Interpol accused after journalist arrested over Muhammad tweet

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation's red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport "following a request made to us by Interpol" the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities.

Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet on the prophet's birthday that sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats. The posting, which was later deleted, read: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you … I will not pray for you."

More than 13,000 people joined a Facebook page titled "The Saudi People Demand the Execution of Hamza Kashgari".

Clerics in Saudi Arabia called for him to be charged with apostasy, a religious offence punishable by death. Reports suggest that the Malaysian authorities intend to return him to his native country.

Kashgari's detention has triggered criticism by human rights groups of Malaysia's decision to arrest the journalist and of Interpol's cooperation in the process.

Jago Russell, the chief executive of the British charity Fair Trials International, which has campaigned against the blanket enforcement of Interpol red notices, said: "Interpol should be playing no part in Saudi Arabia's pursuit of Hamza Kashgari, however unwise his comments on Twitter.

"If an Interpol red notice is the reason for his arrest and detention it would be a serious abuse of this powerful international body that is supposed to respect basic human rights (including to peaceful free speech) and to be barred from any involvement in religious or political cases."

He called on Interpol to stand by its obligations to fundamental human rights and "to comply with its obligation not to play any part in this case, which is clearly of a religious nature".

Interpol, which has 190 member countries, has a series of coloured notice systems that police forces around the world use to pass on requests for help. Contacted at its headquarters in Lyon, France, the organisation did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the Kashgari case.

In response to past criticisms of the red notice system, it has said: "There are safeguards in place. The subject of a red notice can challenge it through an independent body, the commission for the control of Interpol's files (CCF)."

Last year Interpol was accused by Fair Trials International of allowing the system to be abused for political purposes when it issued a red notice for the arrest of the Oxford-based leader of an Asian separatist movement, Benny Wenda, who has been granted asylum and has lived in the UK since 2003.

m.guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/10/interpol-journalist-arrested-muhammad-tweet

[웃 910]

Saudi writer Hamza Kashgari faces charge of blasphemy after tweets about Muhammad

Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari was detained in Malaysia on Wednesday night and is likely to be extradited soon to Saudi Arabia, where he will be tried for blaspheming religion. Kashgari, 23, had fled the kingdom Monday after he received thousands of death threats. His crime? He posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

“On your birthday I find you in front of me wherever I go,” he wrote in one tweet. “I love many things about you and hate others, and there are many things about you I don’t understand.”

Another reads: “No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”

The tweets came to light last week around a celebration of Muhammad’s birthday, and Kashgari’s ordeal began. Hours before he was detained, Kashgari spoke to me by phone from the house in which he was hiding. “I was with sitting with my friends and one of them checked Twitter on his mobile phone,” he said. “Suddenly there were thousands of tweets of people calling to kill me because they said I’m against religion.”

Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because after I consulted with a few brothers, I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet (pbuh) and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand,” he wrote. But the damage was done. As an electronic lynch mob formed, with users posting to a Twitter hashtag that translates as “Hamza Kashgari the dog,” the regime called for his arrest and trial.

Friends advised him to leave Saudi Arabia immediately. “I never expected this. It was a huge surprise. My friends are writers and bloggers and now their lives are in danger too,” he told me. “They fear what will happen to them. The government is trying to scare them and show that what is happening to me can happen to them sooner or later.”

Kashgari noted with sadness that many young Saudis are leaving their country in hopes of escaping the government's repressive policies. “It’s not logical that, if someone disagrees with the Saudi government, that he should be forced to leave the country. Many of those who have been arrested are fighting for simple rights that everyone should have — freedom of thought, expression, speech and religion.”

When we spoke Wednesday, Kashgari asked that I not reveal where he was hiding or his plan of escape. Now that he has been detained, his friends hope publicity will build pressure on the Malaysian government not to extradite Kashgari to Saudi Arabia. Karpal Singh, a well-known Malaysian lawyer and member of parliament, is being encouraged to take Kashgari’s case. Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler has offered to serve as Kashgari’s international legal counsel. Cotler has served as legal counsel to such famous dissidents as Nelson Mandela, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Natan Sharansky and Maikel Nabil. Many have credited him with creating the international pressure that led to their release.

Kashgari encouraged Western nations to support human rights in his country and raise the names of activists under threat. “Pressure alone won’t be enough, but at least it will help people feel that they are not alone,” he said.

The young writer surmised that the threats against him were, in part, a result of the tens of millions of dollars the Saudi king allotted to the religious police last spring. Many Saudi dissidents have noted increased repression in the past few months and are terrified of the ascent of Crown Prince Naif, who has served as interior minister for decades.

The Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, Abdallah Y. Al-Mouallimi, told a packed audience at New York University this week that Saudi Arabia was a “land of opportunity” where there was no oppression of dissidents. I confronted the ambassador with lists of liberals, women and dissidents that had been arrested, beheaded and

. When questioned about Kashgari, Mouallimi replied that the journalist “has gone beyond the limits of what is acceptable in society.” His tweets were “not acceptable in a country like Saudi Arabia. This can never be acceptable,” the ambassador added.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to return to my homeland,” Kashgari told me hours before he was detained. Now, unfortunately, it looks as if he may returned against his will. If that happens, his fate is all but certain as a blasphemer’s guilt is preordained in the theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/saudi-writer-detained-after-tweets-about-muhammad/2012/02/09/gIQApsgW2Q_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

[Ban Hammer 13,545]

duplicate topics merged

[Sofiyya 1,687]

France wants in on criminalizing speech, too.

Guerlain perfume heir accused of racism in trial

BY INGRID ROUSSEAU; ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: 02/09/12

PARIS — An heir to the Guerlain perfume empire went on trial Thursday in Paris on charges he made racist insults on national television.

Jean-Paul Guerlain faces up to six months in prison and a maximum fine of euro22,500 ($29,900) if convicted.

Prosecutor Alexandre Aubert denounced what he called the use of a "degrading stereotype." The verdict was set for March 29.

Guerlain is accused of using a French word for black people in a derogatory way as he described how hard he worked to create one of the company's most famed perfumes in a 2010 interview on France 2 television.

The elegant 75-year-old Guerlain told the court it was an "imbecilic" remark.

"I am from another generation," he said, so part of the remark was "a common expression at the time." He also said he did so during a TV interview because he "wanted to make the journalist laugh and I regret it."

"I was anything but racist," he said, standing before the court with the help of crutches.

Representatives of anti-racism groups who had filed a legal complaint filled the courtroom at the Justice Palace in central Paris.

Guerlain's "sickening" remark was "particularly regrettable for a man who spent his life in perfumes," said Hamza Ekostiti, a local official from France's northern Nord region and civil party in the case.

Patrick Klugman, a lawyer for the SOS Racism association, said the heir to the Guerlain dynasty abused the national platform he was given.

"We are pursuing someone whose name is famous worldwide, who was given a stage to promote himself and express himself - and many could envy that - during a televised news bulletin. So I think we should be particularly attentive to how he used this platform, what he said," Klugman said.

Guerlain's lawyer Basile Ader told BFM television that Guerlain "never wanted to offend anyone ... he is not a racist."

The lawyer sought to explain the "unfortunate phrase" by saying Guerlain is a man of "a certain generation."

The remarks caused a furor among anti-racism groups, prompting a protest in front of the boutique on the famed Champs-Elysees Avenue, and the perfumerie distanced itself from Guerlain, who had retired at 65 but remained a consultant.

His lawyer, Stephane Lataste, pleading with the court, said his client has been sufficiently punished.

"His career instantly ended on that day," Lataste said. With Internet, his name has been "eternally ... dragged through the mud."

Guerlain is the great-great-grandson of the founder of the Guerlain cosmetics company, now owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

LVMH was embarrassed last year when designer John Galliano - who worked for LVMH subsidiary Christian Dior - was convicted of anti-Semitic comments.

_____________________________

Germany wants in, too.

German trial of Holocaust-denying bishop set for July

Mar 23, 2011

Regensburg, Germany - The German trial of British Bishop Richard Williamson over his denial of the extent of the Holocaust is to restart in July, after an eight-month postponement, the court in the southern city of Regensburg announced Wednesday.

Williamson, of the ultra-orthodox Catholic Society of St Pius X (SSPX), denied in a television interview last year that the Nazis had systematically murdered millions of Jews.

The interview, for a Swedish television channel, took place in Germany, where Holocaust denial is a criminal offence.

Williamson was fined 10,000 euros (14,200 dollars) over his remarks but the bishop and prosecutors both appealed the fine.

The trial was originally scheduled for last November, but was postponed after Williamson appointed a new lawyer to represent him in court, who needed time to familiarize himself with the documents.

It will now start again on July 4.

At the time, the bishop chose a radical right-wing lawyer to represent him, but changed his mind after the SSPX order threatened to excommunicate him.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Sofiyya

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Canada's been in on it for years.

Man told to pay gay man $1,000 for comment

Last Updated: Monday, October 11, 2004

Quebec's Human Rights Commission has ordered a used car salesman in Sorel to pay a gay man $1,000 for a derogatory comment made three years ago.

In 2001, Marcel Bardier told the man's travelling companion to keep an eye on him because he was a "fifi", a french word that equates to "**".

The man, who cannot be identified because of a court order, filed a complaint with the Commission which said the comment caused him to feel dehumanized, humiliated and degraded.

Bardier told the Commission that he had nothing against homosexuals, but was simply acting in a fatherly way to the man's companion by warning him of his sexuality.

The Human Rights Commission ruled that the term was an inappropriate way of referring to homosexuals and shows a lack of respect for the human dignity people are entitled to.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Saudi writer Hamza Kashgari faces charge of blasphemy after tweets about Muhammad

Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari was detained in Malaysia on Wednesday night and is likely to be extradited soon to Saudi Arabia, where he will be tried for blaspheming religion. Kashgari, 23, had fled the kingdom Monday after he received thousands of death threats. His crime? He posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

“On your birthday I find you in front of me wherever I go,” he wrote in one tweet. “I love many things about you and hate others, and there are many things about you I don’t understand.”

Another reads: “No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”

The tweets came to light last week around a celebration of Muhammad’s birthday, and Kashgari’s ordeal began. Hours before he was detained, Kashgari spoke to me by phone from the house in which he was hiding. “I was with sitting with my friends and one of them checked Twitter on his mobile phone,” he said. “Suddenly there were thousands of tweets of people calling to kill me because they said I’m against religion.”

Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because after I consulted with a few brothers, I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet (pbuh) and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand,” he wrote. But the damage was done. As an electronic lynch mob formed, with users posting to a Twitter hashtag that translates as “Hamza Kashgari the dog,” the regime called for his arrest and trial.

Friends advised him to leave Saudi Arabia immediately. “I never expected this. It was a huge surprise. My friends are writers and bloggers and now their lives are in danger too,” he told me. “They fear what will happen to them. The government is trying to scare them and show that what is happening to me can happen to them sooner or later.”

Kashgari noted with sadness that many young Saudis are leaving their country in hopes of escaping the government's repressive policies. “It’s not logical that, if someone disagrees with the Saudi government, that he should be forced to leave the country. Many of those who have been arrested are fighting for simple rights that everyone should have — freedom of thought, expression, speech and religion.”

When we spoke Wednesday, Kashgari asked that I not reveal where he was hiding or his plan of escape. Now that he has been detained, his friends hope publicity will build pressure on the Malaysian government not to extradite Kashgari to Saudi Arabia. Karpal Singh, a well-known Malaysian lawyer and member of parliament, is being encouraged to take Kashgari’s case. Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler has offered to serve as Kashgari’s international legal counsel. Cotler has served as legal counsel to such famous dissidents as Nelson Mandela, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Natan Sharansky and Maikel Nabil. Many have credited him with creating the international pressure that led to their release.

Kashgari encouraged Western nations to support human rights in his country and raise the names of activists under threat. “Pressure alone won’t be enough, but at least it will help people feel that they are not alone,” he said.

The young writer surmised that the threats against him were, in part, a result of the tens of millions of dollars the Saudi king allotted to the religious police last spring. Many Saudi dissidents have noted increased repression in the past few months and are terrified of the ascent of Crown Prince Naif, who has served as interior minister for decades.

The Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, Abdallah Y. Al-Mouallimi, told a packed audience at New York University this week that Saudi Arabia was a “land of opportunity” where there was no oppression of dissidents. I confronted the ambassador with lists of liberals, women and dissidents that had been arrested, beheaded and

. When questioned about Kashgari, Mouallimi replied that the journalist “has gone beyond the limits of what is acceptable in society.” His tweets were “not acceptable in a country like Saudi Arabia. This can never be acceptable,” the ambassador added.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to return to my homeland,” Kashgari told me hours before he was detained. Now, unfortunately, it looks as if he may returned against his will. If that happens, his fate is all but certain as a blasphemer’s guilt is preordained in the theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/saudi-writer-detained-after-tweets-about-muhammad/2012/02/09/gIQApsgW2Q_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

Someone's going to the gallows.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Israel does it.

‘Nakba law’ passes vote in Knesset committee

By BEN HARTMAN03/15/2011

Opponents say proposed legislation harms freedom of expression; bill would fine authorities for supporting racism against Israel.

The so-called “Nakba law” appears to be on its way to becoming law, after it was approved in its second and third votes in the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee on Monday. The legislation now awaits a second and third vote in the Knesset plenum in which it is expected to pass.

The bill gets its name because it would require the state to fine local authorities and other state-funded bodies for holding events marking Israeli Independence Day as the “Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic) or for supporting armed resistance or racism against Israel. It also bans desecration of the state flag or national symbols.

A spokesman for committee chairman David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu), whose fellow party member Alex Miller initiated the bill, said that it would surely pass its final two votes, as it is a law put forward by the governing coalition.

The committee accepted a proposal put forward by Rotem ahead of the vote, under which the state body that pays for the event would be forced to pay only three times its cost in fines deducted from their operating budget, as opposed to the original proposal which called for a fine totaling ten times the expenses of the event. If the same person violates the law again over the proceeding two years, they will pay double the normal fine under the law.

During the committee reading on Monday, Miller said that “there is a limit to how much we can allow democracy to be exploited in Israel.” He added that “the approval today further removes the mask of the theater of the absurd under which the State of Israel funds directly or indirectly events which mark the state’s founding as a day of mourning, and all types of other events that undermine its founding principles in addition to its security.”

Miller called the legislation “an important proposal that was written in the spirit of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and presents an important national answer to the varying threats that try to exploit the principles of our state’s democracy in order to fight against it and refute its foundations.”

Israeli-Arab MK Hanna Suweid (Hadash) called the bill “one more ingredient in the bubble of laws that are anti-democratic, anti-minority, anti-free thought. In the end, this bubble will explode.”

Suweid said the law would harm freedom of expression and added that “commemorating the Nakba does not mean that I deny the existence of the State of Israel. I say this as someone who some years commemorates the Nakba. I am not the happiest person on this day, but to go from this to the criminal accusation that I want to deny the existence and independence of the State of Israel as a Jewish democratic state is an imposition of guilt, collective guilt without any proof.”

MK Isaac Herzog (Labor) said during the vote that “these laws of Israel Beiteinu are very sophisticated. They sink to the lowest common denominator. The base interest of Israel is its freedom of expression and thought. This is what keeps it a country.”

Herzog continued, “And who will we take the money from? From a poor town because the head of the local council decides to hold an event and give a speech on Independence Day? This highlights a subject that’s less and less common in the Arab public and gives it greater importance.”

Miller responded to Herzog, “I’d like to see how you would respond if in a class of children, the pupils held a day of mourning on one child’s birthday.”

Under the wording of the law, the decision over whether to impose the fines will be made by the Finance Minister after receiving a ruling on the matter from his ministry’s legal counsel as well as a team of professionals from the Justice Ministry and Finance Ministry.

The Adalah legal center for Arab and minority rights in Israel issued a statement on Monday calling the law “another link in the chain of laws aimed against the Arab citizens of Israel with the goal of harming their freedom of expression.” The statement added that the law “will seriously harm cultural and educational institutions and deepen the inequality and discrimination suffered by Israel’s Arab minority.”

________________

BTW, Holocaust denial is illegal in Israel.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Someone's going to the gallows.

This is what happens when a bunch of uneducated, buffoons who have no idea about Islam get ideas. They pass off blood lust as Islamic or incorporate some other pre-Islamic (pre-Historic) practices as such. I Fvckin' hate the Saudis, the Age of Jahiliyyah...Catch It.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Israel does it.

So WHAT?????? Does this justify the Un-Islamic actions of the Saudis, explain in detail how exactly you equate the two. If you have issues with Israeli policy that's one thing, but we are talking about the "Defenders of the Faith," remember? These are "Muslims?" No! They are a bunch of transgressing animals from the age of theJahiliyyah.

Hey, Bint Ul-Utba I have a nice snack for you, enjoy!

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Australia censors speech, too.

Bolt breached discrimination act – court

By James Cohen • on September 28, 2011

A court has found News Limited columnist Andrew Bolt breached the Racial Discrimination Act.

HERALD Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has lost an action brought in the Federal Court in which the columnist was accused of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act.

Bolt was found to have contravened Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Nine aboriginal applicants brought a class-action against Bolt and the Herald and Weekly Times claiming Bolt wrote they sought professional advantage from the colour of their skin.

There were cheers and applause in the court when Justice Mordecai Bromberg read out his verdict.

He found that “fair-skinned Aboriginal people (or some of them) were reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to have been offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated by the imputations conveyed in the newspaper articles” published in the Herald Sun.

In a brief statement outside the Melbourne court after the judgment, Bolt said “This is a terrible day for freedom of speech in this country.”

“It is particularly a restriction on the freedom of all Australians to discuss multiculturalism and how people identify themselves,” he said.

“I argued then and I argue now that we should not insist on differences between us but focus instead on what unites us as human beings.”

The Herald and Weekly Times, publisher of the Herald Sun, has not confirmed whether it will appeal the decision. The judge ordered parties to confer on on relief, which is expected to include a declaration by the publisher that the HWT and Bolt contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Judge Bromberg also expects the parties agree to prohibit republication of the newspaper articles. The nine “fair-skinned Aboriginals” party to the action led by Pat Eatock, including Larissa Behrendt did not seek monetary compensation or an apology from Bolt. The relief between the parties is anticipated to include costs.

After the decision, which was greeted by applause and cheers in the Federal Court, Pat Eatock said “It’s never been an issue of freedom of speech, it’s been an issue of professionalism.”

The Justice ruled that Bolt could not use fair comment or public interest to defence those particular articles.

At issue was Bolt’s assertion that the nine applicants had chosen to identify themselves as “Aboriginal” and consequently win grants, prizes and career advancement, despite their apparently fair skin and mixed heritage.

The nine applicants were led by activist Pat Eatock and included artist Bindi Cole, NSW Australian of the Year Larissa Behrendt, author Anita Heiss and former ATSIC chief Geoff Clark.

Four articles published by the Herald Sun columnist in the newspaper and his blog were “a head-on assault on a group of highly successful and high-achieving” Aborigines, Ron Merkel QC told the court during proceedings in late March and early April.

The nine people sought an apology from the Herald & Weekly Times and an order against republishing, but no compensation.

In an occasionally explosive case, Bolt’s writings about Aboriginal identity were painted as being akin to a “eugenics approach” and similar to writings that led to the Holocaust.

Bolt subsequently protested the slurs in court as “an unforgivable travesty.”

In concluding the eight day proceedings, counsel for the plaintiffs conceded Bolt’s writings did not incite “racial vilification or racial hatred”, rather they “constituted highly personal, highly derogatory and highly offensive attacks” on the nine individuals.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Ban hate speech, Israel tells Hungary

Thu, Feb 04 2010 14:18 CET

byRobert Hodgson - The Budapest Times

So, they did.

Hungary: Penal Code Amendment on Holocaust Denial Adopted

(Mar. 15, 2010) The Hungarian National Assembly (the 386-member unicameral parliament) passed an amendment to the Penal Code on February 22, 2010, criminalizing denial of the Holocaust. Those convicted of the offense of public Holocaust denial face up to three years of imprisonment. There were reportedly 197 votes in favor of the amendment, one opposed, and 142 abstentions. The amendment is to enter into effect 30 days after being signed into law by the President of Hungary. (Hungarian Parliament Votes to Criminalise Holocaust Denial, DEUTSCHE PRESSE-AGENTUR, Feb. 22, 2010, NewsRoom with Reuters tab, Westlaw online subscription database; Hungarian MPs Criminalize Holocaust Denial, POLITICS.HU, Feb. 23, 2010, available at http://www.politics.hu/20100223/hungarian-mps-criminalize-holocaust-denial.) The Penal Code already criminalizes hate speech and incitement to violence against minorities; the new bill adds to it the offense of "denying, questioning or making light of the Holocaust." (Hungary Criminalises Holocaust Denial, THE INDEPENDENT, Feb. 23, 2010, available at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hungary-criminalises-holo

caust-denial-1907713.html.)

The new provision may be unconstitutional, however. Hungary's courts have rejected previous attempts to prohibit Holocaust denial, on the grounds of infringement of freedom of speech. Furthermore, efforts to amend the Constitution to ensure such a bill's legality did not succeed. (THE INDEPENDENT, id.)

The proposal to revise the Code was put forward by Attila Mesterhazy, the Socialist Party's candidate for Prime Minister in the upcoming April elections. The abstainers – most members of the main center-right opposition party, Fidesz, and their allies, the Christian Democrats – objected to the rejection of Fidesz's proposal to also include in the bill the denial of Nazi and Communist crimes. The timing of the bill, right before the elections, was questioned by one legislator, whose Free Democratic Party had put forward a similar proposal a few months ago, which was turned down. Fidesz is reportedly leading the Socialist Party in polls "by a substantial margin." (Id.)

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Comparing Hate Speech Laws In The U.S. And Abroad

March 3, 2011

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

We've reported this week on the anti-Semitic outburst by designer John Galliano in Paris that cost him his job at Christian Dior. It could cost him more than that - up to six months in prison and some $31,000 in fines if he's convicted. That's because French law allows for the prosecution of public insults based on religion, race, ethnicity or national origin - hate speech, in other words.

In fact, many countries have similar prohibitions on hate speech and Charles Asher Small joins me to talk about this. He founded the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism. Welcome to the program.

Mr. CHARLES ASHER SMALL (Founder, Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism): Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.

BLOCK: Why don't you give us an example of other countries that have hate speech laws that are similar to those we see in France.

Mr. SMALL: Well, I think the hate speech legislation had its founding in the contemporary or modern context. In the aftermath of the Second World War and from the ashes of the Holocaust, countries like Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria, have passed hate legislation decades ago. And more recently, Canada and Mexico also have laws prohibiting hate speech against targeted, identifiable groups.

BLOCK: And let's look at this most recent example in France. John Galliano is being prosecuted for anti-Semitic statements he made in a bar, some of which were captured on videotape. He said: I love Hitler. People like you would be dead today, your mothers, forefathers would be gassed. How specifically does that violate French law?

Mr. SMALL: Well, according to the European Union, there was a treaty passed in 2008 which specifies that hate speech would be sanctioned and punitive measures could be taken against individuals or groups engaged in hate speech.

BLOCK: And hate speech would not necessarily have to have a threat involved or be inciting a crime in particular.

Mr. SMALL: No, it's speech that advocates genocide or inciting hatred against an identifiable group.

BLOCK: Do you have a sense of how often these crimes, hate speech crimes are prosecuted in these countries?

Mr. SMALL: Well, in 2008, when the European Union decided to pass this legislation, they gave nations in the European Union two years to put in place mechanisms that can actually charge and prosecute offenders. And in countries like the United Kingdom, these laws are just being enacted in the next few months. So this is a relatively new legislation, but countries like Poland, Germany, Austria and Hungary had mechanisms in place before this legislation.

BLOCK: You know, it's interesting to contrast these laws that we're talking about across Europe and in other countries, contrast that with the situation here in the United States. We just had the Supreme Court ruling yesterday that gave strong First Amendment protection to hateful speech, no matter how painful it might be. It seems that the U.S. is really the exception rather than the rule on that.

Mr. SMALL: Yes, it's definitely the exception. And I think it's troubling. In a sense, we've watched the changes that are sweeping through the Middle East and many people credit the Internet, Facebook with sort of spreading the values and democracy and freedom of speech, which is wonderful. At the same time, hate groups are also speaking and their messages are being heard further than they were decades ago.

And, in fact, the United States of America has become the space or the place where hate groups use URLs or create websites based in the United States because they're protected under the First Amendment. And I think this is something that policymakers really need to address. How do you balance First Amendment and the Constitution and yet stop people from harming other people?

BLOCK: I wonder, though, what you would say to people who would argue that if you suppress free speech, if you push this hate speech underground, you don't make it go away and, in fact, you may make it more dangerous because it's not in the public sphere.

Mr. SMALL: I don't think that limitations, say, if you take the case of Canada or the European Union, that it's not Draconian laws where people aren't able to speak freely or to articulate views. We know from the history of anti-Semitism, for example, that anti-Semitism begins with Jews, but it never ends with Jews. That once this hatred is unleashed on society, other marginalized groups become the victims. There is a need to curtail some forms of speech and it's just, how do we make the balance?

BLOCK: Charles Asher Small directs the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism. Thanks very much for being with us.

Mr. SMALL: Thank you.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Comparing Hate Speech Laws In The U.S. And Abroad

March 3, 2011

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

We've reported this week on the anti-Semitic outburst by designer John Galliano in Paris that cost him his job at Christian Dior. It could cost him more than that - up to six months in prison and some $31,000 in fines if he's convicted. That's because French law allows for the prosecution of public insults based on religion, race, ethnicity or national origin - hate speech, in other words.

Stay on topic please. This is about Prophet Muhammad's followers getting their feelings hurt.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Stay on topic please. This is about Prophet Muhammad's followers getting their feelings hurt.

It's about criminalization of speech, something the west is embracing across the globe. That's embarrassing to you, but no reason for me to ignore it.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

It's about criminalization of speech, something the west is embracing across the globe. That's embarrassing to you, but no reason for me to ignore it.

Mr. M has thin skin..... boo hoo