Northern Ireland Humanists concerned Bible-tearing treated as ‘hate crime’

Northern Ireland Humanists is concerned at reports that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is investigating the ‘tearing up of a Bible’ during Saturday’s Pride event in Belfast City Centre as an alleged ‘hate crime’.

Northern Ireland Humanists Coordinator Boyd Sleator commented:

‘It is very worrying to hear that the tearing up of a Bible is being investigated as a hate crime. We must be mindful that, at the moment, we don’t know all the details of any wider incident and have to consider that it may not be as simple as it looks. There are reports of the preacher involved being spat at which clearly shouldn’t be allowed. But the tearing up of a Bible should not in itself be considered a hate crime and the PSNI should not be enforcing blasphemy laws of any kind.’

Home Office advice

Earlier in 2022, the UK Home Office published a new Code of Practice for police in England and Wales in direct response to a request from Humanists UK concerning police records being created, and police investigations being carried out, in response to mere accusations of ‘blasphemy’. The new Code of Practice makes clear that trivial incidents such as damaging a holy book must never be treated as hate crimes.

Religious symbols and protest 

Protests against religion and religious harms have a long history. In 1977, Mary Whitehouse famously brought private litigation against Gay News in an attempt to silence LGBT activists criticising Christianity, directly inspiring a campaign that would one day lead to the repeal of the blasphemy law in England and Wales. In 1992, the Irish singer Sinead O’Connor famously drew attention to the child abuse scandal within the Catholic Church by ripping up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, attracting vigorous public debate but not legal censure.

In recent months, Muslim-majority states at the UN have attempted to revive motions designed to promote a chilling effect surrounding criticism of religion using a new language around ‘desecration of religious symbols’. This would also have the effect of silencing, in particular, those who feel harmed or traumatised by particular religions from freely expressing themselves in relation to those experiences. Humanists International criticised the UN motion for failing to tackle ‘hate against people in a way that actually protects those individuals’ or in a manner that ‘maintains the integrity of the human rights system for all’.