We begin with England:

Blasphemy has been a crime for centuries in England based on case law. It is a country of hereditary monarchy. It has a state religion led by the monarch and is characterized, as it is widely known, by the attachment to agelong traditions. In practice, the criminalization of blasphemy had fallen into disuse. Its last victim appears to have been Mr. John Gott who described Jesus as a circus jester and was sentenced in 1922 to nine months’ imprisonment and forced labor. Since then, even when the offence was apparent, the courts have found workarounds and excuses not to condemn persons exercising their freedom of expression, guaranteed by the English legal tradition and, most recently, the European conventions. Fanatic Christians and Muslims though have brought the judges into trouble with their lawsuits against “blasphemers”. The parliament had been pressured by committees and organizations to decriminalize blasphemy, but it has not done so.

When an English teacher was convicted of blasphemous acts in Sudan in 2008, great mobilization took place in her country. But some pointed out that it was not reasonable for the British to complain about Sudan’s counter–freedom and backward legislation while blasphemy is still a crime in their country. The abolition movement was strengthened. Even the Anglican Church leadership said it did not oppose the abolition of the offence. The parliament decriminalized blasphemy on 08-05-2008. And it did so in a few simple words: “The customary offences of blasphemy and blasphemous publication are abolished in England and Wales” (Article 79 (1) of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act).

In France, a country of enlightenment and structurally distant from the Catholic and any other church, blasphemy was not an offence ever since the time of the 1789 Declaration that guaranteed free expression, regardless of what the secular or religious authorities believe and want. A historically interpreted exception concerned the Alsace and Lorraine regions. When they were annexed to France at the end of the First World War, these areas retained parts of German law, particularly on religious and labor issues. Articles 166 and 167 of the Local Criminal Code provided for imprisonment of up to three years for “public blasphemy against God”. As in England, the provisions had been inactive for decades and many had called for their abolition.

In 2013, a union of Muslim lawyers sued the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Strasbourg, citing the local law. The court considered the proceedings invalid, but the case left a trauma. The ridicule of sacred things is not an offence in Paris, but it can send you to prison in Strasbourg if the magazine is also sold there. On January 2015, as we all know, the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices was made, imposing silence of death on its associates. At a time when almost all France declared “Nous sommes Charlie” and spoke against the bigoted murderers, it would be grotesque for an Alsace tribunal to sue that same magazine for blasphemy.
Many organizations, including the Alsatian religious leaders of all great religions, called for the abolition of blasphemy provisions. So, with the blessing of the shepherds as well as of the flocks, the French Parliament put a clause into a law on social policy, the Article 172 which repealed Articles 166 and 167 of the Alsatian and Lorraine Penal Code for blasphemy. The law came into force on 27-01-2017, throwing in the rubbish of history the remnant of pre-enlightenment blasphemy ban in France.

Denmark. Hereditary monarchy with state religion, the Evangelical Folkekirke, and tremendous respect for traditions and for “community” life. For centuries, it has been a crime to ridicule or defame the divine, a prohibition ever since 1866 by the §140 of the Penal Code, providing a sentence of imprisonment of up to four months. No one has been convicted for blasphemy in Denmark since 1946. Nonetheless, religious fanatics continued to sue the “blasphemers”, including the journalists who in 2005 published cartoons with Muhammad in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. And while the Danes were stunned by the Muslims who burned Danish flags across the globe and attacked the country’s embassies because of some cartoon publication in a provincial newspaper, the journalists of the newspaper faced criminal prosecutions in their country!

The absurdity was intensified in 2015 when prosecution was brought against a Dane who published a facebook video in which he burned a copy of the Koran in his garden. This gentleman may be rude or foolish. But can the Danish state imprison him because he expresses his opinion? In February 2016, there were attacks with dead and wounded in Copenhagen against “infidels” by a Danish Muslim. It was impossible for the trial against the “facebook blasphemer” to continue. Following consultations and pressure from organizations, the Danish Parliament passed Law 675 on 08-06-2017. Let us all admire the Doric simplicity of the provision: “paragraph 140 is abolished.”
(Doric = Laconic, taciturn, austere, terse).

By abolishing the blasphemy offence, England, France and Denmark secured more freedom for their citizens and they became more civilised. Similarly, Norway, Iceland and Malta have decriminalized blasphemy in recent years.
Since this article’s publication, Ireland has been added to the countries that decriminalized blasphemy, the Spanish Government has also expressed the same intention.

Let’s get to ourselves.

The abolition of blasphemy is legally and politically imperative. It will solve practical problems and will allow everyone to express their views on religious issues without facing the possibility of persecution for an offence without a victim and without sufficient constitutional justification.
The prohibition of blasphemy does not have either generic or specific prudential functions. It only develops symbolic results, providing penal support to state religiosity, showing in other words to everyone that the state disapproves and punishes the insult to the divine. This message, however, is contrary to the modern constitutional organization and shows that criminal law is used for political purposes, which is also contrary to its promises, protection of the “legal rights” of individuals. The practical functioning of the blasphemy provision is therefore the main argument for its abolition.

The last and decisive argument for the abolition is that the ban on blasphemy in Greece does not protect religions in general, but the Orthodox Church exclusively. The police and the public prosecutor’s office undertake the daily ratification of state piety by suppressing “daily blasphemy”, and Orthodox operatives, paid by the state, sometimes in consultation with far-right politicians, persecute artists who disturb them. No prosecution has been made for decades to defend any other religion, demonstrating the actual and extremely discriminatory functioning of those provisions in practice. In this case, state criminal justice functions as a kind of private security for a single religion and obeys to the ritual of confirmation for the state religiosity.

The experience abroad shows that there is a constant stream of abolitions as we have seen. In addition to the liberal principles, it has been realized that persecutions and convictions exacerbate the spirits and threaten social peace much more than a phrase or artwork. Even those who consider Charlie Hebdo’s irony distasteful and reproachable cannot tolerate a situation where states prosecute and imprison precisely those whom religious terrorists want to kill.

In Greece the constitutional, political and cultural existence of a dominant religion – and, through it, the prevalence of religiosity in public life – poses great obstacles to reform efforts. No political “change” after the end of the military dictatorship has been able to decolorize the state from religion. Feudal remnants of religious content are particularly resilient and the abolition of the blasphemy provision without deeper changes in the constitutional self-understanding of the Greek state seems impossible.

However, no political “realism” should prevent legal-political criticism and social struggle for the elimination of regulations that citizens consider unacceptable and the state should abolish for reasons of consistency with its constitutional pronouncements.

The decriminalization of blasphemy is a tiny and timid step towards civilization of the state. A minimal step, but an absolutely necessary one, *beep* Jesus *beep*…
(A very common Greek swear phrase that demonstrates indignation.)

If we challenge a political ideology or a football team their followers might get angry and commit acts of violence, disrupting public order. But no one suggests pennalization of insulting a political ideology or a football team to avoid disturbing “political peace” or “football peace”. Followers of these ideas are penalized, if they get violent, but not so those who insulted their ideology.

In the case of blasphemy, however, the exact opposite is true.

In our mind, we indentify blasphemy with insults, but it is not limited to this nor is it necessary to insult in order to blaspheme. For example, the Atheist Union organizes every year the “Just Supper” and the celebration of the “Alcoholy Spirit”. The titles of these celebrations can be considered blasphemous because they are word games based on large christian holidays. But this is not insulting, nor offensive.

It is merely challenging the holiness of a dogma.

This is the real reason they cause annoyance. The same reason that annoyance is caused by works of art or by satirical stories, while no one cares about the everyday insult of the divine by angry drivers or with the ridicule of the habits of priests and nuns from countless blasphemers who dress as such during Carnival.

As far as religious freedom is concerned, it is obviously not in the least limited by blasphemy. Hard criticism, satire and ridicule may displease some people, but it doesn’t stop believers from following their religious duties.

The law must protect free expression of religion, but at the same time it must be perfectly clear that religions themselves are no more than belief systems and ideologies, and that criticism and comment must be totally free in a modern society who strives for progress. The law must protect the expression of criticism instead of penalizing it.

This fact is understood by most European countries which one by one abolish blasphemy clauses from their laws. In 2008 they were repealed in England and Wales, in 2009 in Norway, in 2014 in the Netherlands, in 2015 in Iceland, in 2016 in Malta, in 2017 in France and Denmark. Most recent is the case of Ireland, where on October 26, 2018 it was decided by public vote to abolish the constitutional clause penalizing blasphemy. Nevertheless, in 21st century Greece blasphemy is still a criminal offence.

In June 2012, the police arrested three actors of the play “Corpus Christi” when a complaint was filed for defamation of religion and malicious blasphemy. The district attorney released the three artists but criminal proceedings were opened against them. The Holy Synod had declared the play “blasphemous” and “despicable”.

In September 2012 creator of satirical webpage “Elder Pastitsios” was arrested on charges for malicious blasphemy and defamation of religion a few days after the subject was brought to the parliament by the political party Golden Dawn and only four days after the negative reply of Konstantinos Karagounis, then Minister of Justice, with the silent consent of the rest of the parliament, to the request of MP Petros Tatsopoulos of the SYRIZA party for abolition of the Penal Code articles on blasphemy.

A 10 months suspended sentence was imposed for reiterant defamation of religion. He appealed and finally the prosecution stopped due to another law, that eliminated penality of minor offences. But he was not found innocent and the shameful articles of the Penal Code are still valid and are still enforced, against freedom of speech.

In June 2016 the Atheist Union of Greece, member of Atheist Alliance International and the European Humanist Federation, cosigns with 54 organizations from all over the world a joint petition that was sent to the Ministry of Justice asking for the abolition of the blasphemy articles from the Greek Penal Code.

Eight years after the arrests, in spite of the change of goverment in spite of repeated actions of the people and MPs in spite of the fact that Greek society is mature enough Greece hasn’t dared abolish these outdated articles of the Penal Code.

Greece has always been a crossroad of civlizations. Today, more than ever, it is home to a mosaic of people from all over the world, while every day more immigrants and refugees arrive, many of whom stay in our country permanently bringing with them their culture, their traditions and of course their religion. Many of them are atheists, as we are in a position to know, because many of them contact us for help and support. Meanwhile, more and more Greeks become estranged from traditional religions. They either create a more modern, more personal spirituality or they become irreligious, atheists, or agnostics.

All these people compose a complex landscape full of various ideas and beliefs, very different from one another. All of these ideas will of course be talked about, will be the subject of debate and criticism often even of scorn, satire or mockery. It is unrealistic to try and keep them immune. It is outrageous to attempt it by making the insult of ideas a criminal offence.

Blasphemy affects ideas, not people. Blasphemers not only do not harm anyone but they themselves are in danger, not only from touchy persons who might attack them like in the play of “Corpus Christi”, but also from the state that punishes them instead of protecting them as it should.

In the Atheist Union of Greece, years ago we drew up a proposal for the separation of church and state where we ask, among other things for abolition of all discriminations and penalizations that have a religious base.

We ask for abolition of the 7th chapter of the Penal Code “Threats to Religious Peace”. Articles 198, 199 and 200 must be completely abolished, while article 201 on vilification of the dead can be transferred to another chapter. The real offences described here are already covered by articles on disruption of public order on insult and defamation. No special provision is needed for the disruption of the so-called “religious” peace. Regarding blasphemy, that is insulting religious dogmas in any form it may take place, even through satire or mockery, it is not a crime from the state’s viewpoint but freedom of speech.

And freedom of speech should not be negotiable.

Thank you.