[N_Fiddledog]

Forget UKIP. Liberty GB is the party the UK needs to lead them. Here's their leader with some opinions on the Charlie Hebdo situation. Is he a bigot? I don't think so, but even if Islam is a race (and it's not) it's not the Mohammedans he seems the most pissed at here.

[martin14]

Dunno if it's worth starting a new thread...


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30894481

France security: Chechens arrested over alleged attack plan

$1:

Police in southern France have detained five Chechens on suspicion of preparing an attack, prosecutors say.

The arrests took place in Beziers and Saint-Jean-de-Vedas, near Montpellier.

They come as France remains on high alert following attacks in Paris that killed 17, including 12 at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Four men charged with supporting Amedy Coulibaly, one of the gunmen behind the attacks, are due to appear in court in Paris later on Tuesday.

It is not known whether the arrest of the Chechens is connected to the attacks in Paris earlier this month.

One suspect was arrested in the city of Beziers and another four were detained near Saint-Jean-de-Vedas, according to local media.

Certain "products" were recovered during police searches, officials said, without giving further details. Unconfirmed reports said a stash of explosives was found.

Chechnya, a highly restive and predominantly Muslim region in Russia, has seen large demonstrations against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by Charlie Hebdo last week.

Jesus, the guy I stay with on my long Spain - Italy trips, his B&B is just outside Beziers.

[Regina]

martin14 martin14:

Jesus, the guy I stay with on my long Spain - Italy trips, his B&B is just outside Beziers.

That hits a little close to home for you.

[N_Fiddledog]

Welcome to Canada, Precious



Sure, we'll get right on changing those nasty, Canadian free speech laws for you, .

I'd like to consider this one you offer up...

$1:

"For 1400 years we have welcomed disagreements between Muslims and Non-Mulims"

But first I have to stop laughing.

[andyt]

You don't really have a firm grasp of what free speech means, do you?

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

You don't really have a firm grasp of what free speech means, do you?

Oh, do please enlighten us, great wise one.

[andyt]

It means people can say things you don't like. That includes Muslims saying things you don't like, including calling for sharia law or arguing that insults to the prophet should be banned. (If the pope can say it, why shouldn't the Muslims be able to say it) As long as they are peaceful about it.

Pretty simple, really.

[ShepherdsDog]

It's not freedom of speech when someone says they don't like Islam and then get charged with a hate crime. Insert any other religion or ideology, and nothing really happens. The only other thing that draws a comparable reaction is expressing hatred of Jews and the tenets of Judaism......mind you when these words are spoken or these sentiments tolerated, Jews tend to die. Haven't seen any similar genocides perpetrated against Muslims. They call for our death, the overthrow of our beliefs and traditions, kill 'unbelievers' and we end up apologizing to them for being intolerant, after they've committed their latest act of barbarity.

It's interesting, that around the world pretty well every major conflict based on cultural or religious tensions involves Muslims fighting amongst themselves or fighting other religious/cultural group.

[andyt]

The only country that has more or less free speech is the US.

[andyt]

France has arrested 4 men for supplying arms and support to the terrorists. These are criminals rather than ISIS supporters - bet they wish this is one deal they stayed away from.

[N_Fiddledog]

Free speech

andyt andyt:

It means people can say things you don't like.

Oh you mean like if I were to mock a call for blasphemy laws from a Saskatoon Imam, I would be exercising free speech, right?

He says "I'm a victim. Worship me. Give me blasphemy laws." I laugh at him and tell him to get stuffed. You don't like it. I don't care. Free speech. Get it?

Fine. Now that you actually know as much as you thought you did, go explain it to the asshat Imam from Saskatoon.

[Jabberwalker]

andyt andyt:

The only country that has more or less free speech is the US.

I don't see a great deal of restriction upon what you can say on here. I've been on various forums in the English speaking wold, including U.S. ones and this place is probably the freest one that I have seen.

[andyt]

Yeah, we don't have internet police checking this place out - let's hope. But we have hate speech laws and it's much easier to sue for libel and slander here vs the US, especially for public figures. We're not nearly as bad as Britain, of course.

$1:

In Canada (Human Rights Commission) v. Taylor, [1990] 3 S.C.R. 892 at 902, the Supreme Court said hate propaganda denotes any expression that is "intended or likely to circulate extreme feelings of opprobrium and enmity against a racial or religious group".[7] The Supreme Court of Canada, by a bare 4-3 plurality, upheld the constitutionality of section 319 in R. v. Keegstra [1990] 3 S.C.R. 697.[8]

$1:

Canadian freedom of expression law, like so many things Canadian, embodies compromise. In the United States, even the most hateful, virile and destructive speech is constitutionally protected. In many other countries, expression is suppressed if politically problematic. We walk between those extremes.

Here you can be put in jail for hate speech. But before you condemn the prospect of jail for speaking your mind, consider the built-in limits to the hate speech law. There are seven of them, and together they pour a big pail of cold water on any over-zealous prosecutor intent on duct-taping your mouth. For a prosecution to go ahead, all of these conditions must be met:

1. The hate speech must be the most severe of the genre;

2. The hate speech must be targeted to an identifiable group;

3. It must be public;

4. It must be deliberate, not careless;

5. Excluded from hate speech are good faith interpretations of religious doctrine, discussion of issues of public interest, and literary devices like sarcasm and irony;

6. The statements must be hateful when considered in their social and historical context;

7. No prosecution can proceed without approval of the attorney-general, which introduces political accountability because the attorney-general is a cabinet minister.

Even with these limits, the Canadian hate law still clearly curtails free expression. But the Supreme Court has not struck it down. Why? Four main reasons. First, our constitution protects not only free expression, but multiculturalism and equality as well. So to read the constitution holistically, we cannot permit one protected freedom to undermine other rights and freedoms enjoying equal status.

Second, the Supreme Court recognized the insidious impact of propaganda campaigns that gain social traction and incrementally dull our rational faculties and empathy. Perhaps paternalistic, but the court is saying sometimes we need to be protected from our baser and stupider selves.

Third, the courts have said that even if a hate speech prohibition is never used, it has symbolic value, like that framed mission and values statement on the wall of most businesses, that stares silently down at the workers while they work.

Fourth, hate speech has no redeeming value.

So, given our unique law, how would recent events have played out if they had occurred in Canada? No comics would have been rounded up by police. Prosecutors would have just shrugged their shoulders and ignored the Pope’s argument that insulting religions should have consequences. And protests by religious groups against cartoons satirizing their religion would have had ample breathing space, with police present to prevent violence, but not muzzle the message.

In other words, a crisis of Parisian magnitude, had it occurred here, would be a serious matter for our criminal and anti-terror laws, but not our hate speech law. And the hate speech law itself, on the books for decades, is used only sporadically. So does such a marginal prohibition still serve any useful purpose?

One glimmer of the law’s utility might be seen in the decision by many Canadian media outlets not to re-publish the offending Charlie Hebdo cartoons, despite being sincerely awash in “Je suis Charlie” sentiment. Our Supreme Court suggested the hate speech law has symbolic value such that even without being invoked, it silently validates a national ethic of multicultural accommodation and respect; and in the decision by Canadian media not to re-publish the cartoons, that very ethic can be seen in action. So it may be that our hate speech law was a silent point of resonance with the values, not the legal obligations, that motivated the media outlets who chose not to publish.

Is that sufficient reason for our hate speech law to exist? Sufficient reason for a law that can impose jail for speaking out? If we take these questions back to our social media haunts, our office water-cooler chats, and our classrooms, freedom of expression in Canada will come out a winner regardless of how opinion is, or is not, divided.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-de ... e22520419/

[Jabberwalker]

Hate speech legislation is almost certainty not constitutional and its only a matter of time before it is challenged as such. You either have freedom of speech or you don't.

[Thanos]

Hate speech is certainly not protected if it's judged to be more of an incitement to violence rather than an expression of freedom. This exists in every country with a civilized constitution and has for decades, if not centuries. Long standing laws against libel and slander have also been a tempering factor on unhindered speech in that it's illegal to deliberately lie about someone else in order to damage their reputation. The modern problem isn't with inciting hatred but more that there are those agitating that their being offended/emotionally hurt by free speech deserves to be addressed with the speech being banned. It's the small-mindedness and reactionary behaviour of mostly left-wing college campus radicals and other assorted wimps and snowflakes being imposed on the entire society at large. The Muslims who get upset are merely treading the same path that was blazed for them by the left who have spent so many years flipping out over minutiae that it's now easier to list the things they aren't offended by than by what they are.