Since the Criminal Code of Canada was first enacted in 1892 there has been a section banning
blasphemous libel. Over 123 years later, this law has remained despite multiple substantial revisions of the Criminal Code and the enactment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
attempted to mount a prosecution for
blasphemous libel against Salman Rushdie for his book, The Satanic Verses ...
The crime of
blasphemous libel (written as opposed to verbal) was first introduced into the Criminal Code in 1892.
half of the twentieth century all involved
blasphemous libel in the
Blasphemous libel is akin to the ecclesiastical charge of heresy - once punishable by death - and in the UK is an offence under common law and the 1697 Blasphemy Act.
Debate has erupted in Ireland over a proposal to penalize "
blasphemous libel."
In 1977 she took umbrage at a Kirkup poem in The Gay News and took out a private prosecution on the grounds of
blasphemous libel. It was the first such case for 56 years.
Her organisation brought a successful private prosecution in 1977 for
blasphemous libel against the homosexual paper Gay News, after they published a poem about a Roman centurion's homosexual love for Jesus at the crucifixion.
The human rights pressure group Liberty welcomed the groundbreaking ruling, saying that "the first test case in nearly 30 years" had "critically weakened outdated
blasphemous libel laws".
The fundamental concept of Mens rea (whereby an individual intends the consequences of their action) has been absent from the English Common Law of
blasphemous libel for significant portions of its history, as it has from French Statutes and elsewhere.
Gay News Ltd., the House of Lords held that it was not necessary for the prosecution to prove a specific intent to blaspheme if a publication is in fact blasphemous, thus attesting to the continued vitality of Blackstone's eighteenth-century commentary on
blasphemous libel.