The 'Charlie Hebdo' Massacre Raises Awkward Questions for Free Speech in Ireland

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

This week, as the European press printed defiant front pages and re-published iconic Charlie Hebdo cartoons, the Irish media mostly settled for tame pictures of their staff holding signs of support and a vigil in Dublin. For all the talk of the importance of free speech going round, the fact is that thanks to arcane blasphemy laws, were Charlie Hebdo to have been an Irish publication it may have found itself in a tricky legal situation.

A Muslim scholar, Dr. Ali Selim, is threatening to use these laws if the Irish media prints cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad—in Ireland, blasphemy is technically illegal under the Constitution, although it is difficult to prosecute.

You might expect this kind of law to be a hangover from a more conservative time. But "publication or utterance of blasphemous matter" was only made an offense in 2009, much to the dismay of Ireland's atheists.

Dr. Eoin Daly, a law lecturer from National University of Ireland, Galway, says that if Selim sues, it would be a first time a case would be tried under Ireland's new blasphemy law.

"When it comes to reprinting Charlie Hebdo material here, it's difficult to say definitively [whether it would fall afoul of the law], as there have been no cases brought under the new blasphemy law," he said. "The uncertainty it generates is enough to cause a chilling effect in relation to creative and provocative forms of speech, and that in itself is reason enough to repeal the law."

Many in Ireland agree and feel the law is out of step with contemporary Irish society. This has prompted the government to push for a referendum in 2015, asking Irish citizens whether they think the crime of blasphemy should be removed from the constitution.

But yesterday, as Irish journalists stood in solidarity with the " Je Suis Charlie" campaign, had they published similar material in Ireland they could have ended up with a €25,000 ($29,600) fine.

In 1926, four years after independence from Britain, the Committee for Evil Literature was established in Dublin. The committee—headed up by a Catholic priest and a Church of Ireland reverend—published a report banning "immoral" publications like Woman's Weekly, Vogue, and News of the World. Information on contraception and a random list of American detective novels were also banned.

Fast-forward almost 90 years to present day and you have an ailing quango born from that report: the Censorship of Publications Board. Like Ireland's 2009 updated blasphemy laws, the country's censorship board seem completely out of touch with reality.

The quango, which meets in private, was supposed to disband but has to remain in place until it has finished "investigating" former Justice Minister Alan Shatter's novel Laura. The book centers around a pro-life politician who tries to force his assistant to have an abortion after they have an affair.

It features this sex scene:

It also mentions abortion, which is illegal in Ireland under the Eighth Amendment.

Former Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte stalled the much-needed disbanding of the quango until the complaint against the politician's book was "dealt with."

His political point scoring means Ireland still has a fully functioning censorship board, free to investigate and pass judgement on matters of "public morality," such as in 2003, when porno magazine Fox was banned from Irish shelves.

The scary thing about Ireland's censorship laws is, like the 2009 blasphemy law, they are deemed so devoid of social relevance that no one cares about them.

It takes a tragedy like the Charlie Hebdo massacre for people to pay attention and for governments to start reflecting on the contemporary values of a society that has changed so dramatically in mere decades but where "blasphemy" is still something we apparently have to worry about.

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