Pirate Party (Iceland)
The Pirate Party (Icelandic: Píratar, lit. 'Pirates') is a political party in Iceland. The party's platform is based on pirate politics and direct democracy.[ 2] [ 3] The party was founded on 24 November 2012 and ran for the first time in the 2013 parliamentary election.
The Icelandic Pirate Party was founded on 24 November 2012 by Smári McCarthy and several Internet activists, including Birgitta Jónsdóttir (previously a member of the Movement).[ 2] [ 4] [ 5] [ 6] The party successfully applied for the ballot list letter Þ (resembling the party's logo) in order to run in the 2013 election. In July 2016, the party requested and was issued the letter P for future elections.
In their first electoral participation, at the 2013 parliamentary election, the Pirate Party won 5.1% of the votes, just above the 5% threshold required to win representation in the Althing.[ 2] The three members elected, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, and Jón Þór Ólafsson, were the first pirates elected to any national legislature in the world.[ 7] [ 8]
Following the Charlie Hebdo shooting on 7 January 2015, the Pirate Party began a campaign to repeal Iceland's blasphemy laws. The laws, which had been introduced in 1940, were successfully repealed in early July 2015. The repeal, introduced by the Pirate Party, read: "Freedom of expression is one of the cornerstones of democracy. It is fundamental to a free society that people should be able to express themselves without fear of punishment, whether from the authorities or from other people".[ 9] During the vote on the repeal, the three Pirate Party members of the Althing stood and declared "Je suis Charlie", in solidarity with the French satirical magazine.[ 10]
