‘Blasphemy’ and ‘insult’ to religion laws are wrong in several ways:

• They violate the human right to freedom of expression
• They protect religious beliefs, practices, institutions, and leaders, from legitimate and often necessary criticism
• They are intrinsically bad, subjective, inconsistent laws; there is no ‘right way’ to use them
• They legitimise vigilantism, mob violence, and persecution of minorities
• Retaining blasphemy laws, even if they are not often used, legitimises their use in countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia where people face the death penalty for expressing views deemed to be blasphemous.
• Finally, supposedly ‘dead letter’ laws can be reactivated, as was seen in 2017 in Denmark, and that same year in the Republic of Ireland when our patron Stephen Fry was investigated for blasphemy.

Blasphemy and blasphemous libel remain criminal offences in Northern Ireland, both as a common-law offence and underpinned in legislation by four different Acts. The Criminal Libel Act 1819, the Libel Act 1843, the Newspaper Libel and Registration Act 1881, and the Law of Libel Amendment Act 1888, all remain in force in Northern Ireland. These Acts need to be amended to omit references to ‘blasphemy’ to remove these crimes from the statute books, and the common-law offence must be repealed.

As justice and policing are powers devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, it is for MLAs to decide whether to repeal Northern Ireland’s blasphemy law. The best way to bring this issue to your MLA’s attention is to write to them or arrange to see them at their constituency surgery.

Northern Ireland Humanists has prepared a guide to lobbying your MLA.

We’ve provided a facility through which you can email your MLA by entering your postcode . This provides a default letter, although we highly recommend you adapt it to make it more personal – we know that MLAs are more likely to take notice of personalised emails and queries.