How public a speech be so that it&#39;s in range of Indonesian anti blasphemy laws? http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/why-is-ahok-in-prison-a-legal-analysis-of-the-decision/ Ahok is convicted of insulting religion by saying people may use certain quranic verses for dishonest goals. The thing is, not one people that hear his speech claims that he is offended by Ahok's speech. However, his speech is videotaped. Some people claimed they are offended after watching the video. That leads to the question. How public your speech can be for Indonesian anti blasphemy laws to kick in? Say you talk in private to someone about religion. Say that someone record that. Say someone that watch the recording get offended. Does that count? And if so, where in the law is that written? A little background: https://steemit.com/ahok/@freeross/who-is-ahok-and-what-is-his-problems-in-indonesia Ahok is a very effective governor. With much less budget he can make rivers clean, fix all roads, give universal healthcare, and funds the poor's education. Oh, he also eliminates corruption due to his ebudgeting. And he is very popular. Duh. So, his political opponent use anti blasphemy laws to bring him down. Whether he blasphemes or not is very politically controversial. Not one that listen to him. So someone would seek his video, pretend to get offended, and sue him in court. Hence, the current question. How public your speech should be to get jailed by this rubber flexible law. If you say something privately, and someone record it, and publicly show it, will you be jailed? If so, should you not talk bad about religion anywhere privately? My concern is a hypothetical case. Say I talk something about religion. And I talk to a few people. Yet the talk is recorded and then latter people that want me death for totally unrelated reason use a youtube video and claim they are offended. If this is the case, then the law effectively prevent people from talking about religion in any place even when it's not public.
The English version of the law says By a maximum imprisonment of five years shall be punished for whosoever in public deliberately expresses their feelings or engages in actions that: a. in principle is hostile and considered as abuse or defamation of a religion embraced in Indonesia; b. has the intention that a person should not practice any religion at all that is based on belief in Almighty God. from the Bahasa Indonesia law Dipidana dengan pidana penjara selama-lamanya lima tahun barangsiapa dengan sengaja di muka umum mengeluarkan perasaan atau melakukan perbuatan: a. yang pada pokoknya bersifat permusuhan, penyalahgunaan atau penodaan terhadap suatu agama yang dianut di Indonesia; b. dengan maksud agar supaya orang tidak menganut agama apapun juga, yang bersendikan ke-Tuhanan Yang Maha Esa The law does not define "public", so it would normally mean what it means in ordinary language (and that is not at all easy to figure out: it might be considered "public" if the expression was made to a single person). However, in this case, it was clearly in public (at a speech with about 100 people) that the statement was made. The law does not say that those people who constituted "the public" that heard the statement have to have been offended. Rather, (first) the statement has to be made in public (it was), and second, it is "in principle is hostile and considered as abuse or defamation of a religion embraced in Indonesia". That's a matter for the court to sort out. It appears, for example, that Shi'a teachings are legally blasphemous (case of Tajul Muluk). Unfortunately, there aren't any accessible resources here pertaining to the court decisions, so it's not clear if there are any concrete limits on what could be found to be blasphemous. However, it is established law that deviant teachings are legaly blasphemous, see the 39 case synopsis and the end here.
There's an interesting philosophical debate you can have. By the plain text of the First Amendment, it protects libel. Aside: Yes, the First Amendment does apply to libel cases. A libel case, like all lawsuits, involves the government's judicial branch using its coercive power to make you pay money as a result of your speech, based on a law requiring you to pay money for certain kinds of speech. Tort law is not optional; a libel case isn't "you promised not to say bad things and then said bad things," it's the government saying "what you did is bad, now pay the person you hurt because of your speech." The idea that "you can say it, you just have to face the consequences" isn't enough and hasn't been for quite a while now. Traditionally, the main point of freedom of speech was that a court couldn't stop you from saying something, but could only seek to punish you after the fact (and for that you get a jury, a public hearing, etc.) But more recently, courts realized that subsequent punishment had similar effects to prior restraint. If you're going to be punished for some kind of speech, you're going to steer clear of saying anything a jury might think is that kind of speech. Libel law is heavily influenced by the First Amendment, and has been for over 40 years. The First Amendment looks like it protects libel, but it also looks like it should protect your right to reprint any book you want. It also looks like it should protect your right to tell someone "go and murder this person." It also looks like it should protect your right to say whatever you want in court, whether or not it's true. It also looks like it should protect your right to falsely shout "fire" in a crowded hall, with the intent to cause a stampede (this isn't just a turn of phrase, there was an actual incident in which 73 people were killed which is believed to have started when someone falsely shouted that there was a fire). It also looks like it should protect your right to post a sign saying "There is a bomb at this elementary school." Yet the Constitution explicitly sanctions copyright, and no one would seriously conclude that Congress may not protect the integrity of the judicial process by punishing perjury. Ordering a hit, making bomb threats, intentionally causing panics -- the fact that speech is a key part of these can't mean that the government isn't allowed to criminalize them. You cannot run a civilized society in which death threats are legal. So, the courts interpret. Language in the Constitution that appears absolute is understood to have implied exceptions. The people writing the document were well aware that perjury was generally a crime. The same Congress that proposed the First Amendment passed a law criminalizing perjury. Sure, you're punishing someone based on their speech, but it's clearly not meant to be protected. You can't run a court system without perjury laws, and its absence from the First Amendment doesn't mean that the First Amendment thereby upended this basic principle. The courts have identified a number of kinds of speech that, by longstanding practice, are not protected. Intellectual property violations are one. Obscenity is another. So are threats. So is "speech integral to criminal conduct" (e.g. "what'll it be, your money or your life?") And so is defamation. The text of the First Amendment may not exclude it, but courts have uniformly held that it's not something the amendment was ever meant to protect. The First Amendment does still pose constraints, which are some of the most defendant-friendly in the world (interestingly enough, US law is descended from English law, and English libel law used to be among the most plaintiff-friendly in the world). It's not libel if it's true. It's not libel if it's an opinion (unless it's a statement of fact dressed up as opinion). It's not libel unless you were at least negligent; if it was about a public figure, you have to have known it was false or seriously doubted its truth. But these restrictions leave a core of speech that is and always has been punishable.
Art. 19 of the Indian Constitution states that (1) All citizens shall have the right (a) to freedom of speech and expression... from which is follows that you may advance any argument that you want in support of an idea. The courts have never questioned this. There is a potential grey area regarding verbal acts that cause the use of violence, but in terms of presenting reasons that such-and-such acts are good (or bad), that form of expression is absolutely protected. The grey area comes from clause 2: Nothing in sub clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence whereby a law against inciting to violence might pass constitutional muster. &quot;Justification&quot; of an action is very different from &quot;inciting&quot; to do an act.
In the United States, at least, it's quite clear that merely arguing that the assassination of a leader would be a good policy decision is protected by the First Amendment. The United States Supreme Court addressed this question in Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1987). McPherson was a clerical employee in a sheriff's office when someone attempted to assassinate President Reagan. During a conversation about Reagan's attempts to cut food stamps and Medicaid, she told a co-worker, &quot;If they go for him again, I hope they get him.&quot; The sheriff fired her for the remark, and she sued, alleging First Amendment retaliation. The trial court held that her remarks were not constitutionally protected, but the Supreme Court disagreed: The statement was made in the course of a conversation addressing the policies of the President's administration. It came on the heels of a news bulletin regarding what is certainly a matter of heightened public attention: an attempt on the life of the President. While a statement that amounted to a threat to kill the President would not be protected by the First Amendment, the District Court concluded, and we agree, that McPherson's statement did not amount to a threat punishable under 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) or 18 U.S.C. § 2385, or, indeed, that could properly be criminalized at all. ... The inappropriate or controversial character of a statement is irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern. ... Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. Note also that this case arose in the context of public-employee discipline, where First Amendment rights can be quite seriously curtailed. If the First Amendment protects the statements in that setting, imposing criminal penalties for the same speech is generally going to be out of the question.
I would probably have a legal disclaimer out of an abundance of caution. That being said, you have a right to free speech via First Amendment guarantees. While that right is not absolute and some words “by their very utterance” cause injury or incite an immediate breach of peace, and do not receive constitutional protection, (there is the old adage you do not have the right to shout fire in a crowded movie theater). This (your blog) is not that. To take it to its logical (or illogical) extreme, there are many things on the internet, in magazines, scholarly articles, etc. that could injure someone or cause damage in the event that one who was not qualified or competent to perform the action described undertook to do so. A child could burn themselves following the directions on a mac and cheese box but they shouldn't be cooking in the first place. The same rings true for high voltage electricity - a non-licensed electrician should probably not create a high voltage power supply. But, will some? Yes. But you are not liable for printing a blog about the practice. On another but related note, if you are a licensed electrician your licensing authority may require that you take precautions to ensure you do not inadvertantly direct others to engage in practices of licensed professionals that could cause harm by giving them information. I doubt this but I don't know because I am not an electrician. As far as could you be liable for writing it....under our legal system you can be sued under a theory of negligence for just about any action someone thinks was unsafe or causes injury. And you never know what a jury will do. But I think that to sue someone for simply writing something would be fairly easily dismissed through a motion for summary judgment by a competent attorney in the event you got sued. If everything a person wrote, that if followed by an unqualified person resulted in injury, resulted in liability for damages than it would have a chilling effect on their First Amendment right to free speech. That said, I go back to my original statement that it couldn't hurt to have a simple liability waiver for extra protection. It could be something as simple as: "The information contained herein is not mean to be comprehensive and is for informational purposes only. You should not undertake to perform anything described herein without adequate training and/or supervision. The Author disclaims any responsibility for any injury, damage, or loss as a result of reliance upon the information found on this site/blog." If you do use a liability waiver, make sure it is bold and obvious. Otherwise, it can backfire!
It is any law protecting me from the people that distrubute a video of me falling the stairs and shared without my permision? No. Your permission is not necessary for distributing or watching that video. The recording was from your workplace, where your entitlement to privacy is quite limited unlike few settings such as (1) your attorney's office in the course of obtaining legal advice for which the disclosure was needed, or (2) your home. Even if such an entitlement existed, your decision to share that recording with the person who was with you generally constitutes a waiver of your right to privacy regarding that incident. The waiver would apply even if California had some legislation akin to the EU's GDPR. Your description nowhere indicates that that person had a statutory or equitable duty of confidentiality. It is also highly doubtful that you would wish to block the distribution of the video if people instead of mocking you expressed something pleasant or encouraging to you. people who I don't even know their names come to me to comment about the video and joke about not falling again. That is not unlawful in and of itself. Since the matter does not involve a protected category such as sex, race, religion, or disability, pursuing a claim of hostile work environment would be quite a stretch. It would also be futile because any relief would not cover outsiders who watch the video and feel like joking about it. The notion of harassment entails a pattern of conduct (meaning that a person engages twice or more in that conduct) that causes a reasonable person to feel annoyed or concerned for his safety. Even if someone engages makes a few jokes that cause you to get annoyed, any petition for restraining orders seems unlikely to succeed. Sooner rather than later, the jokes will get old and people will move on.
This is the cited article. Thankfully, the interviewee provided a scan of the police letter he received, so the rest of this question is relatively easy to answer. He was specifically charged with Störung der öffentlichen Ordnung (lit. Disturbance of the public order) persuant to &sect;&nbsp;81(1) of the Sicherheitspolizeigesetz, which reads (after putting it through Google Translate): Who by a behavior that is likely to arouse legitimate annoyance, disturbs public order, commits an administrative offense and is punishable by a fine of up to 500 euros, unless the behavior is justified, in particular by the use of a constitutionally guaranteed right , In the event of aggravating circumstances, instead of a fine, imprisonment can be imprisoned for up to one week, or up to two weeks for repeated offenses. This law is almost certainly constitutional as it specifically allows exercise of constitutional rights. Note this also includes human rights, as Austria has included the European Convention on Human Rights as part of its constitution. Given that, I'm guessing if the interviewee had wanted to, he would have had a decent shot at having this charge dismissed.
The only religious matter I'm aware of that are inadmissible are for special circumstances where one's religious beliefs may be compromised if asked in court. The classic example tends to be clergymen/women being subpeonaed for information against a defendant in court. Conversation with clergy is protected in the United States and is one of a few times cops are not allowed to listen to your one phone call or visit. The typical invocation of this would be a criminal, who confesses his sins to a Catholic priest, and may confess to a crime while receiving the Sacrament of Penance. Since Catholic Priests are bound by the &quot;Seal of Confession&quot; to not speak about the identity of the sinner or nature of the sin. The Priest can be excommunicated if he does this. However, if the religion of the witness is relevant to the case (say a discrimination case) it might be prudent to inquire into the witness's religious beliefs. Suppose a major employer has a special menu in their cafeterias for Hala and Kosher observers but does not offer a fish or non-meat option for meals on Fridays in Lent, then a Catholic's belief in this practice might be called into question.