40% of British Muslims want Sharia Law.

[dazzleman]

Funny law that... your article fails to mention it, but "insulting religious beliefs" is only illegal if the insult is deemed "suitable to endanger the peace" (ie, provoking those insulted into rioting, basically) - mind you, it's not necessary that anybody actually riots as a result. In this case, this was held to be the case (though nobody rioted, they just notified the police.)
What's more, while jail is a possibility, even in the case of a conviction there's usually just a fine. In this case, a fine was not considered sufficient due to the defendant's criminal record (arson, possession of unlicensed explosives - nothing to do with Islam. In fact, an earlier suspended jail sentence of his expired the very day of the trial.) Another odd note: He's a third cousin of Theo van Gogh.
One more note on the article: While he offered to sell his toilet paper on his website, he didn't actually sell any, nor does he seem to have ever had the intention to. It was just a childish prank really.

This is the first time that a jail sentence (suspended or not) was handed out for an insult to Islam, btw. 99% of investigations are for insults to Christians' religious beliefs. And over 90% of these do not end up in court because the prosecution correctly notes that the insult was not suitable to endanger the peace. I'm not sure when the last jail sentence was handed down - the last non-suspended one was probably several decades ago - , but I know authors of Titanic satirical magazine have been sentenced to pay fines almost every single year of its existence for insulting Christians' religious beliefs. Really, it's quite a ridiculous law, and I'd prefer to see it gone.

Btw, here's the cover of Titanic's march issue (I wanted to print this in this thread anyways, and I was thinking about losing some words about this court case as well)


("Religionen im Vergleich" is religions compared. "Fakten Fakten Fakten" is related to an old feud with FOCUS news magazine that I won't got into detail about here. The four dicks belong to Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism. Whether this is to say that Muslims have small dicks, hence their inferiority complex, or to say that Christians are the biggest dickheads on the planet, or something else entirely, is of course in the eye of the beholder, as is the identification of these things as dicks. The note in the lower righthand corner says "Please Torch Here".)

Of course, it takes a lot less to 'endanger the peace' when you are dealing with a violent group, versus a more peaceful group.  You are talking about a group of people who preach murderous hate of Jews, Christians, etc. on a daily basis, and then become riotous when some little cartoon making fun of them is published.

So in reality, for an insult to Christians to actually 'endanger the peace,' it would have to be a lot worse than any insult to muslims.  Nice way to justify completely unfair treatment.

[minionofmidas]

Repeat ... the law was created with christian blasphemy in mind ... repeat ... it has been used almost exclusively for this purpose.

[dazzleman]

Repeat ... the law was created with christian blasphemy in mind ... repeat ... it has been used almost exclusively for this purpose.

Has anybody done a year in prison for blaspheming Christians?  For the record, I hope not.  I believe in freedom of expression, not protection of the 'sensitivities' of certain groups.

[minionofmidas]

Repeat ... the law was created with christian blasphemy in mind ... repeat ... it has been used almost exclusively for this purpose.

Has anybody done a year in prison for blaspheming Christians?  For the record, I hope not.  I believe in freedom of expression, not protection of the 'sensitivities' of certain groups.

I would have to check to be sure, but I would very much assume that people have ... in the 1960s and earlier. The law was probably created under the Kaiser... it may have had some teeth pulled since. Mind you, nobody's done a day in prison for blaspheming Muslims, ever. Mind you, I don't agree with this verdict. (Which is his own fault... he probably talked himself into a -suspended- jail sentence by the risible lies and fudges he did in court. Still wrong.)

[dazzleman]

Repeat ... the law was created with christian blasphemy in mind ... repeat ... it has been used almost exclusively for this purpose.

Has anybody done a year in prison for blaspheming Christians?  For the record, I hope not.  I believe in freedom of expression, not protection of the 'sensitivities' of certain groups.

I would have to check to be sure, but I would very much assume that people have ... in the 1960s and earlier. The law was probably created under the Kaiser... it may have had some teeth pulled since. Mind you, nobody's done a day in prison for blaspheming Muslims, ever. Mind you, I don't agree with this verdict. (Which is his own fault... he probably talked himself into a -suspended- jail sentence by the risible lies and fudges he did in court. Still wrong.)

Well, honestly, I'm not interested in what happened earlier than the 1960s with respect to this law.  I'm more interested in how it is being used to advance political correctness today.

[minionofmidas]

Hardly at all, really.
As I said, over 90% of attempts to prosecute somebody come from the Christian Right. (And over 90% go nowhere.)

Of course, it's possible that this may change in the future.

This case received little attention in Germany, btw, and what little attention it did receive was probably due to the Danish mess. (It has been pointed out that what Jyllandsposten did would have been illegal in Germany under this law, though it is not illegal - due to precedent, rather than the letter of the law - to report about what Jyllandsposten did... virtually no matter how biased your reporting.
The precedent goes like this: Paper A prints something.
Person X complains.
Paper B writes "Look at that little whiny prick, complaining about something like this" and reprints it.
Paper A may be in trouble, Paper B almost certainly won't be.