A tale of two blasphemies

If we exclude Ireland, blasphemy laws have fallen into disuse in most developed countries

The Indonesian politician Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, and the English actor Stephen Fry may live at opposite ends of the globe – 12,000-odd km apart, in fact — but they share an unlikely controversy: Accusations of blasphemy.

On Tuesday May 9, however, both faced very different fates on this account.

In the tropical archipelago Mr Ahok was handed a two-year jail sentence, going beyond the suspended one-year sentence that the prosecutors had requested. In the Atlantic island-nation of Ireland Mr Fry enjoyed a reprieve after the police halted an investigation because they could not find enough people