This is Michael Nugent’s debate on RTE radio this morning about blasphemy laws in Ireland and internationally, with Dr Oliver Scharbrodt, lecturer in Islamic Studies in UCC, hosted by RTE’s Miriam O’Callaghan.
Irish civil society groups are asking the Government to include twelve nominees on the expert panel for the coming Constitutional Convention.
The nominees include Atheist Ireland chairperson Michael Nugent and Oxford Brookes University professor David Nash on the topic of blasphemy; and Michael Nugent on the wider issue of Constitutional recognition of separation of church and state.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, through its Hear Our Voices campaign, has brought together over 900 civil society groups to try to make the Convention as inclusive and comprehensive as possible.
The twelve people that the campaign is suggesting to the Government, together with the topics scheduled for discussion on which they were nominated, are:
Welcome to this week’s Secular Sunday.
In this issue:
Atheist Ireland condemns the jail sentence imposed today on Indonesian civil servant Alexander Aan for sharing material on Facebook about the Prophet Mohammad. The law should protect people from harm, and not protect ideas from criticism.
We ask all Irish people to contact the Indonesian embassy demanding his immediate release, and to ask the Irish Government to urgently raise the issue with the Indonesian authorities.
This is Michael Nugent’s talk about blasphemy laws at the 2012 European Atheist Conference in Cologne in Germany.
On 3rd May, Atheist Ireland attended a consultation at the Department of Foreign Affairs on the Draft Irish State Report to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights. We have also made a written submission that Government departments will consider as the State prepares its final report, and we will later make a Submission directly to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Ireland is due up before the UN Human Rights Committee at the end of the year and, under Article 40 of the Covenant, has undertaken to submit State Reports every few years. At the meeting later this year, the Committee will examine how Ireland has made progress in implementing the concerns of the UN in 2008.
In their Concluding Observations in 2008, the UN Human Rights Committee raised concern about the human rights of secular parents in the Irish education system. They stated that denominational schools were private and had adopted a religious integrated curriculum which denied parents access to a secular education for their children. They also raised the issue of the requirement of judges to take a religious oath. The human rights that the UN referred to were the right to freedom of conscience, the right to be free from discrimination, the rights of the child and the right to equality before the law.
At the consultation on the 3rd of May, Atheist Ireland raised the issues of the Irish Education system and the failure of the State to protect Covenant rights. In particular we raised the issue of recent Report from the Ombudsman for Children. We pointed out that the Ombudsman’s Report shows clearly that the regulatory framework has failed to protect the human rights of parents and children under the Covenant. We also raised the issue of Blasphemy and the requirement to take Religious oaths under the Constitution.
Here is the full written submission that we have made to the Government on the draft State report:
Welcome to this week’s Secular Sunday.
We have a packed issue this week with a focus on blasphemy, our first competition, and news of upcoming events, including not one but two events outside Dublin! But first this:
Today at 4:00 pm. A celebration of Christopher Hitchens at the Humanist Association of Ireland’s monthly meeting in Buswell’s Hotel, Dublin 2 (map)
This event will be co-ordinated by Maureen Meleady (member of HAI) and Michael Nugent (chairperson of Atheist Ireland and member of HAI). The event will be an opportunity for freethinking discussion and you do not have to be a member of the Humanist Association to attend.
On Tuesday 31st January, along with Professor David Nash of Oxford Brookes University, Committee members of Atheist Ireland met with TDs, Senators, and their representatives, at Leinster House to brief them on the need to repeal the Irish blasphemy law.
Atheist Ireland Chairperson, Michael Nugent began by giving a background of Atheist Ireland’s position on the defamation act, in particular regard to the blasphemy article, elaborating on the flaws in the law, such as how it doesn’t protect religious belief but criminalizes free speech, and incentivises outrage by making the expression of outrage the first test of whether something is blasphemous.
He said that there was also the assumption that the blasphemy law would never be used, but that it could have unforeseen circumstances. Reference was made to the X case in relation to the prior pro-life referendum, where the government at the time assumed that this would not stop women from traveling abroad, yet the State took an injunction against a teenage girl as a result of that amendment.
This is the second in a series of occasional lectures hosted by Atheist Ireland and livestreamed on the Internet. Professor David Nash and Austin Dacey talk about blasphemy laws, at a discussion chaired by Michael Nugent.
The Pussy Riot Trial: Patty Gray talks to Dublin Atheists in the Pub
Patty Gray, professor of anthropology in NUI Maynooth, who has lived and worked in Russia, talks about the background to the Pussy Riot trial and conviction at the Dublin Atheists in the Pub evening hosted by Atheist Ireland on 13 Sep 2012.