A majority of parties said yesterday that the nation no longer needed the law, which had not been invoked in half a century. The movement to decriminalise blasphemy gathered strength in the past decade amid a national debate about the limits of freedom of speech. The climax came at the 2011 trial of far-right politician Geert Wilders, when judges ruled he had the right to criticise Islam. It still remains illegal under Dutch law to insult police officers or Queen Beatrix.