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[ICKE]

It is not like the gestapo took him out from his house to some re-education camp, there is usually an overreaction from American readers when they respond to such stories.

There are historical and cultural differences. We have these laws in place in order to safeguard our society. It is sort of a natural reaction in a continent that was ravaged by several wars, conflicts that were a direct result of fascism, racism and other nonsense.

People who incite violence or break these "hate speech" laws in Europe usually have to pay day-fines or some such, they are not going to prison unless it is a very serious offense. Actually in my opinion we are too lenient and have allowed certain groups to operate too freely in the recent past, be it fascists or radical islamists who have tried to recruit people into ISIS etc.

You can make the argument that authorities overreacted in this case but most likely this person only stands to benefit financially from this.

ps. European Court of HR regarding freedom of expression :

Müslüm Gündüz v. Turkey, 4.12.2003, para 40 and 41

Furthermore, as the Court noted in Jersild v. Denmark (judgment of 23 September 1994, Series A no. 298, p. 25, § 35), there can be no doubt that concrete expressions constituting hate speech, which may be insulting to particular individuals or groups, are not protected by Article 10 of the Convention.

See also.

Erbakan v. Turkey 6.7.2006 para 55.iv and 56
Karatepe v. Turkey 31.7.2007 para 25
Féret v. Belgium 16.7.2009 para 63 and 6

These are not unrestricted rights, we do not live in a black and white world.

 

[Kinyou]

Pretty dumb to arrest him over that dumb joke. Not sure if anyone could qualify that as hate speech.

 

[terrisus]

Detained == Arrested?

 

[Baki]

They depicted terrorists as terrorists...

One of their previous cartoons had the prophet Mohammed have a bomb in his turban. Definitely not a case of depicting terrorist as terrorists. And the most dangerous part of this, is that it continues to support a narrative in France that Muslims are terrorists. As a minority group with significant negative public sentiment ; these depictions can potentially make their lives more difficult. Sometimes, I feel like the majority of people do not understand what it's like to be a minority.

Yeah that is the entire problem with limited free speech. What is free depends on the current political climate.

Completely agree.

Its crazy how people ignore the double standards that minority groups face. Maybe if they keep pretending they don't exist, it will magically become true.

It's a terrible position to be in. And the minority group will only further feel isolated. Which is a terrible position to be in. If only more people understood what it feels like to be a hated minority.

 

[ItIsOkBro]

so he took the last name of a killer and appended it to 'charlie'...

is that hate?

 

[TrojanBlade]

Yep the irony. Hey we can say whatever we want, make fun of your religion, mock your religious figures but dare you say something about our sensitivities. Whose standards are to be followed? Who sets the rules? What if someone started mocking holocaust? Or making derogatory cartoons of Martin Luther? There is no free speech without some limits. No one is saying terrorism is acceptable in any shape or form but there is no such thing as open 'free speech' either. This article really hits the nail.

Hypocrisy of the Free Speech Fundamentalists

 

[Chezzymann]

Yeah that is the entire problem with limited free speech. What is free depends on the current political climate.

Yeah, so whatever people deem as 'hate speech' and 'satire' depends on the climate and the culture. I really don't get the people saying hate speech != free speech, this really is a blatant double standard.

 

[FriedConsole]

Hate speech != Free speech.

Why bother rationalizing this? Let's just say stuff I agree with is good and stuff I don't agree with should have the government doing everything from harassment to jailing people for those views. Once everyone agrees with me, we will have a perfect world.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

but what about free speech?

hate speech isnt free. you cant suggest 'shall we kill some jews guys!?' in public, its illegal

 

[Beaulieu]

"has mocked the killing of U.S. reporter James Foley by Islamic State militants."

Wow...

he also hangs out with holocaust deniers

 

[Timeless]

Without the full post (in French?) and an English translation (if needed) it's hard to say what is going on.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

so he took the last name of a killer and appended it to 'charlie'...

is that hate?

He was arrested for glorifying terrorism.

Not for hate.

 

[KingFire]

I found it far less interesting since it's a pretty grand false equivalence. Condoning violent murder would understandably elicit a stronger reaction in people.

The law is not based by the "reaction in people." The example stands. If a cartoonist decided to ridicule a "prophet" in the name of satire under the protection of freedom of speech, and offend millions of Muslims in the process, then a comedian must also have the right to make jokes about a respected dead cartoonist. Both expressions are offensive to certain people. Both might be in poor taste. However, both must be protected under the freedom of speech banner.

It might be tempting to say that this is "hate speech," but it is not as simple as it looks. It seems that hate speech is determined case-by-case in court.

 

[cwmartin]

While depicting Muslims as terrorists seems to be accepted.

They certainly did not. They depicted Islamic Terrorists as Islamic Terrorists.

 

[ICKE]

Yep the irony. Hey we can say whatever we want, make fun of your religion, mock your religious figures but dare you say something about our sensitivities. Whose standards are to be followed? Who sets the rules? What if someone started mocking holocaust? Or making derogatory cartoons of Martin Luther? There is no free speech without some limits. No one is saying terrorism is acceptable in any shape or form but there is no such thing as open 'free speech' either. This article really hits the nail. [/URL]

You admit yourself that our society does not operate without limits. You are not allowed to scream "fire" in a public place, because there is a collision between safety and freedom to express ones mind, and the allowing such an action would be negative all things considered.

Same applies to hate speech. You can not incite violence, because the result can be devastating to some minority group. There is no clear line, you have to trust the justice system in every specific instance and the punishment should not be too severe. You should not be able to promote ISIS so that young disenfranchised Europeans start murdering ethnic minorities and there is also an argument against excessive criticism of Muslims. A representative was sentenced to 30 day-fines in Finland for playing word-games and making logical deductions as in "Mohammed was married to a young woman so the leader of Islam was a......by today's standards" "Are Somali citizens predisposed to criminal behavior, looking at these statistics from law enforcement?" etc. There is a fine line between satire or political commentary and dangerous rhetoric.

 

[Baki]

This has already been answered in an other thread:

Sine was also charged with anti semitism in the courts. For which he was acquitted. But the point remains - all of that was caused by one single parody on Jews.

Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. But in a free democracy, it should not feel like one minority group is more protected than another.

 

[diunxx]

So free speech in france= mock the muslims but leave the jews alone?

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Hate speech is not Free Speech.

Dieudonné is a hater and inspired a new version of the Sieg Heil salute. The guy is a hater

Couldn't this logic be used to support those that don't want those images of Muhammed distributed?

Who gets to decide what's "hate" speech and what is "free" speech? Unless someone is issuing threats of violence I don't believe they should be arrested.

Being offended shouldn't be a crime. Yes, this guy is a hate. But the ends don't justify the means. We shouldn't arrest him because he's expressing views the majority doesn't like. Unless of course he is threatening physical harm against people.

 

[FriedConsole]

Hate speech laws don't work. There is a false belief that you can just legislate any problem away and feel satiated by "doing something". You aren't changing stupid people's minds by making it illegal. You are just giving them a victim complex and giving other terrible people something to rally around. The only thing you can do is let society ostracize these people's to the fringes and stop giving them the attention they are starving for.

Threatening someone with violence is already covered under other more well defined laws.

 

[The Incarnation]

Free Speech in a nation that has banned women from wearing the Burka.

You can't even dress how you want.

 

[Baki]

They certainly did not. They depicted Islamic Terrorists as Islamic Terrorists.

See above comments.

 

[gutter_trash]

Free Speech in a nation that has banned women from wearing the Burka.

You can't even dress how you want.

do women willing wear it because they want to out of their own personal will?

 

[Necromanti]

The law is not based by the "reaction in people." The example stands. If a cartoonist decided to ridicule a "prophet" in the name of satire under the protection of freedom of speech, and offend millions of Muslims in the process, then a comedian must also have the right to make jokes about a respected dead cartoonist. Both expressions are offensive to certain people. Both might be in poor taste. However, both must be protected under the freedom of speech banner.

It might be tempting to say that this is "hate speech," but it is not as simple as it looks. It seems that hate speech is determined case-by-case in court.

I don't disagree. I wasn't referring to the law at all.

 

[BaronLundi]

Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. But in a free democracy, it should not feel like one minority group is more protected than another.

Yeah because antisemitic drawings are so rare and a lot of their authors are murdered.

Lots of comedians in this thread.

 

[ICKE]

Free Speech in a nation that has banned women from wearing the Burka.

You can't even dress how you want.

You can't use a commando mask while in public, because it is a security issue. People can not identify the person. Same applies to religious clothing, this has been settled in the courts.

There is also the issue of protecting women, because the outfit represents complete and utter subjugation and exclusion from normal society. The same reason why many European countries do not allow religious groups to brainwash their children and mandate that curriculum has to be followed.

Lol. This is so true.

Yes, people do. Even though it may not make sense to you. It makes sense to them. Ultimately, it should be their choice.

Are you being serious? This piece of clothing comes from an area where acid is used to disfigure young girls if they dare to educate themselves. There is no choice, only religious indoctrination and no prospects of opportunity. Do you believe a woman who wears this..

...is going to have a sort of normal life in western society? Besides, France has a history of savage conflicts between various religious groups.

 

[Baki]

Free Speech in a nation that has banned women from wearing the Burka.

You can't even dress how you want.

Lol. This is so true.

do women willing wear it because they want to?

Yes, people do. Even though it may not make sense to you. It makes sense to them. Ultimately, it should be their choice.

 

[Griffevent]

In this very thread, gaffers calling "double standards" are equating freedom of speech to total freedom of speech; something which doesn't exist anywhere, and never will. In France, when you are calling for the killing of jews, or when you support that the Shoah never existed, the State steps in, and deploys all its legal arsenal to prevent you from spreading these toxic opinions. Freedom of Speech is a political right, incidentally it becomes a regional thing, the definition varies from a country to another.

 

[Mimosa97]

Hate speech is not Free Speech.

Dieudonné is a hater and inspired a new version of the Sieg Heil salute. The guy is a hater

I feel like i'm losing my time saying this but i'll say it anyways. I know almost everything there is to know about Dieudonné and the whole " quenelle " (the gesture he invented) controversy. You can believe me or not but that gesture has NOTHING to do with a nazi salute.

Now let me be clear, Dieudonné is an antisemite of the worst kind. There is ZERO doubt about that. He has close ties with one of the most fanatic french antisemite, Alain Soral, and he's obsessed with Jews. But doesn't change the fact that the gesture isn't a hitlerian salute. It originates from a very VERY old show of his, where he mimicked penetrating a mamal's ass with his hand. Saying " This is a quenelle in your ass " And gradually using his other hand to show how far he pushed his hand inside the animal's arse.

It's a very vulgar gesture, he started making it for about everything. When talking about a politician he hates he would do it, when talking about a journalist or an intellectual or a singer. And THEN some of his fans started posting pictures of themselves doing it and some of them did it in Auschwitz. Young thugs thinking it was funny to do it there and post those photos on the internet. That's when people started saying that it was a hitlerian salute. But it never was. The thugs who did it in Auschwitz were Antisemites who were basically saying " fuck jews ", but had no nazi affiliation or whatever. but that doesn't change the fact that the quenelle wasn't and never was a nazi salute.

Again, i couldn't care less about Dieudonné, he's always trying to provoke and victimize himself and has no respect for the families of dead people, jewish and non-jewish. But this is absolutely wrong for the government to use him as a scapegoat. My friend is a lawyer and he just posted on facebook that there is absolutely ZERO chance that he gets condemned for saying " Today i feel like i'm Charlie Coulibaly " ( Coulibaly was the name of one of the terrorists). Dieudonné later said that it was show how much he felt like the government was treating him like a terrorist when he was just a comedian. Censoring his shows already was a terrible mistake and it was a first since the second world war. It opened a pandora box. True justice is to wait for a comedian to make his show and then AFTER that you can take him to court if he says racist and antisemitic jokes. But what happened is that his show was banned BEFORE he performed it on the basis of some stolen footage, which was a first, This isn't how we do things in a democracy. At the end, he took out 3 jokes from his show and was allowed to perform it again, and he toured for many months.

Dieudonné is a piece of shit but what the government is doing is completely wrong. And anyone supporting this decision is blind.

 

[monome]

Lol.

Double standards?

You can t seriously compare guys getting slaughtered to some crazy who wants media coverage when it comes to whom the général opinion should stand for...

Coulibaly proudly killed 6 innocent people. He is a disgrâce to Humanity.

 

[Baki]

Yeah because antisemitic drawings are so rare and a lot of their authors are murdered.

Lots of comedians in this thread.

There is sarcastic comment here, can't decipher it fully. Care to elaborate?

You can't use a commando mask while in public, because it is a security issue. People can not identify the person. Same applies to religious clothing, this has been settled in the courts.

There is also the issue of protecting women, because the outfit represents complete and utter subjugation and exclusion from normal society. The same reason why many European countries do not allow religious groups to brainwash their children and mandate that curriculum has to be followed.

We manage fine in the UK.

 

[The Incarnation]

do women willing wear it because they want to out of their own personal will?

Sad fact is, most want to.

 

[Cyan]

ps. European Court of HR regarding freedom of expression :

Müslüm Gündüz v. Turkey, 4.12.2003, para 40 and 41

Furthermore, as the Court noted in Jersild v. Denmark (judgment of 23 September 1994, Series A no. 298, p. 25, § 35), there can be no doubt that concrete expressions constituting hate speech, which may be insulting to particular individuals or groups, are not protected by Article 10 of the Convention.

Maybe I'm missing something. But wouldn't mocking depictions of Mohammad seem to fall under this to about the same extent Dieudonne does?

 

[Kinyou]

One of their previous cartoons had the prophet Mohammed have a bomb in his turban. Definitely not a case of depicting terrorist as terrorists.

I don't think the interpretation of that cartoon is that Mohammed is a terrorist or that all Muslims are terrorists. The creator said:

I made a cartoon which was aimed at the terrorists who use an interpretation of Islam as their spiritual dynamite.”

 

[Miles Quaritch]

We manage fine in the UK.

Well when a country has roaming Sharia police and entire cities that are Muslim only and natives dare not tread for fear of their life, you can't seriously expect the cowered politicians to ban the burka.

 

[Jb]

Hate speech laws don't work. There is a false belief that you can just legislate any problem away and feel satiated by "doing something". You aren't changing stupid people's minds by making it illegal. You are just giving them a victim complex and giving other terrible people something to rally around. The only thing you can do is let society ostracize these people's to the fringes and stop giving them the attention they are starving for.

Who says it's about changing minds? It's not.
It's about protecting your citizens, especially the ones most vulnerable to group hate mentality (religious, ethinc minorities..) from harm, it's about learning from your own history and its tragedies and doing what you can to prevent it from happening again without infringing on freedom of speech.

The idea that if you just let things run their course it'll sort itself out is a libertarian fantasy.

 

[gutter_trash]

There is sarcastic comment here, can't decipher it fully. Care to elaborate?



We manage fine in the UK.

oh yeah sure, you manage your nutters real fine. (sarcasm)

 

[Raist]

How is this hate speech bro? You were championing the freedom of speech like a cheerleader in the other threads, but suddenly we must stop. Why?

It's not fucking rocket science.

The "Je suis Charlie" movement was a slogan for people to show their support.
Now you can guess how it looks like if someone spins that into "Je suis Coulibaly".

This guy has a history of being prosecuted for hate speech. Anyone saying "but but double standards" is just not thinking hard enough about it.

 

[The Incarnation]

You can't use a commando mask while in public, because it is a security issue. People can not identify the person. Same applies to religious clothing, this has been settled in the courts.

May as well ban gloves, afterall, they will stop people leaving finger prints at a crime scene.

 

[FZZ]

Maybe I'm missing something. But wouldn't mocking depictions of Mohammad seem to fall under this to about the same extent Dieudonne does?

It does. Not only that but other depictions they've posted about other races/ethnic groups also do the exact same thing.

Double standards.

 

[justjohn]

It's not fucking rocket science.

The "Je suis Charlie" movement was a slogan for people to show their support.
Now you can guess how it looks like if someone spins that into "Je suis Coulibaly".

This guy has a history of being prosecuted for hate speech. Anyone saying "but but double standards" is just not thinking hard enough about it.

Charliehebdo have also been prosecuted for hate speech haven't they?

 

[ICKE]

Maybe I'm missing something. But wouldn't mocking depictions of Mohammad seem to fall under this?

In some cases, for example in Finland :

Finnish Criminal Code, ch 17 section 10 :

A person who
(1) publicly blasphemes against God or, for the purpose of offending, publicly defames or desecrates what is otherwise held to be sacred by a church or religious community, as referred to in the Act on the Freedom
of Religion (267/1922), or
(2) by making noise, acting threateningly or otherwise, disturbs worship, ecclesiastical proceedings, other similar religious proceedings or a funeral, shall be sentenced for a breach of the sanctity of religion to a fine or to imprisonment for at most six months.

The Court has ruled that especially elected representatives should be held to a high standard and are thus more likely to fall under such provisions should they openly mock these religious figures. These laws do not curtail valid criticism and exchange of ideas but the interpretation is subjective of course. We just have to trust the justice system and direct them properly if need be. In some instances authorities have clearly overreacted in the name of "tolerance" or other abstract concepts and that only fuels division within our society.

I definitely understand why people are extremely skeptical and would often want to do away with hate speech provisions completely but they do serve a valid function.

 

[FriedConsole]

...is going to have a sort of normal life in western society? Besides, France has a history of savage conflicts between various religious groups.

I feel that way about my neighbors raising their kids Vegan. Doesn't seem right for them to live without eating delicious bacon.

Yep. I am sure if we got rid of religion humans wouldn't have anything to fight over anymore. It would be a wonderful peaceful society.

Spoiler

SARCASM

 

[Chuck Norris]

Hate speech is not Free Speech.

Dieudonné is a hater and inspired a new version of the Sieg Heil salute. The guy is a hater

So how is mocking a religion consistently and persistently not also hate speech?

 

[The Incarnation]

Well when a country has roaming Sharia police and entire cities that are Muslim only and natives dare not tread for fear of their life, you can't seriously expect the cowered politicians to ban the burka.

Seriously? Sharia police? We'd batter them if they tried to pull that off. They wouldn't last a minute.

 

[TimeEffect]

So how is mocking a religion consistently and persistently not also hate speech?

I'm guessing there is a distinction between people and religion since religion is an idea/belief, and not a persons

 

[Mimosa97]

Maybe I'm missing something. But wouldn't mocking depictions of Mohammad seem to fall under this to about the same extent Dieudonne does?

Mocking Muhammed is considered blasphemy, not hate speech.

 

[jakonovski]

Seriously? Sharia police? We'd batter them if they tried to pull that off. They wouldn't last a minute.

I see you do not know the sad fate of the city of Birming, under Islamic rule of Mullah Jasper Carrott.

 

[Dude Abides]

Hate speech != Free speech.

Agreed. Hate speech is speech I find offensive, whereas free speech is speech I don't.

 

[gutter_trash]

I'm guessing there is a distinction between people and religion since religion is an idea/belief, and not a persons

well said

 

[Gustav]

Nobody should ever be prosecuted for saying anything.