Free speech in Europe: mixed rules

[rodeodance]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060208/wl_csm/odouble;_ylt=Avllytf_6Uu0gZuOQrldZ2ys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

Free speech in Europe: mixed rules




........French Muslims have questioned whether the outcome would have been the same if Dieudonne had aimed his humor at Muslims.

In Austria, a case of Holocaust denial charges is being prepared against British historian David Irving, based on two speeches he made in the country in 1989. He could face 10 years in jail if convicted. In Germany, antihate legislation that took effect last year has been used to rein in Muslim preachers who call for terrorist attacks or propagate hate.

In Turkey, the preoccupation is more nationalistic, as the recently dropped case against novelist Orhan Pamuk - for "insulting Turkish identity" in remarks to a Swiss newspaper about the killings of Armenians in the early 20th century - shows.

In Sweden, meanwhile, the most prominent case has involved a clergyman accused of inciting hatred against homosexuals. But in Britain, remarks by a Muslim leader that homosexuality was "not acceptable" have not resulted in criminal charges.

[tocqueville]

1. yep but are the cartoons "hate speech" ?

there is a general consensus (except among the fundies from all beliefs) that they are not.

[rodeodance]

3. "Eurarabia" : I have seen this term used more and more last few years.

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=1852

"Eurarabia" and Freedom of Expression

Posted by: McQ on Wednesday, May 25, 2005

The reason I used the term "Eurabia" for Europe is because that's a term writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci has used to describe the evolving Europe, a continent which is slowly becoming Islamic.

How bad has it gotten? Well the cradle of the Enlightenment is now taking people to trial because they may have offended a religion. Seriously:

A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.......

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. I am not a fundatmentalist by any stretch of the imagination

but a cartoon that shows not only the Beloved Prophet but the key tenet of our faith in a cartoon that implies violence and hatred (Mohammed with a bomb turban that says, in Arabic, the Shahada-"There is no God but God and Mohammed is His prophet")is, in my book, just like a KKK cartoon that depicts African Americans as animals or worse.

[Solo_in_MD]

7. Deal with it

Every other faith gets ridiculed and offended by the media at some point. Why should Islam get a free pass? That he is the beloved prophet to you is well and good. That you have rules against depicting him is fine for you but will never be binding on the rest of us. I won't apologize for being a hard ass on this, but Muslims need to learn to deal with the rest of the world that does not agree with them without rioting.
- Jews don't make the rest of keep kosher
- Hindus do not force us not to eat beef
- You get the idea

If Muslims are ever going to be accepted as peers they are going to have stop enforcing their values and beliefs on the rest of us. I fully support a Muslim (or any one else for that matter) to believe what they want. I fully reject anyone's attempt to stifle the press or other forms of expression because they consider it sacrilege.

IMNSHO much of the outrage astroturfing

[Briar]

9. "Deal with it"?

That's the language of the victor to the vanquished, the strong to the weak, the dominant to the oppressed. Not only the cartoons (muslim-baiting in a country where muslims are a vulnerable minority) but the way the west has blindly supported them in the name of "free speech" cause offense.

And now Rice is exploiting the opportunity to war-pimp.

What an advanced civilisation we are.

[Solo_in_MD]

10. "Dealing with it" is a sign of maturity, not victor vice vanquished.

Its accepting that which find distasteful because you are mature enough to understand that is what must be done. Whether its changing a diaper, putting your dog down, or ignoring someone trashing what you hold dear. Whether its burning the American flag, displaying a crucifix in a jar or urine, denying the holocaust, or claiming that Mohamed ate pork bbq for his last meal, it is not acceptable to react with violence.

Muslims are saying "you can not insult or profane our prophet". Their leaders call the beheading of those who blaspheme according to their dogma. In the real world every religion gets insulted, every sacred ox gored, regardless of whose it is. They indeed need to learn to deal with it. The violent reaction being whipped up is not the action of a vulnerable minority but more that of a childish temper tantrum of a intolerant bully being challenged. Clearly the responsible adult leadership of the various segments of the Muslim faith are non-existent or AWOL.

Molly coddling a group of people who believe that they have the truth above all others and who's treatment of women and unbelievers is so backyards by many is absolutely astonishing. We don't accept it out of the Christian fundies, I see no reason we should accept it out of the Muslim fundies.

I am also convinced that much of this is astroturfing. These cartoons were first published in September and they are only getting inflamed now? Often in countries where they were never published at nations that had nothing to do with it? Somehow this does not strike me as spontaneous.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. Then you would support my local KKK chapter

depicting an African American in a demeaning cartoon that implies that all blacks are lazy welfare cheats, or perhaps a cartoon implying that all gays are child molestors. What we are dealing with here are stereotypes of Muslims, depicting us all as extremely violent and wishing to impose our views on everyone else. Nothing could be further from the truth, but you wouldn't know that from what has been said in the press and right here.

[Solo_in_MD]

14. I have never said the cartoons were good or bad

What I have objected to is the violent reaction to them. Should what you stipulated occur, I would expect the African American or LGBT communites not to riot. Tehy undersatnd the value of a fress press, even if thier ox is being gored. However, the Muslim masses are rioting in countries where they the cartoons were never published months later. That is not mature or civilized, progressive, or democratic behavior. No matter what the provocation, how can you justify rioting and deaths over cartoons published late last year?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. I don't condone the violence.

I think the masses in the part of the world where this is happening are being manipulated by leaders who are using religion to their own ends. I also think there is more to this than just the cartoons. I would suggest you read the Juan Cole article that is at this DU thread for a larger picture:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x189971

[Solo_in_MD]

19. I read the article, it is far from persuasive

Those rationalizing the violence are doing disservice to all of us and are aiding those who are creating a false crisis in best traditions of astroturf.

[tocqueville]

8. now I don't follow you any longer

1) the (non-) representation of Mohammed is not and ABSOLUTE tenet of Islam (even if mainstream), specially in the Shiite world. The picture you name is derivated from an old Persian or Hindu picture. Nothing stands in the Koran about pictures of Mohammed. It's a translation of later scholars.

2) the person that did that picture probably didn't understand what stood on the turban. There is NO PROOF that the cartoons were made with a RACISTIC intent. And there is no law against blasphemy in Denmark or in the majority of the European countries.

3) there are far, far more violent and irrespectuous pictures of Jesus (and Mary !). Parodies of the Gospel, Bible. The Protestantic armies of the 1600 th Century had flags with a desecrated, raped Mary on it just to piss off the Catholics...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

12. If the fellow didn't know what the "design" meant

I don't think he would have made it so exact. I don't read much Arabic, but that I can read, and it is exact, not just some approximation. As for the depiction of Mohammed (pbuh), even in Persian drawings, his face is not shown. The Qur'an also makes it clear that the Prophet is a man, and not to be worshipped.
As for your third point, you made it yourself when you said Protestants had depictions of a raped Mary "just to piss off Catholics". That was the point of these cartoons, especially the one I described.

[tocqueville]

20. I'm sorry but you are wrong

there are historical depictions IN FULL of the prophet in pictures showing his face (or at least an artistic interpretation of it), some even exhibited in museums ! http://www.outpost911.com/

As I said in previous posts the Shiites don't always follow the interdiction. It's a fact that many poor people in Iran make a living of selling those pictures of Mohammed.

my 3rd point is different : religious attacks on other religions have always existed (you'll see some nasty examples in the link posted) and that is what meant. But it's obvious that the Danish cartoons were not created with that intent, even if some PERCEIVED it that way.

if you check the link above you'll see that even non-religious attacks on Islam (as on Christianity for that matter) in form of pictures or cartoons have always existed, even recently. Some are FAR MORE PROVOCATIVE and obviously with a another intent than the Danish ones and widely circulated

Did those caused embassies to be burnt ? no

which shows that there is another agenda behind that story

[Igel]

16. Isn't the Shahada on the Sa'udi flag?

So everything the Sa'udi government does, in fact, the very nature of the Sa'udi government and the things it's done to further extremism, bears the imprimatur of the Shahada. One wonders if the cartoonist didn't just lift the calligraphy from the flag.

Is this better or worse than the "Some Muslims' believe Muhammed sanctions terrorism in the name of Allah" cartoon? After all, what the cartoon means depends on how one interprets it: The jury is still uninformed of one crucial bit of information, the intention of the cartoonist.

"Implies" is probably the right word, but the direction of the violence and hatred, IMHO, has quite possibly been completely misconstrued.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

17. Have you seen the cartoon?

If you have, you know that the way the Arabic is placed on the turban it was not lifted from the Saudi flag.

Having read Juan Cole's article on the subject, I think there is more behind the riots than just the cartoons.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x189971

[Igel]

22. I saw the cartoon, but am hardly an Arabic calligraphy guru.

The calligraphy was simply lifted from somewhere--I know I've seen precisely that style, configuration, and color scheme, in that outline, and frequently; I doubt the Danish cartoonist bothered to reproduce it by hand, or could. He cut and pasted it. Certainly not from the Sa'udi flag; that's almost intelligible.

Oh, there's more to the cartoons than the NYT and others have said. That I'm sure of. I just think we'd disagree on whose perceptions and interpretations are controlling in this instance.

It rather makes me wish that I both knew Danish and could find interviews with the cartoonists. Their voices--and theirs are important here--are oddly missing from the discourse. They may say they drew the 'furtive illustrator' drawing to be sarcastic and the Muhammed-qua-terrorist as straightforward, or vice-versa. It would certainly be intriguing to see if the interpretations assigned to their works are what they intended.

[mcscajun]

2. An important point..."Free speech" is not universally understood

as the same thing in different countries. There have been more than a few posters here in the last day or so quoting our US First Amendment, when that principle as it is expressed in our Bill of Rights is far from universally accepted. From the same article:

When it comes to hate crime and defamation laws, there is no homogenous approach in Europe. Britain, for example, has long had a more tolerant approach to free speech than countries like Germany, France, and Austria, where Holocaust denial is a crime. "It's a mixed bag, a patchwork of practices and experiences in Europe," says Agnes Callamard, director of Article 19, a global freedom-of- expression campaign group. "It's very difficult to pretend there is a common position on hate speech."

But Europe is generally warier of free speech than is the US, with its First Amendment. Laws against inciting hatred and violence have sprung up in countries such as France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark, resulting in criminal cases, convictions, and, in the case of foreigners, expulsions.

Even Britain has sought to push through a law recently to outlaw inciting religious hatred, to give religious groups like Muslims and Christians the same rights as racial groups. But the legislation was watered down over concerns about the implications for free speech.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060208/wl_csm/odouble

[sasha031]

5. I wish we had laws against speech's inciting hatred

serously...if we did the RWers wouldn't have anything to say.

[ScotTissue]

4. The problem is NOT Europe

The problem is the people calling for beheadings.

[CJCRANE]

11. I beg to differ...

the last time Europeans decided to demonize an entire religion, six million people from that religion got wiped out.

[bloom]

18. That is the thing

I think the article posted is interesting in pointing out how some groups can be openly "hated" and other groups cannot. And it seems like a funny thing to protect one minority religious group and not another.


I would think that people in Europe would be more sensitive to this idea.

[Nederland]

21. Good point

Various countries in Europe that have laws restricting the press when it comes to Holocaust denial etc. were just begging for this to happen. You can't pick and chose what material you find too offensive to publish. Freedom of the press should mean freedom of the press--for everybody.