We have now completed our series of four public meetings (in Waterford, Dublin, Cork and Limerick) and we are moving on to the following four-stranded campaign:
- Lobbying of politicians, especially members of the Justice Committee
- Building a broader coalition against the proposed bill
- Examining legal challenges to the proposed law
- Continuing with public advocacy including further meetings, gigs etc.
Now that the Lisbon referendum has been announced, we will be seeking to have a referendum to drop the blasphemy reference from the Constutution on the same day (while also arguing that the new law not be enacted in any case).
Your help will be very important in this phase of the campaign. Which if any of the following activities can you help with?
- Meeting politicians by yourself
- Meeting politicians along with other campaign members
- Recruiting other supporters for the campaign
- Joining a committee of people with legal backgrounds
- Writing letters etc to media
- Designing campaign literature
- Helping to organise further public meetings
- Helping to organise a fundraising comedy/music evening
- Contributing finance or helping to fundraise
- Any other suggestions that you wish to make
You are also welcome to attend the AGM of Atheist Ireland from 2-5 pm on Saturday 11 July in Wynns Hotel in Dublin. At this meeting, we will be finalising the detail of the campaign over the summer months. You do not have to be a member of Atheist Ireland to attend this session, but you are welcome to join if you want to. Please let us know if you plan to attend.
With regard to timescale of the campaign, we do not yet know when the Oireachtas All-Party Justice Committee will next debate this issue. When it does so, the Bill will return to the Dail, then go back to the Seanad. The timescale of all of this is up to the Government.
One way or another, the campaign will continue over the summer. If the Bill remains in progress, we will campaign against it being passed. If the Bill is passed, we will campaign for its reversal. If the blasphemy clause is dropped, we will celebrate that, and move on to other aspects of campaigning for an ethical and secular Ireland.
Please let us know know, either here or on the Atheist Ireland website,
- Which of the above areas of activity you can help with?
- Whether you want to attend the Atheist Ireland AGM on 11 July?
Yawn, give it a rest please! Is your tactic to bore people to death with your incessant whining?
Comment by Mujaahid — June 24, 2009 @ 1:14 am
Is there anything that sympathetic American atheists can do to help? I applaud your efforts, Michael, and wish you great success!
@Mujaahid, perhaps you’d be less dismissive and “bored” if it were your particular views that were in danger of being outlawed?
Comment by Killarny — June 24, 2009 @ 3:06 am
Mujaahid, if you are so bored why do you keep coming to this site?
Gluten for punishment!
Comment by Steve — June 24, 2009 @ 11:05 am
Killarney: What views are being outlawed? You’re right to grossly insult other people? Is that honestly what you want, is that your measure of ‘freedom’? Have you considered the implications of such a scenario, where people go around insulting simply because they feel they have the right to?
Comment by Mujaahid — June 28, 2009 @ 11:02 am
‘People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid’. It’s easy to insult, far more difficult to sit and discuss!
Comment by Mujaahid — June 28, 2009 @ 11:04 am
@ mujaahid, it is so easy to discuss. People become insulted for all sorts of reasons sometimes the insults hurt, ask any small child who cries from being called names, the antidote to painful insult is found in a little atheist saying… “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” if you mujaahid suffer from insult try repeating the phrase 5 times a day and soon you will be cured. It is a matter of greater importance to some of us atheists and TRUE believers that the proposed blasphemy Law remains null and void as it contradicts, confuses and corrupts our human rights, you understand that MUJAAHID? and finally you must try to understand that where various churches, religions and sects fail to deal with their own perpetrators, psychopaths and facists and instead give a free pass to spreading outdated fear and nonsense then believe there will be criticism, there will be full expose, there will be full disclosure. can you deal with it mujaahid??? what implications have you considered from the thought of you feeling insulted, sure you may feel angry, not such a big deal after all?
Comment by zayphod beeblebrox — June 28, 2009 @ 7:16 pm
Mujaahid:
Yes actually, I do want the freedom to insult people, and I want my Irish counterparts to have that same freedom, be they religious or not. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of/from religion; all of the above are valued by me. None of those freedoms imply that you or I have the right not to be offended by those who don’t believe in the same things that we do.
Is your position so weak as to withstand no criticism and require the protection of law from those who would blaspheme your convictions? Mine are not so weak as that, and I abhor any attempts to outlaw the criticism of any point of view.
Comment by Killarny — June 29, 2009 @ 8:01 am
I have forwarded the following letter to each and every member of the Justice Committee.
I am writing to you as a member of the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights to express to you my opposition to the inclusion of a proposed Blasphemous Libel amendment to the Defamation Bill currently going through the Oireachtais. I wish to ask you to vote against this bad piece of legislation.
Please allow me to state my reasons for this request.
I believe that if the Dail passes this amendment it will constitute a grave attack on the right to freedom of speech, so vital in a free and healthy democracy. This amendment represents nothing but a fundamentalists charter to silence those of us who would exercise our right to publicly question belief in superstition and the irrational. This amendment holds the real possibility that I will be made a criminal because I seek to criticise such belief. The very idea that someone or some group can hold “personal beliefs” which I am not allowed to criticise or indeed expose, is the very death knell of the right of freedom of speech and freedom of thought, which many have given their lives to defend. It has the potential to put us back again to the Dark Ages and represents a travesty of such hard won freedoms.
Micheal Martin as Minister of Foreign Affairs recently stated Government policy in the Dail after Ireland had voted on a resolution at the U.N. as follows:
“We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.”
This proposed Blasphemous Libel amendment introduced by Dermot Ahern makes a mockery of this position and completely turns it on its head. The situation for freedom of speech is even further weakened because the amendment now requires the defendant to effectively prove their innocence in the face of charges that someone is feels grossly offended. The question of criminality is effectively hinging of how offended someone’s “personal beliefs” are. It is fair to say that the example of Evolutionary Theory of Human Development is held to be grossly offensively by many religious sects. This amendment will be a joy to those who, internationally, are seeking to replace the rational and the scientific with the irrational.
Justice Minister Dermot Ahern publicly claims that the amendment is constitutionally necessary. I believe that this “necessity” to retain the “crime” of blasphemy in our Constitution can now be remedied by having it removed by vote during the Lisbon Treaty referendum. This would be the right and proper thing to do. The right to Freedom of Speech must never be subservient to the whims of someone’s “personal belief”. It is just too important for that.
Please reject this dangerous amendment.
Sincerely Yours,
Please everyone ignore Mujaahid’s jibes and let’s get back to work on defeating this dangerous amendment.
Comment by Michael Martin — June 29, 2009 @ 10:20 am
The Dail Justice Committee is meeting at 2.30 pm this Wednesday, 1 July, to resume debate on the blasphemy amendment to the Defamation Bill.
It is likely that this will conclude the committee stage of this amendment before the Bill goes to the Dail.
Please email and/or ring these TDs before Wednesday: http://tr.im/q9uL
Comment by Michael Nugent — June 29, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
I wish to say I support your efforts to overthrow an insane and medieval concept being enshrined into law. The Bible, Quaran and Torah are themselves offensive to the vast majority of the people who profess to believe in them. I think if they actually took the time to read them critically they would become rationalists themselves. These belief systems have forced women to be second class citizens for millenia. They endorse a master race of their own followers and are scientificly historically and morally a nonsense. People do not have the right to claim an insult to what is fact. The proof of the nonsense is there to be seen. The best way to free peoples minds from this superstition is to ask them to read the books for themselves or see http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
Comment by Cyril — June 29, 2009 @ 11:05 pm
Another point to consider if the blasphemy becomes a crime, how is a defendant to get a fair trial?
Or constitution requires a judge to swear an oath to GOD in order to be appointed.
In other words, all judges either believe in the existence of a GOD (and in Irish Law. that is the Christian “God”) or are very casual with the concept of an oath or swearing.
That raises the fact that an atheist or non-believer being prosecuted for the “crime” of blasphemy will be judged and/or sentenced by someone who has publicly acknowledged a belief in the fictional being that was insulted (blasphemed) -assuming the judge has a respect for oaths. Would such a judge give more weight to the evidence of someone who swears “on the bible” than to one who affirms? I merely ask the question, but have in the past found it difficult to even to affirm my evidence having been handed a bible as I enter the witness box
It also means that you cannot really appeal any conviction in a meaningful way, as the person hearing the appeal has also affirmed the existence of this character, they defer to.
Comment by Jack Butler — June 30, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
Hi, I want to get involved to stop this ridiculus legislation.
How can I help?
Comment by Martin — July 8, 2009 @ 1:19 pm