That she could be tried for blasphemy is shameful, to put it mildly. I don't think the trial reached a verdict, and I suspect it won't now that she's dead. She deserved to have her name cleared.
She was not on trial for
blasphemy, technically speaking. She was on trial for a modern version of this thought crime--for "offending Islam", due to statements made in her book "The Rage and the Pride". The reason was not that there's a law making offending Islam in particular illegal, but an (equally outrageous) law making offending
all religions criminal in Italy.
The person who brought the suit against her, Adel Smith, an Italian convert to Islam, was himself sentenced to six months in jail for calling the Catholic Church "a criminal orgnaization" and Pope John Paul II "a deciever" in a TV broadcast. I guess he brought a suit against Fallaci under the "two can play that game" principle.
Apparently, it is illegal today to have unpopular opinions in Europe. In 2002, a Swiss judge requested that Fallaci be
extradited to Switzerland to stand trial for "public incitement of racial hatered or discrimination", which she apparently broke by publishing "The Rage and the Pride". That Fallaci was not a Swiss citizen, or that she has the right for freedom of speech, apparently meant nothing to the judge. To their credit, the Italian minister of justice noted that the Italian constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and therefore she will not be extradited. With her trial in Italy, one wonders if that's still true.
Frankly, if one must choose between the crime of "blasphemy" and the crime of "Insulting religion", I would prefer blasphemy to be illegal. At least blasphemy is made illegal due to the belief that the religions one disrespects is the
true religion and that the purpose of the law is to prevent people from falling into error and thus going to hell: there was a serious purpose behind it, no matter how wrong the world view it's based on might be.
The "insulting religion" crime, on the other hand, is not based on any religious belief--the EU beaurocrats and politicians who pass such laws are, for the most part, atheists or vaguely agnostic. It is based on the two conflicting ideas that (a) all religions are equally nonsenseical metaphysics, but also that (b) somehow, pointing out religious nonsense is taboo simply because it might
insult the people who believe in it.
But if it is not the validity of the criticism, but merely that it is insulting, which makes it illegal, why not make insulting people's favorite soccer team or brand of beer illegal as well? Many people take their sports teams and beer
far more seriously than they take their religion in Europe nowadays.
