{"id":140373,"date":"2018-06-13T02:22:48","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T02:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/ireland-to-hold-referendum-on-blasphemy-law\/"},"modified":"2018-06-13T02:22:48","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T02:22:48","slug":"ireland-to-hold-referendum-on-blasphemy-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/ireland-to-hold-referendum-on-blasphemy-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland to hold referendum on blasphemy law"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Charlie Flanagan\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/10EEF\/production\/_101995396_charlieflanagan1.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  PA<figcaption>Image caption                                      Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said the referendum would mark an &quot;important step&quot; in Ireland&#039;s &quot;international reputation&quot;                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">The Republic of Ireland will hold a referendum on whether to change its laws against blasphemy.<\/p>\n<p>It is expected that the vote will be held on the same day as the Presidential election, which is likely to take place in October.<\/p>\n<p>The move is part of a commitment made in the programme for government.<\/p>\n<p>The previous Fine Gael-Labour coalition, which governed from 2011 to 2016, had promised a vote on the law.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Stephen Fry blasphemy probe dropped by Irish police<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, it never followed through on a referendum, which is required to change any part of the Republic&#039;s constitution. <\/p>\n<p>The law on blasphemy was written into the 1937 constitution.<\/p>\n<h2>&#039;Strong message&#039;<\/h2>\n<p>Part of Article 40 states: &quot;The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>In 2009, a new law made blasphemy punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros (\u00a321,000).<\/p>\n<p>British actor, comedian and writer Stephen Fry was investigated under blasphemy laws in 2015 after Irish police received a complaint over an interview with Irish national broadcaster RT\u00c9 in which he called God stupid, selfish and &quot;quite clearly a maniac&quot;.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  PA<figcaption>Image caption                                      A complaint was made to Irish police that Stephen Fry had breached blasphemy laws in a TV interview in 2015                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Garda\u00ed (Irish police) dropped the investigation in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said: &quot;In terms of Ireland&#039;s international reputation, this is an important step.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;By removing this provision from our Constitution, we can send a strong message to the world that laws against blasphemy do not reflect Irish values and that we do not believe such laws should exist.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>At the time, the Fianna F\u00e1il led government said it was needed because the Republic&#039;s 1937 constitution only gives Christians legal protection of their beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>Previous Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the last known prosecution in Ireland was thought to be in 1855.<\/p>\n<p>It is expected that the Irish government will also approve holding a vote on whether to remove a reference in the constitution to the role of &quot;a woman&#039;s life within the home&quot;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright PAImage caption Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said the referendum would mark an &quot;important step&quot; in Ireland&#039;s &quot;international reputation&quot; The Republic of Ireland will hold a referendum on whether<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}