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Italian Police Censor "Blasphemous" Websites

ross.w writes "Italian authorities have shut down five Internet sites which reportedly carried blasphemies against God and the Virgin Mary, following a complaint by the Vatican's newspaper. The story is in this item on Australia's ABC News."

4 of 570 comments (clear)

  1. Correct link by Majix · · Score: 5, Informative
  2. MSNBC are also running the story by marnanel · · Score: 5, Informative
    MSNBC are covering the story. It has a bit more information:
    Investigators first learned about the sites, with names that translate into phrases including "Pig Madonna" and "Blasphemy," in 2000.
    Sooo, if any Italian-speaking Slashdotters can tell us what "Pig Madonna" is in Italian, we can google for it, since it's been up for two years, and find out what the site was.
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  3. Re:Hmm by dtosti · · Score: 4, Informative

    .. signatory to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [coe.int], which should protect 'freedom of thought, conscience and religion' as well as 'freedom of expression'.

    well, Italian government has signed a special convention with the Catholic Church (in the 1920s) long time before signing the Council of Europe Convention (in the 1950s).

    This agreement with the Church is written in the Italian Constitution (dated 1947) and it obliges Italy to act against people who dare to slander the common religious sentiments.

    Note that "freedom of expression" != "freedom of slandering" !!!

    The real fact is: that guy who sold t-shirt with anti-religious sentences will probably be accused not only of slandering common religious sentiments, but of having evaded tax and VAT too, because the "special police force" mentioned in the article is the Italian equivalent of the american ATF (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms) plus the duty of hunting tax evasors.

    So, as an Italian, I'm not worried at all for the freedom of expression question, because those policemen works for the Treasury Minister and they receive a percentual on the tax recovered... :)

  4. In a word: "NO" by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Make that a "HELL NO!"

    The danish constitution has a very interesting paragraph:

    " 77
    Enhver er berettiget til på tryk, i skrift og tale at offentliggøre sine tanker, dog under ansvar for domstolene. Censur og andre forebyggende forholdsregler kan ingen sinde på ny indføres. "

    And in English:
    " 77
    Anyone is at liberty to publish his thought, be it printed, in writing or speech, but are accountable to a court of law. Censureship and other preventative meassures can never again be introduced."

    Or something to that effect.

    The Danish police have no right to shut down any web-sites - to do so you need a court order (freedom of speech with personal responsibility). This includes hate-speech, blasphemy, propaganda and otherwise.

    You are obviously not a lawyer, and you had better try to back up your wild claims with relevant quotes next time around.

    --
    We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.