She was charged with violating a law that forbids defamatory statements about a religion acknowledged by the Italian state. The trial never concluded as Fallaci died from breast cancer during its proceedings. In Denmark in , a man who posted a video of himself burning the Koran on Facebook only narrowly avoided trial when politicians abolished a centuries-old blasphemy law. Poland, an overwhelmingly Catholic country, has a legal provision against publicly offending a person's religious feelings rather than a distinct blasphemy law.
This carries the potential of up to two years in prison. In , artist Dorota Nieznalska was sued under the law for a sculpture in which male genitals were shown attached to a Christian crucifix. After a hugely divisive trial, she received a sentence of six months community service.
But there was such international protest that her sentence was successfully appealed. The Turkish Penal Code criminalises blasphemy and religious insult, as well as hate speech. In April , world-renowned pianist Fazil Say was given a month suspended sentence for religious defamation in connection with a series of Twitter posts, including one declaring himself an atheist and another quoting 12 th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam poking fun of the Islamic vision of paradise.
After a lengthy battle in the courts, Say was finally acquitted in September DiscoverHer Sculptor and video artist Dorota Nieznalska has been tried and convicted of "offending religious feelings" in her native Poland. Will climate change lead to war? Cop what the US-China climate deal means for global emissions. Stranger than fiction. Tall Tales. Popular articles. Insulate Britain: what the protesters want.
The most extreme weather events of In pictures. Is Bosnia on brink of another war? Various high profile blasphemy cases from around the world have drawn international attention in recent years. There was global backlash from Muslims in over the depiction of the Prophet Muhammed as a cartoon in a Danish newspaper. This brought the clash between freedom of speech and freedom of religion to the fore of international debate, and reared its head again with devastating consequences when the staff of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were murdered in Paris in by Islamic extremists.
In Denmark in , a man who posted a video of himself burning the Quran on Facebook avoided trial when politicians abolished a centuries-old blasphemy law. In Indonesia this summer, a Buddhist woman named Meiliana was sentenced to 18 months in prison for complaining about a noisy mosque in — something which sparked the burning and ransacking of Buddhist temples as a public response at the time.
In Pakistan, a Christian woman called Asia Bibi has been facing execution for six years after allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed during a row with other women over water in A previous attempt, spearheaded by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, ended in failure in It will merely abolish the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel to the extent that they form part of the common law of Victoria.
Victoria today is a diverse, multicultural melting pot. There should never be protection under the law that favours one belief — or non-belief — over another. So with that in mind, I think that everyone, regardless of their religious views, can get behind a change like this. Why is blasphemy still a crime in Victoria? Please try again later.
The Age. By Fiona Patten November 26, — Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later.
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