Dear fellow sufferers
Am I missing something? When a Dutch paper prints a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed with a bomb for a head, politicians and commentators fall over each other quoting Voltaire and celebrating our wonderful commitment to unrestrained free speech - the right to offend, upset, attack.
Yet when large numbers of Muslims come out onto the streets protesting, the same commentators seem to have temporarily suspended their absolute belief in free speech - the protesters, it seems, are criminals who need locking up for offending our western values!
I was already grappling with the legal principle that means Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri can be banged up and/or deported for allegedly inciting violence, yet BNP Fuhrer Nick Griffin walks free from court for doing the same.
I'm a Philosophy graduate and I'm baffled. Can anyone suggest to me what the missing factor is? It can't be race or religion after all, I mean aren't we all so completely confident our western society and values are free from any prejudice?
Yours in hope of some form of coherent answer,
Mr Spoon
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
There is a difference
06.02.2006 16:57
Some of the placards that some demonstrators carried (such as the one calling "butcher those who insult Islam") were something else - they could be seen a clear incitement to murder.
Freedom of expression is about being able to say things that others find offensive or insulting. It also means that what I say should not be dictated to by another, whether he be the pope, Blair, the Ayatolah or some fool who wants me to be butchered because I said something he thinks rude.
Peace (and no butchering please...)
Carlos
Not the same
06.02.2006 17:05
Poster
Double Standards? The Plot Thickens
07.02.2006 05:11
Gwladys Fouché and agencies
Guardian, UK
Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today.
The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny.
raghallaigh
Think it through, morons
07.02.2006 12:35
It's not rocket science, kiddies.
Although let's face it, had the paper run cartoons mocking jesus, nobody on Indymedia would have given a damn.
Coffee Cup
Disingenuous, like a typical leftie...
11.02.2006 00:04
Would you care to list all of Nick Griffin's comments in which he allegedly incited violence?
And then list all of Abu Hamza's? I think Abu Hamza's would take up hundreds if not thousands of pages. I saw him on Newsnight a few days ago, in many separate video recordings, blatantly saying "It's okay to kill infidels", etc.etc.
How many people have the BNP murdered?
None. Zero.
How many people have muslims murdered?
I think that answers your question...
Tom Sawyer