"Freedom of Religion is among the most basic of Human Rights and deserves fullest protection of the

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“Freedom of Religion is among the most basic of Human Rights and deserves fullest protection of the law.” To what extent if any is the principle recognised in the law of England and Wales?

Article 9 states that everyone has the right to the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.  Recently the EU has taken steps to ensure that all member states have antidiscrimination laws in place to protect religious diversity that is apparent in society today.  There are two stages in considering the above statement; to consider the law protects freedom of religion and assessing its effectiveness.

Blasphemy is an indictable common law offence, which has a spectrum of arguments for and against the retention of the law.  It is a draconian law consisting of blasphemous libel and blasphemy, that latter of which took over from heresy.  Lord Scarman defined blasphemous libel in a case in 1979 of Whitehouse v Lemon, where he stated that anything using scurrilous, abusive or offensive language would amount to blasphemous libel.  This case is now used as a test for modern times when considering a blasphemy case.  However its effectiveness could be called in to question.         

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        Firstly, to commit blasphemy, you do not need to have intention.  Therefore, it just needs to be proved that abuse of Christianity occurred, regardless of whether it had literary of artistic merit. Add to which the fact that there is no defence to blasphemy; it makes it very easy to prosecute someone.  In this way, protection of religion is upheld.  

Another example can be seen from the Visions of Ecstasy case.  Here, Article 10 freedoms were made secondary to Article 9 when the film was refused a certificate from the board.  It was given a blanket ban, which was held ...

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