Ireland repeals blasphemy ban as European court upholds Austrian woman’s blasphemy conviction

In a referendum on Friday, 65 per cent of Irish voters backed a proposal to remove Article 40.6.1(i) of the Constitution of Ireland, under which the “publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law”.

Nobody has ever been prosecuted for blasphemy in Ireland, but various other European countries - including Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland and Greece - enforce blasphemy laws.

On Thursday, the ECtHR ruled that an Austrian woman convicted of “disparaging religious doctrines” for calling the Prophet Muhammad a paedophile had not experienced a violation of her Convention rights.

The woman, ES, was convicted by Vienna Regional Criminal Court in February 2011 and ordered to pay €480 and legal costs. The decision was upheld by the Vienna Court of Appeal in December 2011 and the Supreme Court in December 2013.

The ECtHR found that the Austrian courts had carefully balanced the woman’s right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.

The domestic courts found that her comments had not been made in an objective manner contributing to a debate of public interest (e.g. on child marriage), but could only be understood as having been aimed at demonstrating that Muhammad was not worthy of worship.

The ECtHR agreed with the domestic courts that ES must have been aware that her statements were partly based on untrue facts and apt to arouse indignation in others. She had subjectively labelled Muhammad with paedophilia as his general sexual preference, and failed to neutrally inform her audience of the historical background, which consequently did not allow for a serious debate on that issue.

The ECtHR held that by considering the impugned statements as going beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate, and by classifying them as an abusive attack on the prophet of Islam which could stir up prejudice and threaten religious peace, the domestic courts put forward relevant and sufficient reasons to convict.