Blasphemy law to be scrapped?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | : "The move is being considered as part of a package that will include a new offence of incitement to religious hatred, in order to make clear that freedom of speech and the freedom to criticise religions will not be curtailed."

Quite so: at present the blasphemy law only applies to the Church of England and I can't see how it is justified in today's society, really. The real thing to get right is how to protect people from 'religious' hatred [it should be an oxymoron!] without curtailing freedom of speech appreciably. The situation I want to avoid is a law that effectively allows, as a prominent example, Muslims to stop people subjecting the Qur'an to textual and historical criticism or examining Mohammed's life and sayings. We should be able to do this without fear of violent reprisal, in fact muslims should be able to do so, but at present it is risky and we need to make sure that law does not make it more so.