Spain has a blasphemy law on the books, too

Way back in the 1970s, a Spanish songwriter named Javier Krahe made this short satirical video.

Let's take a gaunt Christ for every two persons. Remove the spikes and take the body from the cross, which will be left aside. The stigmas can be stuffed with bacon. Uncrust with warm water and dry carefuly. Abundant butter will be spread on the Christ, which will be then placed on an ovenproof dish, over a bed of onions. Spread over it some salt and pepper, other spices and fine herbs can be added to suit your taste. The mixture is to be left in a moderate fire oven for three days, after which He will get out on his own.

It's silly. It's a little weird. It also could cost Krahe €192,000.

The catholic organisation was enraged when the TV program Lo+Plus (in Canal+) referred to the video in 2005, while the author was being interviewed. The claimant organisation, whose motto is "Christianizing law, Christianizing society" understands that the short film attacks their religious feelings, a crime as described in Article 525 of the Spanish legal code.

That organisation also charges the director of the TV program, Montserrat Fernández Villa, who is asked for a bail of 144.000 euros. Both she and Krahe were astonished yesterday by the prosecution. "We didn't air the video. Just some frames of it were displayed in the background while the last question of the interview was being answered.", says Fernández Villa. The program apologized a few days later, after receiving some complaining calls.

So you can get massive fines in Spain for hurting Catholic feelings? There's another country that I'd like to visit that I'm going to have to cross off my to-do list.

Tags

More like this

This recipe is based on a recipe for Moroccan spiced duck breasts, from The Soul of a New Cuisine, Marcus Samuelsson's new African cookbook. Chef Samuelsson is the guy who's responsible for getting me to eat beef after not touching the stuff for nearly two years. He's a very interesting guy - born…
Well, with a little pork. My mother used to make haluski, which is basically chopped cabbage fried in butter and served over boiled noodles. In the old days, the bubbas made their own noodles, but we used store-bought packaged. As I kid, I was not fond of haluski, but as my palate became more…
When the heat wave finally broke this week, I found myself dying to cook again. After days of it being too damn hot to cook - and too hot to eat anything that had been cooked, when salad and corn on the cob were the extent of my culinary ambitions, food appealed again. This is good, because the…
This is a recipe I created just a couple of weeks ago. I saw a beautiful Angus beef flank steak on sale, and wanted to find something to do with it. I came up with this idea of stuffing it. Amusingly, the day after it, a recipe appeared in the New York Times food section for a stuffed flank steak…

Blashemphy, the only victimless crime.

By 'Tis Himself, OM (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

That's it? I was expecting so much worse for such a hefty fine. I guess there's no place that religion acts a little more "enlightened," laughs at a joke, doesn't scream oppression while at the same time oppressing people...

By https://me.yah… (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink