Speech / S3
Flag and scripture burning
At a lawful, peaceful protest in a public square, the person burns a national flag they own and a copy of the dominant religion's scripture they own. No fire-safety rule is broken.
What we score
What can the state do to the person because of the burning?
Default assumptions: Unless a vignette says otherwise, the person is a 30-year-old citizen of sound mind with no criminal record, acting alone, on their own behalf and not for profit, in an ordinary residential area. Where subnational units (states, provinces, cantons, Länder) make their own law, each unit is scored and the result is weighted by population. 'The state' includes police, prosecutors, courts, regulators, tax authorities and anyone acting on their orders, including platforms obeying takedown orders.
Score anchors
Both the law score and the practice score use these anchors. Half points are used when a country sits between two of them.
| Score | What it means for this vignette |
|---|---|
| 10 | Nothing. Both acts are protected expression. |
| 8 | Police may stop the act or move the person on, but no penalty. |
| 3 | Administrative fine, or a breach-of-peace charge that ends in a fine without a criminal record. |
| 2 | Criminal offence (flag desecration, blasphemy, religious insult, public order): fine or under 1 year. |
| 1 | Criminal offence: 1 to 5 years. |
| 0 | Over 5 years, or death penalty for blasphemy. |
Evidence used: Flag-desecration, blasphemy, religious-insult and public-order provisions; reported Quran-burning and flag-burning prosecutions.
How each country scores
| Country | Law | Practice | Process | Score | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 10 | 9.5 | −0.5 | 9.2 | Burning one's own flag at a protest is protected expression (Texas v. Johnson, 1989), and no blasphemy offence survives the First Amendment. A 25 Aug 2025 executive order told the Attorney General to prosecute flag burners for other offences 'to the fullest extent'; the same day veteran Jay Carey was arrested at Lafayette Park and charged with two fire misdemeanours. DOJ dropped the case in March 2026 after a judge allowed a vindictive-prosecution inquiry. The arrest-then-drop pattern is the reason for the process penalty. |
| New Zealand | 7 | 9 | 0 | 8.2 | Blasphemous libel was repealed in 2019 (Crimes Act s123). Destroying the NZ flag 'with the intention of dishonouring it' is a fine-only offence (Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act s11(1)(b), s24: up to $5,000), but Hopkinson v Police (2004) read 'dishonour' as 'vilify' under the Bill of Rights and quashed a protest flag-burning conviction. In Morse v Police [2011] NZSC 45 the Supreme Court quashed an offensive-behaviour conviction (Summary Offences Act s4, $500 fine) for burning a flag at an Anzac dawn service, holding the offence requires a disturbance of public order. Residual risk remains only where the act vilifies the flag or disrupts public order. |
| Netherlands | 8 | 8 | 0 | 8.0 | Blasphemy (art. 147 Sr) was repealed in 2014, and burning one's own flag or Quran is not an offence; the mayor of The Hague said the law gave him no room to ban Pegida's Quran desecration. Mayors can still ban a protest or the burning on public-order grounds under the Wet openbare manifestaties (Arnhem did in 2024). Pegida's leader was later convicted for insulting Muslims in his posts and for breaking an area ban, not for the burning itself. |
| Czechia | 3 | 7 | 0 | 5.4 | Flag desecration is not a crime. Act 352/2001 § 13(1)(a) makes destroying or grossly disparaging a state symbol an administrative offence with a fine of up to 30,000 CZK. Czech law has no blasphemy offence. Burning one's own scripture is not covered by § 355 unless it amounts to public defamation of a group. No reported fines or prosecutions for protest flag burning were found. |
| Ireland | 1.5 | 8 | 0 | 5.4 | Blasphemy was removed from the Constitution in 2018 and abolished by the Blasphemy (Abolition of Offences and Related Matters) Act 2019, and there is no flag-desecration offence. The worst exposure is Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 s6 (threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour with intent or recklessness as to a breach of the peace, max 3 months; 6 months if aggravated by hatred under s6A added in 2024), or in theory the 1989 incitement-to-hatred Act (2 years) if the burning were held insulting and likely to stir up hatred against a religion. No prosecution of a peaceful flag or scripture burning has been reported; gardaí would at most move people on. |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 6 | −1 | 3.4 | Flag burning is not an offence, and blasphemy was abolished in E&W in 2008 (CJIA 2008 s79) and in Scotland in 2021. Quran burning has been prosecuted as a religiously aggravated Public Order Act s5 offence (fine only): Hamit Coskun was fined £240 in June 2025, but Southwark Crown Court quashed the conviction in October 2025 and the High Court dismissed the CPS appeal in February 2026. Police still arrest and charge burners where crowds react, so arrest is a real risk even though conviction is now unlikely. |
| Switzerland | 2 | 2.5 | 0 | 2.3 | Burning your own national flag is not an offence: Arts. 270 and 298 only protect flags displayed by a public authority or a foreign state's official representatives. Burning scripture falls under Art. 261 (maliciously desecrating objects of religious veneration), punishable by a monetary penalty, and legal scholars consider Koran burning covered. We found no recent conviction for scripture burning, so the de facto score sits slightly above the statutory one. |
| Mexico | 1 | 4 | −1 | 1.8 | Burning the scripture is not an offence: Mexico has no blasphemy law. Burning the flag is 'ultraje' to the national flag under Federal Penal Code art. 191: 6 months to 4 years in prison, or a fine, or both. In 2014 five people who burned a flag at a May Day march in Oaxaca were charged under arts. 191-192 before a federal judge. Most flag burnings at protests go unpunished, but arrests do happen. |
| Germany | 1 | 4 | −1 | 1.8 | Burning the German flag at a protest can be 'Verunglimpfung' of the federal flag under § 90a(1) StGB: up to 3 years or a fine. Burning scripture is punishable under § 166 StGB (up to 3 years) only if it 'insults' a creed in a way capable of disturbing the public peace, which prosecutors rarely find for a burning by itself. In practice police stop the act and file a complaint. Most cases end in dismissal or a fine. |
| Singapore | 1 | 2 | −0.5 | 1.1 | Burning a religion's scripture to insult believers is an offence under s17F(4) of the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act 1990 (up to 5 years) where it would threaten public peace, which a public burning of the Quran or Bible almost certainly would be found to do. Misuse of the flag is an offence under regulations made under the National Symbols Act 2022 s14 (up to S$30,000 fine or 6 months). Outdoor protests are lawful only at Speakers' Corner or with a police permit. There is no reported scripture-burning case; insult-to-religion cases have ended in fines or short jail terms. |
| Denmark | 1 | 2 | −0.5 | 1.1 | Burning a Danish flag you own is legal; § 110 e(1) protects only foreign states' flags. Since December 2023, § 110 e(2) punishes public 'improper treatment' of a writing of significant religious importance to a recognised religious community, or an object that looks like one, with a fine or up to 2 years, so burning a Bible or Quran at a protest is a crime. The law was passed in response to the 2023 Quran burnings; police now stop such burnings and charge the person. I found no published conviction counts; the expected sentence for a first offence is a fine. |