France cracks down on “hate speech”
I don’t like this development:
France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and those glorifying terrorism…
Authorities said 54 people had been arrested for hate speech and defending terrorism since terror attacks killed 20 people in Paris last week, including three gunmen…
Like many European countries, France has strong laws against hate speech, especially anti-Semitism in the wake of the Holocaust.
The Justice Ministry sent a letter to all French prosecutors and judges urging more aggressive tactics against racist or anti-Semitic speech or acts.
“Speech or acts“—there’s a big, big difference. Acts can be more easily criminalized, speech, no—although of course it depends on what the speech is. To be legally actionable, the speech had better be the rough equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded auditorium. I’ve long been disturbed by laws against hate speech itself in the absence of clear-cut incitement, because the libertarian in me believes in protecting freedom of speech.
Vandalism and violence are acts, as is joining a terrorist organization, and should be actionable. But none of that is mere speech. Freedom of speech means that we protect even speech we find offensive, and it seems contradictory to me for the French and other Europeans to champion the right of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists to mock Mohammed but to later arrest this man for his jokes.
Ever since I covered the al Durah trials in Paris many years ago (see this) I’ve known that the European attitude towards free speech is much less free than ours (or at least, than ours used to be). European hate speech laws are one part of it. Of course, it was Europe that experienced the horror of the Holocaust—and in many instances, including that of France, non-German Europeans significantly collaborated in facilitating those horrors. It’s understandable that they don’t want a repeat. But they are much closer to a repeat right now than the US is, despite the US’s lack of hate speech laws.
once more we return to piss christ…
Confreres: Cox & Forkum have gone live again after a silence since 2009, to weigh in on the Cartoon Massacre.
They have several brilliant cartoons there, savaging the cowards in the Western press and governments, lampooning the murderous jihadis, and ridiculing the shite out of everyone. These were done after the Danish cartoons uproar, and are spot-on today.
http://coxandforkum.com/
The dark night of fascism is always descending on America, and always landing on Europe…
On the problem with terrorism, there does have to be some way to deal with these people they are “watching”. It’s not hate speech, but how are they going to deal with these imams preaching terrorism? What is the proper way to take out people who are wondering to the middle east to take the terrorism crash course? I think they had one of these guys and let him go, so obviously that is a problem, but I would like to know if it is possible to stop this stuff before it happens. The answer may be no – like with some school shootings (or maybe the answer lies in institutionalization of dangerous people or the mentally ill).
Lea:
Penalties for terrorist acts should be much greater. If I recall correctly, one of the Kouachi brothers and the kosher supermarket shooter (Coulibaly) had been convicted of helping/assisting terrorists to go to Syria or something like that. Also, certain organizations can be designated as terrorist organizations and the laws about aiding them could come into play:
France’s penalties for the prior acts of these terrorists were a mere slap on the wrist.
I’ve known that the European attitude towards free speech
Waite Neo, let read together David Brook article in NYT what he said about American attitude towards free speech with I Am Not Charlie Hebdo
كشÙت صØÙŠÙØ© “ميل أون لاين” البريطانية،أن قائداً إرهابياً أطلق سراØÙ‡ من معتقل غونتنامو ÙÙŠ عام، 2006 قام بإرسال 2500 إرهابي على الأقل من السعودية واليمن، للانضمام لصÙو٠تنظيم “داعش” الإرهابي.
وأضاÙت الصØÙŠÙØ©ØŒ “أن العدد الذي قام بإرساله الإرهابي ÙŠÙوق أعداد الإرهابيين الذين قتلوا بغارات التØال٠الذي تقوده الولايات المتØدة على المناطق المسيطر عليها من “داعش” مرتين”.
وقال مسؤول ÙÙŠ وزارة الدÙاع الأمريكية: “ليست هنالك شكوك ÙÙŠ أن إبراهيم الرويشي، القائد الروØÙŠ السابق لتنظيم “القاعدة” الذي ألقي القبض عليه ÙÙŠ 2001 وقضى Ù†ØÙˆ 5 سنوات ÙÙŠ “غوانتنامو” وراء تجنيد وإرسال الإرهابيين إلى مناطق القتال ÙÙŠ سوريا والعراق.
وعلى العكس من ذلك اÙادت تقارير عربية عن Øدوث هجره عكسية للإرهابيين من العراق وسوريا للانضمام الى قاعدة اليمن وخاصة المØاÙظات الجنوبية.
معتقل سابق ÙÙŠ “غوانتانامو”
Former Guantanamo detainee released by the US in 2006 is now recruiting for ISIS and has sent 2,500 fighters — TWICE as many as allied airstrikes have killed
So what he did in Guantanamo?
Is he imprisoned for terrorist acts and justice served?
Or simply trained there for a future mission?
Sigh, I too, saw this turn of events and want to take back my previous comment (on your other post) about how things were changing for the better in Europe.
But, it seems the more they change the more they stay the same. Nope, they really do not get the concept of free speech. They truly are leftists and it seems will always remain so.
who said that europeans dont want a repeat?
the whole point of the hate speech codes were to prevent opposition to the antithesis of judaism and christianity, and the explosive outcome that would happen once there were sufficient power to overcome the thesis.
ie. you have to violate the constitution and create protected classes in order to persue the hate speech statutes.
ie. once you create a protected class, the unprotected classes of christians, and jews are in the same place they were in nazi germany!!!!!
ie. in nazi germany, Nazi party members were protected glasses favored by the state, and jews, and christians were unprotected classes (as were indigents, the infirm, the political opposition, gays, etc)
so hate speech statutes that allow one side to persecute another are a requisite of the same kind of state that created vichy france… in fact, it makes it a forgone conclusion, as without it, one could argue against what is coming.
the introduction of hate-speech prohibitions into international law was championed in its heyday by the Soviet Union and allies
part of the move to globalization, agenda 21, etc. was that communist countries would become a bit more like the west and the west would communize and in the middle they could merge making for one world government
when the Universal Declaration of Hyman Rights was being drafted, the US and european countries wanted a robust and pretty unlimited free speech addition.
it was the Soviet Union and its ‘friends’ that opposed this heavily. after all, where would such a declaration put them the minute it was created?
The Czechoslovakian and the Soviet experts opposed real freecom of speech and what was proposed by the UK and USA in the Sub-Commission on the Freedom of Information
Despite opposition, including from the French delegate, the following vote in the Sub-Commission deleted, by a majority of eight votes, any reference to a limitation clause.
the Soviet efforts to restrict Article 19 were rejected in the Third Committee, as several Western and non-Western countries worried that “fascism,” which the Soviet proposal aimed to prohibit, could not be defined.
[do note that the reason it could not be defined is that its the same as communism other than how it organized things economically in terms of ownership!!!!]
The Soviet delegate dismissed these doubts and explained that fascism could be defined as “the bloody dictatorship of the most reactionary section of capitalism and monopolies.” The udhr should guard against the fascists existing in all European countries except the “peoples’ democracies” (i.e., the communist countries).
ie. define it as any socialism to the right of communism… ie. making totalitarian communism the only acceptable island.
Johannes Morsink, this highly politicized perspective clearly demonstrated that the Soviet proposal would be targeted not just at Nazism but also against agitation in favor of capitalism and liberal democracy, and in all likelihood against any other political ideology than the supposed real democracy of communism
The proposal was defeated by Eleanor Roosevelt
The drafting of Article 7 started in the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities
When the matter came before the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly Article 7 as a whole was adopted, 45 votes for to zero against
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was adopted in 1966 and includes a right to freedom of expression in Article 19, but also an obligation to prohibit hate speech in Article 20 (2): “Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”
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what they did not figure out or realize is what would happen if a religious state was the persecutor? think on this for a second. None of the states involved in the argument were religious states governed by religious beliefs.
this created a sheild in which any attempt to stop a religious state from persecuiting others was made null by the restriction of the state and its people from inciting anything negative against the state, it being a religious state. ie. to attack the state would necessarily be to attack the religion
[edited for length by n-n]
Germany approves plan to withdraw extremists’ ID cards
This is long waiting action by western countries with terrorists living, enjoying western democracy and freedom.
My Full support for this action, even those who borne from families immigrated long time, please send them back from where they came or their F* Fathers and Mothers came, you will see real difference in near future.
Does a scathing rebuke of French economic rapacity, political treachery, overall ineptitude, come under the rubric ‘hate speech’?
Tomorrow is the publication date of French journalist, Laurent Obertone’s, book entitled La France, Big Brother, subtitled (in translation) “The lie is the truth.” French Amazon.com synopsizes: “Who is Big Brother? The peak of the pyramid. The government. The administration. The media. The experts. The ideologues. Intellectual orthodoxy. The screens. An organization that assumed all the appearances of a free and democratic society. Giant Leviathan structures postmodern, academics, labor socialists, financial criminals, mega-crooks, emotive airhead celebrities, feminists…”
Which comes first, ‘the jig is up’ or ‘lawyering up’?
Ok, According to the International Convention for the Elimination of all Racial Discrimination did France took action in her case ?
the 1970s saw a dramatic increase in new or expanded hate-speech laws in Europe…
Hate-speech laws may thus be one of the last enduring legacies of European communism, and, as we shall see, this legacy is being exploited by a new group of mostly illiberal states for whom religion rather than communism should trump free speech
In 1990, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation states adopted their own “Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,” which purports to unite Islam with human rights but in reality subordinates human rights to Islam. All the rights in the Cairo Declaration are subject to rules of Islamic Sharia law, which are incompatible with universal human rights protections. Article 21, for example, states that “everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.”
in 1995 Organization of Islamic Cooperation said “the right to freedom of thought, opinion, and expression could in no case justify blasphemy.”
in 1999 the idea “defamation of Islam” was replaced by Defimation of Religions.
The resolution expresses “deep concern at negative stereotyping of religions” and states that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and with terrorism.”
so now, if you wander why our politicians wont link islam to terrorism is because they are following a higher law and authority than US law!!! they are afraid of being prosecuted by thse articles in these globalist treaties and groups!!! (same with western war fighters being limited in what they do, or the leader may be prosecuted for war crimes in international courts).
the leaders do not want to end up in the hague, or nurumberg for violating these articles.
from 1999, 2000, 2001, the unanimous adoption of this has resulted in the situations that you see and find hard to comprhend as one generally does not look outside their own country to the laws that govern lawmakers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This sort of development is exactly what Eleanor Roosevelt warned against
Respect for freedom of expression is the hallmark of free societies and the first right to be circumscribed by illiberal states. It is a sad reflection on Europe that the increasing emphasis on criminalizing words that wound, offend, or hurt is the brainchild of the very totalitarian states with which Western European states were locked in an ideological battle during the Cold War
[special thanks to Jacob Mchangama at CEPOS for the meat and most of the potatoes of the abvove information. my comments are my own]
DH, i am not sure i understand your question enough to answer it… could you expand on it?
Much of the expansion of France’s hate laws, especially re the Internet, took place during the presidency of Sarkozy, a conservative.
Prosecuting free speech in order to protect free speech makes my head whirl. Sadly I’m not smart enough to understand how to square that circle and bring my head to reast. Is it George Orwell who said that “some ideas are so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them”?
Hate speed is what I (I!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!!!!) say it is, not what YOU say it is, you HATER!.
To anyone who may speak French here, I recommend
this short book
It chronicles the development of censorship laws in France over the last hundred years, with a particular focus on some recent scandals as regards “hate speech” (the book is from 2011).
Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) offers some other aspects of this to think about in a series of tweets:
–The liberal order requires that French Muslims put up with Charlie Hebdo. It shouldn’t ask them to put up with this.
–Both laicite [having to do with headscarfs, etc.] and “hate speech” laws make the task of assimilation harder, by stripping away zones of expression for the half-assimilated.
–Laicite teaches Muslims that they can’t really participate in French society *as Muslims,* that it’s either-or, their faith or the republic.
–“Hate speech” laws teach French Muslims either that they *should* have the right to demand the censorship of others …
–… or that French society applies protections in ways that leave them particularly exposed. Either way, illiberal conclusions can be drawn.
The most sober analysis of the present situation I have found in conclusion of George Friedman article “A War between Two Worlds”:
“It is also a mistake to be so philosophical as to disengage from the human fear of being killed at your desk for your ideas. We are entering a place that has no solutions. Such a place does have decisions, and all of the choices will be bad. What has to be done will be done, and those who refused to make choices will see themselves as more moral than those who did. There is a war, and like all wars, this one is very different from the last in the way it is prosecuted. But it is war nonetheless, and denying that is denying the obvious.”
Obama has a moral responsibility to push back on the nation’s journalism community when it is planning to publish anti-jihadi articles that might cause a jihadi attack against the nation’s defense forces, the White House’s press secretary said Jan. 12.
“The president … will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform” whenever journalists’ work may provoke jihadist attacks, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House’s daily briefing.
sorry, left out the link
http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/13/white-house-obama-will-fight-media-to-stop-anti-jihad-articles/
I think the ban on headscarves in schools was a response to attacks on girls on the way to school who were not wearing headscarves by young thugs. As I recall, lots of Muslims were OK with this because it protected them from the radicals. This is part of the big problem: How do you protect people being pressured by radicals?
Wasn’t there a case several years ago in which members of mosque ( I think in the Midwest) ask the government for help in dealing with radicals who were moving in and recruitng the young to their cause? I think they were disappointed because they got no help.
Ann Says:
“Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) offers some other aspects of this to think about in a series of tweets:”
I thought about Douthat’s tweets as you asked and now that I have thought about them I reject them categorically. Assimilation means that the Muslims adjust their own behavior and beliefs so that they can function smoothly in French culture. Instead, what Douthat is asking is for the French to assimilate into the Islamic culture of the immigrants.
Those who promote multiculturalism, who believe that all cultures are equally good except Western culture which is inherently oppressive, then of course it makes complete sense for the French to assimilate into Islamic culture since they believe that Islamic culture is inherently superior to Western culture. Those who promote multiculturalism have no right to promote women’s and gay rights, and have no excuse to complain when Muslims stone adulterers or chop off the hands of thieves or kill apostates since those are all well attested aspects of the “superior” Islamic culture.
In transplant medicine one of the major concerns is to keep the host from rejecting the graft. Sometimes things work in reverse. When a grafted tissue mounts an immune attack against the host it is called a graft vs. host reaction. That is what we have going on here. The real problem is the transplant of Islamic people into France was political malpractice since France didn’t need the transplant in the first place.
Hate crime laws are irrational. In criminal law determining a motive, such as hatred, was just a means to determine the reason for a crime, such as murder, assault or theft. The motive was never a crime itself. Motives exist in people’s minds and can’t be taken out and presented as evidence. Even if they could be, in the past it didn’t matter. It was the criminal action that was punishable, not the motive for committing the crime.
Unfortunately the culture of Western Europe and the USA have become so stained by the mania of political correctness that nothing short of a Western city disappearing under a mushroom cloud is likely to cleanse it.
The Islamist have the advantage here. They recognize both their ultimate goal and the identity of their enemy. Time is on their side. Western culture is on the decline and will eventually collapse under the weight of it’s own foolishness.
Kaba, even if they nuke us, the lefties will whine that we have to surrender FASTER, because “think of the bloodshed!!!” [see, e.g., the “nuclear freeze” (in the US only) movement]
“it seems contradictory to me for the French and other Europeans to champion the right of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists to mock Mohammed but to later arrest this man for his jokes.” neo
Since when did ‘contradiction’ matter, in the least, to the Left?
“On the problem with terrorism, there does have to be some way to deal with these people they are “watching”. I would like to know if it is possible to stop this stuff before it happens.” Lea
Oh there is a way but it is politically unacceptable because it is both philosophically and economically unacceptable. The solution requires rejecting multiculturalism, accepting Islam’s inherent nature and abandoning socialism. Doing so would result in France declaring that immigrants who are loyal to an ideology inimical to Western principles forfeit their right to remain in France. It would also mean that the public agree that their bread and circuses will cease. Neither will happen until they face collapse.
Any measures based in denial, may prove temporarily effective but will eventually prove to be inadequate.
Dennis: “Instead, what Douthat is asking is for the French to assimilate into the Islamic culture of the immigrants.”
Good point.
There is the protection of legal rights. Then there is the competition of culture.
One culture wishes to protect those legal rights but the other culture wishes to use those legal rights as a weapon to become the dominant culture whereupon it will, among other goals, extinguish those legal rights.
At what point does the enemy culture become barred from the privilege and protection of the legal rights it wishes to use then discard? If that point doesn’t exist, then how will the other culture compete for survival, let alone dominance in its own (erstwhile) home?
On the question of what is a nation, don’t underestimate culture in the equation.
Previews of coming attractions for the US. The Won and his enablers are going to have a summit in February. Want to bet what comes out of THAT?
Dennis’ “graft versus host” analogy (aka “GVH” in medicine) is precisely and brilliantly correct. All the more so because not every transplanted organ attempts to reject its host. It is only cells of the immune system that have the power to reject the host, and they can be inadvertently introduced as passengers in another organ. So if organs are analogous to political or religious systems which sustain life when implanted/transplanted/accepted, Islam is analogous to immunocytes that reject an incompatible host and cause severe chronic illness or death UNLESS THEY ARE ERADICATED.
It’s tough but the war like no other is coming unless the West wimps out. Which it has been doing with unseemly haste.
From Velociman:
“There is no reason to believe the West will stiffen and respond to Islamic terror for any number of reasons: multiculturalism, cowardice, appeasement, denial. But What Is To Be Done must be done, otherwise Europe will become an enormous, radicalized Muslim ghetto a decade hence, and America will eventually suffer calamities far greater than 9/11. War is rotten business, and no one should exult in the obliteration of others, but war is already upon the West. It is in our neighborhoods, our stores, our military bases, our campuses. War is here, and without strategy and willpower there looms only defeat.”
He has some ideas about what is to be done. One thing that I have been advocating for some years now. It primarily has to do with going after the imams who preach suicide-murder/mass murder in near perfect safety.
It’s a good read:
http://www.velociworld.com/Velociblog/Oldvelocity/004098.html
You can have either liberal democracy or you can have multicultarism with massive presence of inherently illiberal immigrant culture in your country, but you cannot have both. Now it is time to choose.
If leftists liberal elite in Europe can not make this choice, it will loose power and cease it to fascists, who will do the job of ethnic cleaning and lead a new Reconquista.
The joke is on islam, sales of Charlie are now out of orbit, and millions more will read the magazine instead of less… rather than put it to sleep, they ended up expanding its print and delivery by half a million reprints for the first post terror edition…
that (hopefully) should prevent similar actions by islam…
The mysterie has now been solved..
from MSNBC
this is what modern post space age society caves to in superior intelligence from the likes of harvard, princetone, nyu, and the other places where such people are trained to think in these terms. just ask Jimmy Carter…
This is the equivalent of napalming a village because you got attacked by insurgents.
All it does is to generate hate against the occupation and provide more recruitment chances for the insurgents. It doesn’t actually destroy the logistics of the guerillas, the terrorists, or the insurgents. It just makes the Leftists feel better about their power and dominion.
Unity of the Faithful
http://i.imgur.com/6yUzTmp.jpg
Fascists are Leftists.
The idea that if the Leftists give up, fascism will rise up, is also a Leftist scare tactic.