31 Oct 12 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost, News and features
Polish heavy metal singer Adam Darski, AKA Nergal, could face two years in prison for tearing a bible on stage.
Nergal, singer with Behemoth, performed the stunt in 2007, before descrbing the Catholic church as “”the most murderous cult on the planet”. A court found has found that the act could be in violation of polish law as it “offended religious feelings”. Prosecutors may now pursue a criminal case.
In 2009, Polish pop singer Doda was fined after she said the Bible “was written by someone drunk on wine and smoking some herbs”.
23 Aug 12 | Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa
An 11-year-old girl with Down’s Syndrome was last week arrested in Pakistan, after an angry mob demanded that the girl be punished for allegedly desecrating the Qur’an — the Islamic holy book. The young girl is a resident of a Christian neighbourhood on the outskirts of Islamabad, from where over 600 citizens have now fled after calls for her arrest were accompanied by threats to burn Christian homes in the area. This isn’t the first blasphemy case we’ve seen come out of Pakistan — earlier this year, charges were brought against Facebook for hosting “blasphemous content”. In September 2011, a young Christian school girl was expelled for misspelling a word on an exam question tied to a poem revering the prophet Muhammad.
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21 Sep 11 | Index Index, minipost
A journalist convicted of defaming the president of Belarus has lost his appeal. Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut from Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza was found guilty of the defamation of President Alexander Lukashenko in July, and the Hrodna Oblast Court in western Belarus upheld the verdict against him yesterday. Poczobut was given a three year prison sentence, suspended for two years. The journalist argued that his rights were violated during the trial by KGB investigators and the prosecutor’s office. Poczobut said he would continue appealing the conviction throughout the system, up to and including the UN.
19 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
A Polish judge has found a death metal singer not guilty of offending religious feeling, ruling that his act of ripping up a Bible during a show was a form of artistic expression. Adam Darski, who goes by the stage name Nergal and is the frontman for Behemoth, was charged after he tore up the book during a 2007 concert in Gdynia, northern Poland. He was cleared by a court last year but prosecutors appealed the verdict, though Judge Krzysztof Wieckowski said that the court had no intention of limiting freedom of expression or the right to criticise religion.
