SUBSCRIBE NOW

SIGHT

Be informed. Be challenged. Be inspired.

Irish police drop blasphemy investigation over entertainer Stephen Fry’s comments

Police in Ireland have dropped an investigation into whether entertainer Stephen Fry made blasphemous comments on a TV show in 2015 after failing to find enough complainants.

The investigation was launched after an unidentified man made a complaint over an appearance Mr Fry made on an RTE show in which Mr Fry asked why he should “respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?” and went on to describe “the god who created this universe, if it was created by god, is quite clearly a maniac, [an] utter maniac, totally selfish”.

clip of Mr Fry’s appearance on The Meaning of Life posted on YouTube has had more than seven million views.

The Irish Independent has reported that Irish police decided to halt the investigation after failing to find a large enough group of people who had been outraged by the comments. The man who made the initial report told the newspaper he was satisfied he had done his “civic duty” in making the report and that the police had done theirs in investigating it.

Under Ireland’s controversial Defamation Act 2009 a person who publishes or utters blasphemous material could face a fine of up to €25,000.

 

 

 

Donate



sight plus logo

Sight+ is a new benefits program we’ve launched to reward people who have supported us with annual donations of $26 or more. To find out more about Sight+ and how you can support the work of Sight, head to our Sight+ page.

Musings

TAKE PART IN THE SIGHT READER SURVEY!

We’re interested to find out more about you, our readers, as we improve and expand our coverage and so we’re asking all of our readers to take this survey (it’ll only take a couple of minutes).

To take part in the survey, simply follow this link…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.