Cartoons en vrijheid van meningsuiting

[e.ouwehand1]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Mark Giebels heeft op zaterdag, 25 feb 2006 om 09:00 (Europe/Amsterdam) 
het volgende geschreven:

> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
> Ik schreef het hier al eerder, *nu* het 'vrijheid van meningsuiting' 
> argument gebruiken in het cartoons-debat is vreselijk hypocriet en 
> vergroot daardoor eerder de problemen dan dat het iets positiefs 
> oplevert. De Moslims worden slechts bevestigd in hun minderwaardige 
> positie in de Europese samenleving. Niet zo slim dus,

vind ik ook, dat is niet zo slim

maar zelfcensuur vind ik ook niet zo slim vooral omdat we niet van 
tevoren kunnen weten hoe dingen uit gaan pakken, linksom of rechtsom

> behalve als je dat moedwillig nastreeft natuurlijk.....

zoals (extreem) rechts bedoel je? ja die gedachten heb ik er ook bij

ik weet het niet

achteraf weten we dat chamberlain in münchen waarschijnlijk een grote 
fout heeft gemaakt.

maar ja, dit is geen münchen. hoop ik. zucht.

en dank voor een goed artikel mark.
>
> Vandaag in de Int. Herald Tribune:
> http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/24/opinion/edrojan.php#

gr elma
>
> -----
> Europe doesn't get free speech
> Matthew Rojansky International Herald Tribune
>
> FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2006
>
>
> STANFORD, California
>
> Since the controversy over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad erupted, 
> Europe's leaders have shown remarkable - and uncharacteristic - 
> courage under fire. Refusing to apologize for the alleged slight to 
> religious Muslims, a chorus of Continental voices has instead risen to 
> the cartoons' defense, citing freedom of expression as the very 
> essence of liberty, democracy and the European Way.
>
> Unfortunately, free speech is about the weakest card in Europe's hand 
> these days. An Austrian court's conviction and sentencing of the 
> British historian David Irving to three years imprisonment for 
> Holocaust denial is merely the most recent footnote to European 
> hypocrisy on freedom of expression over the past decade.
>
> The European Convention on Human Rights, which legally binds all EU 
> states and supersedes domestic law, explicitly guarantees "the right 
> to freedom of expression" including "the freedom to hold opinions and 
> to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by 
> public authority."
>
> This provision is in keeping not only with the U.S. Bill of Rights, 
> but with the central instruments of international human rights law to 
> which Europe and America claim adherence. Yet Europe's interpretation 
> of free expression has diverged markedly from America's broad 
> deference to First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly and > religion.
>
> American courts have upheld the publication of false, even racist 
> materials, the right of neo-Nazis to rally in Jewish neighborhoods, 
> and the objections of some citizens to the Pledge of Allegiance and to 
> school dress codes on religious grounds.
>
> European governments, on the other hand, have consistently trampled 
> analogous rights, outlawing publication of hate speech, trade in Nazi 
> paraphernalia, and the wearing of distinctive religious clothing, to 
> name but a few recent examples.
>
> According to the Austrian court that convicted him on Monday, David 
> Irving's offense was to have "denied, grossly played down, approved, 
> or tried to excuse" the Holocaust in print or other media, in 
> violation of a 1992 statute. Although he has not been tried at home in 
> Britain, Irving was convicted and fined in Germany in 1995 for 
> "inciting race hatred."
>
> At best, Irving is a monumentally terrible historian, who, only after 
> publishing dozens of books on World War II, read the notes of the 
> Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann and came around to admitting that 
> the Nazi genocide might actually have occurred. At worst, he is an 
> artless but unrepentant bigot, on the model of America's David Duke or 
> Austria's own Jörg Haider, but without any independent political > power.
>
> Why, then, is Irving's Holocaust denial, like other minority and 
> extremist views in European society, of such great concern to 
> lawmakers? If European governments want to guard against the 
> repetition of genocide, they should actively educate their citizens in 
> tolerance and respect for different cultures and beliefs, not gag 
> those who express conflicting ideas.
>
> Europe's suppression of free speech is guaranteed to spawn and 
> incubate precisely the kind of bigotry and sectarian violence it is 
> intended to prevent. Hounded for the unthinkable crime of publishing 
> false history, David Irving appears almost heroic as he stands up to 
> censorship, fines and imprisonment, making him a kind of martyr for 
> neo-fascist groups.
>
> Likewise, suppression of young Muslims' rights to dress or worship as 
> their religion requires lends government sanction to already 
> widespread anti- Muslim attitudes. This official xenophobia in turn 
> breeds simmering resentment that has already exploded into mass 
> violence and been manipulated by radical Islamists to recruit willing 
> terrorist agents from within European society.
>
> While European leaders should be praised for their belated conversion 
> to the cause of free speech, outraged Muslims around the world are 
> right to allege a double standard. Until Europe consistently respects 
> its own guarantees of free expression, and actively promotes tolerance 
> instead of clumsily stifling dissent, its brave rhetoric will ring 
> disappointingly false.
>
>
> Groeten,
> Mark Giebels
>
>
> -- 
>
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