Muslims urge cartoons law change in UK

[The Straight Story]

Muslims urge cartoons law change
15:10pm 8th February 2006

Muslim scholars holding emergency talks called for a change in the law to stop insulting pictures of the Prophet Muhammad being published.

Officials from the Muslim Action Committee (MAC) meeting in Birmingham also called for the Press Complaints Commission code to be tightened to restrict British newspapers from following European media in printing the caricatures.

A protest march from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park on February 18 involving around 50,000 Muslims would be staged, Shaikh Faiz Saddiqi, spokesman for the MAC, said.

Speaking at a press conference held at a mosque in Small Heath, Mr Saddiqi told reporters that discussions among hundreds of Muslim Scholars from around the UK resulted in agreement of a number of changes.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=376578&in_page_id=1770

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. All hate speech that is designed

simply to enrage people should be curtailed, I think. This includes Rush, Hannity, and O'Lielly......

[DBoon]

3. given the bile shown to Muslims by these talking heads

I'm surprised there hasn't been a world-wide outcry against US hate radio.

[Burning Water]

2. Don't personally

hold with the offensive cartoons. I've seen them. But it would be a major mistake to abridge the freedoms that it took the West centuries to develop in order to appease Muslim sensitivities. We all have to live with being offended in a free country. It's a small price to pay, and they have voluntarily become British, Dutch, Danish, French, and Americans.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Very much agree

But then, here in the US we have religious extremists who are working hard to dismember hard-won freedoms, too. What can be done about it?

[Burning Water]

7. Freedom of the press

freedom of speech. Expose them for what they are. Expose the public to the truth. And don't be so touchy when they return the favor. Muslims could learn a lot from our culture.

Because, except for a very few fanatics, "Christians' aren't engaged in bombing, none in beheading, and I haven't heard abut any Christian kidnappings. Certainly specifically Christian violence is a vanishingly small proportion, both in absolute numbers and in percentages, to Muslim violence. And all mainstream and most conservative denominations denounce it when it occurs, and don't want to be associated with it.

Far fewer Muslim organizations or leaders do so.

But there are some and they should be encouraged.

[feistydem]

5. Will they stop burning the American flag & calling for death to Americans?

I am sick of this pandering to Islam. Islam doesn't get to control free speech in a free society.

Note to Islamic extremists: Go burn an effigy and chant "Death to Jews. Death to Christians. Death to Americans. Death to..." That's free speech too.

[KamaAina]

6. Who enforces cartoon law, anyway? Deputy Dawg?

[Ilsa]

9. You got me on that one. I'm still laughing and I emailed

the thread to about five people already. :pals:

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. It's a whole week since Parliament rejected a law about this

and now they're asking for it again?

Changes made in the Lords now mean that someone charged with an offence would have to be shown to have used "threatening" language - rather than "threatening, insulting and abusive" the test in race cases. It will also mean that the prosecution will have to show "intention" to foment such hatred by the accused rather than intention or "recklessness" as Mr Goggins's compromise had proposed.
...
As Mr Goggins struggled to make his case he admitted that the cartoons critical of Muhammad which have triggered boycotts and a political crisis in Denmark after being published there could attract prosecution under the bill.

"The straight answer is (yes) if there was an intention to stir up hatred or if the person was behaving in a reckless way about the impact of his behaviour," the minister told Labour backbencher Gordon Prentice when MPs on both sides pressed him for specific examples of a likely offence. The disputed cartoons included one showing Muhammad, the founder of Islam, wearing a bomb-shaped turban, and another of him telling suicide bombers he had run out of virgins to award them. MPs offered other examples - such as the punishment of death for seeking to convert Muslims - as possible problem areas.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1699397,00.html

So the Commons voted against such a law 8 days ago, with the specific example of the cartoons brought up as an example. Note that some prominent Muslims didn't want the "insulting and abusive" wording in the law either:

An unlikely alliance of humanists, secularists, Muslims and evangelical Christians issued an eleventh-hour plea to MPs to reject the Government's proposed religious hatred legislation.
...
The signatories to the letter include two Muslims, Dr Ghyasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament, and Manzoor Moghal, of the Muslim Forum.
...
The group say in a letter to The Daily Telegraph today that the Bill, as it currently stands, will undermine free speech in a society where it is vital to allow debate.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/31/nrelig31.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/31/ixhome.html

[gratuitous]

10. As is their right . . .

Hey, I'm all for a fair and open discussion of the point. I'm also confident that saner heads will prevail, and that the freedoms inherent in a democracy will be guaranteed, even for speech or expression that some people (or even a lot of people) find repugnant.

But let's all discuss this together. Present your arguments, your evidence, your feelings, your deepest convictions. And then listen respectfully as people who disagree with you do the same. THAT's what I find largely missing from this discussion.