A petition calling for the repeal of Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which impose the death sentence on a person found desecrating Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, has gone to the United Nation High Commissioner for Human Rights.

After attacks on Christians in Pakistan, and the inability of the authorities to act, a petition seeking an end to the country's blasphemy law has been launched in the UK and elsewhere.

Irish President Mary McAleese has signed into law the Defamation Act, which includes clauses that create the offence of "blasphemous libel". Civil rights campaigners are dismayed.

Senior Baptist theologians have joined other church figures and civil rights groups in calling for an end to the existing blasphemy laws in Britain, which are now seen by a wide cross-section of the public as an unjust anachronism.

Replying to questions on a BBC TV programme today, Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has publicly agreed with the Christian think-tank Ekklesia that it is time for Britain's archaic blasphemy law to be abolished.

The Christian think tank Ekklesia has renewed its call for the repeal of the UK's archaic blasphemy law, in the wake of an attempt by an individual to seek judicial review in the High Court to bring private prosecution against the BBC for broadcasting 'Jerry Springer - The Opera'.