On March 5, 2008, the UK House of Lords voted 148-87 in favor of abolishing the criminal offenses of blasphemy and blasphemous libel from the UK common law. Amendment 144B to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill was proposed by the UK government after it was criticized for chiding Sudan after it convicted a school teacher for insulting religion while having a blasphemy law on the books in the UK. The last blasphemy prosecutions in the UK were in 1922, and before that the two prior prosecutions were in 1841 and 1676.

UK coat of arms

Learn more about libel and blasphemy from the JURIST news archive.

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