Let us have Truth and Liberty!

Everyone raise a glass! Not only because I handed in my dissertation today, but also to celebrate the abolition of the blasphemy law!

Almost two hundred years have passed since Shelley spoke out against this very law, which has the power to sentence a free-thinking individual to imprisonment and hard labour. In Shelley’s time, publishers could be jailed for printing a text such as Tom Paine’s Rights of Man, dubbed an “infidel” tract by authoritarian clergy. The blasphemy law was strictly enforced by a conservative government desperate to cling to power in the sudden upsurge of socialism, post French Revolution. Though Richard Carlile was in fact sent to Newbury prison for his publication of Paine’s work, this didn’t stop him from printing more “infidel” literature. He even wrote pamphlets, whilst incarcerated, ‘To Men of Science’ and ‘To The Reformers of Great Britain’. It was for looking after the bookshop whilst Carlile and his wife were in jail and for selling his pamphlets that Susannah Wright was arrested:

Susannah answered the Carlile’s calls for volunteers to keep the bookshop open and, assured of the support of her ‘atheistical friends’, vowed to ‘attend to the business at all risk’. Like the Carliles before her, and the legion of volunteers who followed, Susannah was soon prosecuted; in her case, for the sale of two tracts penned by Richard Carlile from his Dorchester prison cell. During her first trial in July 1822 she conducted her own defence, which lasted a formidable four hours. Retiring from the court to attend to her baby, Wright returned to conclude her case, advising the Jury to ‘be firm and do your duty’ and insisting that she both scorned ‘mercy and demand[ed] justice’.

The jury obliged, swiftly returning a guilty verdict. It would be four months before Wright again returned to court for sentencing. This time, her notoriety attracted more of the public gaze in both crowd numbers and press interest. When offered the opportunity to address the court in ‘plea of mitigation of punishment’ Wright instead challenged the validity of her guilty verdict, arguing that Christianity had no place in the law.

The Chief Justice issued repeated warnings to her to desist from profaning the law and the church in his court. To the amusement of the crowded courtroom she retorted, ‘You, Sir, are paid to hear me’. Infuriated by her obstinacy the Judge sentenced Wright (and by default her infant) to be confined for 10 weeks in the loathed Newgate prison to deliberate on her plea.

I had seen this article back in January that announced the possible abolition of the blasphemy law, but to find the motion has passed… well this really is a day to celebrate. I’m sure fatalname would agree! 

So cheers, Shelley! And to all those who fought against the blasphemy law in the name of liberty; I am only sad it has taken so long and that you are not here to see this day.

Celebration As Abolition Of Iniquitous Blasphemy Law Is Approved In Parliament

The National Secular Society (NSS) welcomes the passing by the House of Lords last night, Wednesday March 5 2008, of an amendment abolishing the blasphemy law by 148 votes to 87.

The fiery debate had a near record turn-out of bishops, who were split between those accepting the inevitability of change and those lamenting the signal abolition would give about the decline in religious influence and the secularisation of society. Some feared that abolition would unleash a tide of blasphemous publications.

Terry Sanderson, President of the NSS said: “This is the culmination of the Society’s 140-year fight to abolish this medieval law under which many innocent victims have suffered. Even in the 20th century, one of my predecessors was jailed for blasphemy. The laws have been criticised recently as being uncertain, without penalty and widely believed not to be compliant with Human Rights.

“I pay tribute to all those who have suffered under this cruel law, denying freedom of expression, and to those before me who have campaigned for its abolition.

“Our celebrations will be overshadowed by the knowledge that parliaments elsewhere in the world will soon be pressurised into passing a new law even more pernicious than blasphemy. It will outlaw so-called defamation of religion. Pressure to pass this law is coming from a bloc of Islamic countries organised by the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference). Having made their demands at the UN Human Rights Commission, they are now planning to lobby the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Nations respecting Human Rights must speak out against the defamation of religious law as it undermines the freedom of expression on which our democracy, and indeed our civilisation, depends.”