine.
Defamation of religion and the United Nations. Main article:Article 19 of the (ICCPR) 1976 obliges signatory countries to guarantee everyone the right to hold opinions without restriction and to guarantee the right to freedom of expression, to impart information and ideas of all kinds, either orally, in writing or in print, in art, or through any other media. Paragraph 3 of article 19 allows for certain restrictions to freedom expression that are both necessary and provided by law to safeguard the reputations of others, for the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals and article 20 obliges countries to prohibit 'propaganda for war or advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.' In July 2011, the released a 52-paragraph statement, General Comment 34 on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, concerning freedoms of opinion and expression. Paragraph 48 states:Prohibitions of displays of lack of respect for a religion or other belief system, including blasphemy laws, are incompatible with the Covenant, except in the specific circumstances envisaged in article 20, paragraph 2, of the Covenant. Such prohibitions must also comply with the strict requirements of article 19, paragraph 3, as well as such articles as 2, 5, 17, 18 and 26.
Thus, for instance, it would be impermissible for any such laws to discriminate in favour of or against one or certain religions or belief systems, or their adherents over another, or religious believers over non-believers. Nor would it be permissible for such prohibitions to be used to prevent or punish criticism of religious leaders or commentary on religious doctrine and tenets of faith.The have petitioned the ' to create global laws criminalising insults to religion'.Three United Nations Special Rapporteurs—the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion or belief, on the right to freedom of opinion and expression and on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance—released a joint statement during the Durban Review Conference in Geneva in 2009. They stated that: 'the difficulties in providing an objective definition of the term 'defamation of religions' at the international level make the whole concept open to abuse. At the national level, domestic blasphemy laws can prove counter-productive, since this could result in the de facto censure of all inter-religious and intra-religious criticism. Many of these laws afford different levels of protection to different religions and have often proved to be applied in a discriminatory manner. There are numerous examples of persecution of religious minorities or dissenters, but also of atheists and non-theists, as a result of legislation on religious offences or overzealous application of laws that are fairly neutral.'