Countries / Americas / Brazil

Brazil

The Federative Republic of Brazil is a secular and democratic sovereign state, often described as an emerging world power. A de facto “blasphemy” law remains in force defining “crimes against religious feeling”.

The Brazilian Penal Code contains a de facto blasphemy law which renders “crimes against religious feeling” a punishable offense.

Article 208 states that to “mock someone publicly, by reason of belief or religious function; prevent or disrupt ceremony or practice of religious worship; publicly vilify act or object of religious worship” incurs a penalty of “detention of one month to one year or a fine”.

Whilst this law is on the statute books, in practice, it does not appear to have been used to prohibit or obstruct the criticism of religion. However, the Reporters Without Borders report on blasphemy laws in 2013 mentions that a Brazilian court succumbed to pressure in ordering Google to withdraw videos from Youtube that contained passages from the controversial Youtube video “Innocence of Muslims”.