Blasphemy Laws and Incitement to Religious Hatred: Italian Legal Standards and Social Developments

Abstract

Focusing on the Italian legal system, this article aims to explore old and new legal remedies applicable to cases of religious hatred. Traditionally, institutional religions are granted legal protection through criminal sanctions of blasphemy. Included in the Criminal Code since 1889 and revised in 2006, norms regarding blasphemy are conceived to protect religious feelings, which are considered as part of the inner conscience of the faithful as well as an element of collective religious identity. However, social developments and an increasingly multicultural and multi-religious society reveal questions and issues that need to be legally addressed. One of the most controversial of these is the intertwining of race and religion as grounds for hate discourse, which must be tackled through specific legal instruments, banning racial, ethnic and religious hate speech and intolerance.