A blasphemy law is a law prohibiting blasphemy, which is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. According to Pew Research Center, about a quarter of the world's countries and territories (26%) had anti-blasphemy laws or policies as of 2014. In some states, blasphemy laws are used to protect the religious beliefs of a majority, while in other countries, they serve to offer protection of the religious beliefs of minorities. In addition to prohibitions against blasphemy or blasphemous libel, blasphemy laws include all laws which give redress to those insulted on account of their religion. These blasphemy laws may forbid: the vilification of religion and religious groups, defamation of religion and its practitioners, denigration of religion and its followers, offending religious feelings, or the contempt of religion. Some blasphemy laws, such as those formerly existing in Denmark, do not criminalize "speech that expresses critique," but rather, "sanctions speech that insults." Human rights experts argue for laws which adequately distinguish between protection of individuals' freedoms and laws which over-broadly restrict freedom of speech. Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights obliges countries to adopt legislative measures against "any advocacy of national racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence." However, they also note that such protections must be carefully circumscribed, and do not support prohibition of blasphemy per se. By country Christian and historically Christian countries In a number of states with a majority-Christian or formerly majority-Christian population blasphemy laws may criminalize abusive or scurrilous speech about Christianity, and oftentimes, other religions and their adherents, as such offenses "have the tendency to lead to a breach of peace". Australia Emerging as a British colony in the 1780s, Australia received English common law, including the Blasphemy Act 1697. The first colonial laws were the Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act 1827 for New South Wales (repealed in 1898), and legislation that governor Arthur Phillip enacted in Van Diemen's Land in the same year that regulated printing and publishing and prohibited 'blasphemous and seditious libels' as part of a law to maintain public order. The last attempted prosecution for blasphemy by the Crown occurred in the State of Victoria in 1919. Australia abolished and repealed all blasphemy laws at the federal level with the Australia Criminal Code Act 1995,