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Wed 05 May 2009A blasphemy clause that does not fit the Bill
NEWTON'S OPTIC:TRUST THE chattering classes to overreact to Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern’s plan for a blasphemous libel clause in the new defamation Bill.
It has been widely reported that Ahern wants to outlaw anything “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion”, where the blasphemer “intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage”.
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