The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > The Paris killings: who are the real heroes of press freedom? > Comments

The Paris killings: who are the real heroes of press freedom? : Comments

By Jamil Flores, published 15/1/2015

But I can’t say, 'I am Charlie Hebdo.' That would be a travesty of the work of Steven Sotloff and James Foley, the journalists beheaded last year by the Islamic State.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All
So a Muslim writer is protesting hate and slander in Western media.

Yawn!

Let me know when he protests the hate and slander against non-Muslims in the Quran, and then he would have a little credibility.

Once again, respect, for Muslims is a one-way street.
Posted by kactuz, Thursday, 15 January 2015 12:12:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
You can’t slander the dead. Depicting a long-dead religious leader in an undignified or even obscene pose is not slander. The author is trying to stretch the definition of something that should be protected by law to cover something that shouldn’t.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 15 January 2015 2:10:29 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Rhian,
Believe it or not, in Europe you can be charged with "disturbing the peace of the dead" just for speaking certain words, German chemist Germar Rudolf faced just such a charge for questioning the "Holocaust", as did a group of Austrian youths who disrupted a holocaust memorial gathering.
So publishing a report saying that the no homicidal gas chambers were used by the Nazis or yelling out "Heil Hitler" during an official Holocaust ceremony attracts the same charge as grave robbing or interfering with a corpse.

If a right wing cartoonist had published those Mohammed cartoons he'd have been jailed, no two ways about it, Christine Tasin recieved a suspended sentence and a fine for saying the following in a public debate with a Muslim:
“Yes I’m an islamophobe and so? The hatred of Islam, I’m proud of it. Islam is a saloperie [filth] (…), it’s a danger for France”.
Another French "anti establishment"comedian and satirist, Diuedonne M'bala M'bala was arrested and charged yesterday for posting off colour remarks on Facebook:
http://www.thejournal.ie/dieudonne-arrest-1880765-Jan2015/
So you see, one set of rules or codes of conduct applies for the right and another for the Left, any utterance of non conformist views from the right triggers an immediate response from the French state whereas the Left are allowed to pretty much get away with anything.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Thursday, 15 January 2015 3:44:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
About that freedom of speech thing, and I notice that today's news carries a story about an Israel newspaper editing our the women, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, from the photo of the March of Hypocrites in Paris the other day.
And from France, that paradigm of free speech, a French comedian is under investigation for saying he felt like Charlie Coulibaly instead of Charlie Hedbo.
Posted by halduell, Thursday, 15 January 2015 3:53:26 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
“disturbing the peace of the dead”: An odd law, perhaps, but surely aimed at protecting corpses, not preventing slander.

Yes, in some countries it is illegal to deny the holocaust. This is not a law I’d support, either.

And it looks from a quick google search as if Tasin’s conviction was overturned.

I’m no fan of racism, but nor do I support restrictions on speech to prevent it, even (especially) if applied only to the left or to the right. I’d like to see 18C repealed
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 15 January 2015 4:16:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hal,

Can you understand the difference between:

* the right to offend and insult,

* incitement to violence, and

* slander ?

The last two are covered by standard law, at least in British-derived law, including the law against defamation.

Surely the essence of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations is that we can support the right to offend and insult without doing so ourselves - i.e. we support the rights of others to freedom of expression, including the freedom of speech, even of what we disapprove of, as Voltaire etc. are supposed to have said.

The essence of free speech is not just what we want for ourselves, but for people the contents of whose 'free speech' we disagree with.

As for slander, if a man rapes a nine-year-old girl, even if her parents have sold her to him when she was six, then it is still rape. It may have been okay back in tribal society, but it's still rape. And we have the right to say so, even if someone else is so uncivilised that they can't see anything wrong with it.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 15 January 2015 5:17:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy